What are the limitations of Electrostatic headphones? - Page 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler 

I heard the 007 the other day for the first time through a 717 with a DAC1.  While it was good, I felt it was by far the bassiest headphone I've ever heard referenced as an audiophile-grade headphone.  I was very surprised.  The bass didn't feel super-controlled either.  I'm sure there's far better rigs than what I heard it on, but my first experience was not a jaw-dropper.  Compared to that headphone I prefer quite a few dynamics.

Was this a Mark 1 or the 007A (the Mark2).  Sounds like the earlier model which many people thought was bassy.  The A model has somewhat of a bass hump, but to my ear a more prominent lower treble peak (7-8kHz, I think) which is rather more obvious.  As others note, the ear pads are set up to be rotated to get the best bass, which presumably varies from person to person.  Stax doesn't give any advice on the best orientation.  I get the best results with my 007A with the seam at eye level as Spritzer suggests.

The things I found annoying with my SR-202/404 and SRM-252a/300 (not totl, but still) were: 

a) When you move your ears, the sound distorts (e.g. eating)

b) Clipping for low singal level music (about 3% of my classical library). Kevin suggested more expensive amps with 60db gain will likewise clip (something about clipping the hv rails - I don't quite recall). Dynamic cans are absolutely fine there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by svyr 

The things I found annoying with my SR-202/404 and SRM-252a/300 (not totl, but still) were: 

 

a) When you move your ears, the sound distorts (e.g. eating)

b) Clipping for low singal level music (about 3% of my classical library). Kevin suggested more expensive amps with 60db gain will likewise clip (something about clipping the hv rails - I don't quite recall). Dynamic cans are absolutely fine there.

I have never understood what your amp problem is, I never had anything like this with the 7 or so Stax amps I have.

However getting back to isues with stats, I am continually puzzled by the fact that my stat systems do not seem to sound quite the same day after day.  Some of this is the variable times I spend warming up the systems, the stat amps and phones seems to need at least several minutes of high volume playing or a half hour or so of playing with less volume to get best results.  I do realize that some of the warm-up is not in the stats at all, but other equipment, I find my DAC's in particular lose sound quality if not regularly used.  So some of what I hear as variablity may be things other than the stats, but because they are so revealing they show the warm-up of other equipment too.

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Labrat, how do you like the ESL 57's with Gradient subs vs without any subs?  I have 57's but haven't had a chance to hear a pair with the Gradient subs.  Do you feel the subs are too slow for the 57's and make the overall sound a bit disjointed?

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