Amplifiers shootout for Stax 009 (Eddie Current Electra, AudioValve RKV + WooAudio Wee, Stax SRM727 / SRM007t2)
Sep 15, 2013 at 11:32 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 98

arnaud

Stax and Sushi
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Note from Arnaud: I am writing this on behalf of head-fi member Eric65, as he has difficulty communicating in English and his previous automatic translations from French to English using google haven't been too easy to digest. The original post is available here: http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/post177759651.html#p177759651
 
  Introduction and test protocol:
 
Pierre, Frederic (Head-fi member Superfred21), Karim and myself (Eric, head-fi member Eric65 )  gathered up at my place on 7-8 September 2013 in order to perform a shootout of 4 electrostatic amplifiers driving the Stax SR009 headphone. Namely: Eddie Current Electra; Audiovalve RKV mk2 + Wee energizer from Woo Audio, Stax SRM 727II, Stax SRM 007t2. In order to remain as objective as possible, the tests we performed blind while performing rigorous level matching of all the amplifiers. 

This comparative blind test of 4 amplifiers lasted 4 hours, involving 2 testers and 2 operators for switching gear connections and ensure strict respect of the blind test.
 
Level matching was realized with 500Hz test tone using a voltmeter at the amplifiers output with a precision of 0.1 V (corresponding to about 0.1dB in equivalent SPL) and also using a sonometer to check that the actual listening level after plugging the headphone was consistent.  Voltage level was set to 6V and verified at the beginning / during / at the end of the test with max variations of 0.1V observed.
 
While the 4 of us had some preliminary listening sessions on saturday, only the 2 most experienced members (Pierre and Frederic) participated in the blind test. 5 music samples were chosen for their good sound quality and representation of a wide range of music genres. Both testers were very familiar with the recordings. Both testers used their own SR009 headphone for all the tests (after noticing on Saturday that the 3 SR009 sounded somewhat different from each other). Due to time constraints, each recording would be listened to over a 3 minutes maximum duration:
- Melody Gardot : The absence (Pop)
- Jazz at the Pawnshop (Jazz)
- François Couperin Apothéoses (Spoken man voice + Baroque orchestra)

- Lalo : Symphonie Espagnole (Symphonic orchestra + violon)
- Barbara : Nantes (Women voice speaking / singing)

 
Special attention was paid to preventing the testers from recognizing the gear they were listening to: never seeing the gear, headphone cables never pulling, usage of dummy cables and headphone to simulate plugging / unplugging of amplifiers during the amplifier switch.
 
The amplifiers were evaluated over the following 6 criteria, some being very objective but others (such as neutrality and overall musicality) being more influenced by the listener's taste, hence the use to 2 testers this time:
- Soundstage & imaging
- Tone, timbre
- Dynamics
- Resolution

- Perceived tonal balance (which sounds most neutral)
- Overall musicality

 
The amplifiers were evaluated in pairs (A/B test), each tester judging which is better for each of the 6 criteria above. The evaluations were repeated 5 times, once per recording. While the ideal comparison would have involved 6 combinations (A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D), it was not possible to do so with all 5 recordings. We thus opted for using a "reference" amplifier that would be compared to the others (A-B, A-C, A-D). Using this protocol, the listeners could always go back to a reference sound signature which made the A/B test a bit easier on them. Main disadvantage is that the amplifier A was listened to 3x more than the others so it's not a completely fair comparison between all 4 amplifiers.
 
The reference amplifier (A) was only known to the 2 operators (myself and Karim). The testers were made aware only after the test ended. It should be noted that neither was able to guess with certainty which amplifier it was at the end of the 4 hours of listening test.
 
The reference amplifier wasn't chosen randomly as the goal was to pick a unit that did not sound drastically different from the 3 others (i.e neither much better nor much worse). Assuming amplifiers relying on valves could have a distinct sound signature from the solid state device, it was decided a tube amp would be used as reference (3 out of the 4 tested amps is a valve based design). We also did not want to choose the amp that was assumed as best of the lot  (Electra) or worst (SRM 007t) when going in (based on previous non blind comparisons including those made on the first day of this meet). On the day of the blind test (2nd day), the amplifier used as "reference" (A) was the RKV-Wee combination. 
 
In practice, for each of the sound track, the tester would fill a test grid with all 6 criteria listed and select which amplifier (A or B/C/D) was better. The order of passage of the B/C/D amplifiers was varied with the 5 tunes played but, as stated above, the reference amplifier A would systematically come back at very other listen to act as a reset. Each tune was thus played 6 times in total (A > [B/C/D] > A > [B/C/D] > A > [B/C/D]). Each B/C/D amplifiers was listened to 5 times (5 tunes) and the A amplifier listened to 15 times.
 
For each ( A / ? ) comparison, for the given musical passage, the 2 testers had to tell (out-loud, note from arnaud: I don't know why it was done this way as this is bound to influence the testers choices) which amp was better for each of the 6 criteria: black cross for reference amp "A", red cross for amp "?", else green cross when he could not tell the 2 amps apart.
 
Because amplifier A (RKV+Wee combo) was listened to 3x more times than the other amps, its score (number of times it was picked) was divided by 3 for the "weighted" results. Both weighted and row scores are presented below.
 
Note finally that the protocol listed above was debated over 3 weeks on the french forum HCFR (note from arnaud: french people love to argue and debate to death, we certainly had a fair number of discussions this time too :wink: ). Although far from perfect, this test protocol was retained as most time effective, and fortunately so because much less could achieved than originally planned during this week end meet.
 
 
 
Unweighted results:
 
I start with the raw data for each recording, e.g. the sum of the crosses for all the 3 A/? comparisons, 18 crosses total (6 criteria x 3 A/B comparisons):
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
The following table is sums the crosses over both testers and all 5 recordings but for each distinct criteria (5 recordings x 3 A/? comparisons x 2 testers = 30 crosses total for each criteria):
 
 

 
The following tables present the total number of crosses for each A/? comparison (6 criteria x 2 tester x 5 songs = 60 crosses in total) along with an unweighted % result:
 
 

 
 
 
Weighted results:

 
Below, the results are presented in weighted format. In particular, the score of the RKV-Wee combo is divided by 3 because it is statistically represented 3x more than all the other amps due to the test protocol employed.
 
First, the weighted results for each recording (sum of the crosses for all the 3 A/? comparisons, the RKV-wee score being 1/3 of the true number):
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
Next, the sums the crosses over both testers and all 5 recordings but for each distinct criteria (5 recordings x 3 A/? comparisons x 2 testers = 30 crosses total for each criteria, the RKV-wee score being 1/3 of the true number):
 
 
 

 
Interpretation (Eric's):
 
Having participated to these tests as one of the 2 operators, I can guarantee the exactitude of these raw data results and assure you on the following 2 essential points of the procedure:
1. The procedure was rigorously followed, the reference (A) and B/C/D amps were kept secret until the end of the test. At the end of the test, one of the testers (Pierre) though the reference amplifier was the SRM727 and the other tester (Frederic) hesitated between the RKV-Wee and SRM007t.
2. The amplifiers were rigorously level matched, using a 500Hz tone set at 6V +/-0.05V. An SPL meter was used to verify that the levels were matched at +/-0.25dB. 
 
For my personal opinion: subjectively, during non-blind yet level matched testing, the Electra (a beautiful looking amp) seems to be slightly ahead of the RKV-Wee combo. Furthermore, the SRM727 amp is not enjoyable with the 009 at "high" SPL levels. In particular, during initial tests on the 1st day, the 727 amp would sound hard during dynamic peaks for one of the women voice recordings (Barbara - "Nantes" tune) which is rather unusual for this particular recording. In this situation, the other amplifiers (including the SRM007t) all subjectively came ahead of the SRM727 amp (note from Arnaud: this is along the same lines as the observations posted by Tyll Hertsens in the Inner Fidelity article).
The SRM727-SR009 combo is thus very good (even excellent) while I keep it at a listening level I personally quality as low to moderate, while it can sound edgy / hard on feminine voices for higher listening levels.
 
Objectively (raw and especially weighted results from the blind test on day 2), it would seem the RKV-Wee combo comes ahead (which may surprise at first) followed very closely by the Electra and then the SRM727, the SRM007t amp beeing very far behind. However, the differences between the RVK-Wee, the Electra, and the SRM727 are not statistically significant and, from this test, we cannot clearly establish that any one of these 3 amps came ahead. On the other hand, the position of the 007t comes loud and clear from the tests, even the weigthed results show it as very far behind.
 
My personal explanation for why the RKV-Wee fares very well against all the other amps in direct comparison is that, even though technically it may not be the most transparent of the bunch, it synergizes rather well with the SR009. In particular, the 009 headphone is not exempt of issue (some find it to lack foundation as well as being artificially bright).
 
 
 
Other equipment used:
 
Drive: Audiomat D1 linked to the DAC in AES/EBU (used for 1 of the CDs as well as to play the 500Hz tone for level matching)
D/A Converter: PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC used with a NAS drive + tablet to select the tunes (note from Arnaud: the drive was thus not used during the blind tests)
 
Note that we also had another DAC (TotalDac D1 dual) and while another objective of the meet was to perform a blind shootout of 3 dacs (PS audio, Audiomat, TotalDac), we ran out of time...
 
Amplifiers tested:
- Eddie Current Electra with PSVANE tubes 
- Audiovalve RKV mark 2 + WooAudio Wee energizer using a custom adapter cable between the RKV headphone out and the Wee HP input (the RKV impedancer thus wasn't used)
- Stax SRM 727 II (plugged into PS Audio PowerPlant P3)
- Stax SRM 007t2 (plugged into PS Audio PowerPlant P3)
 
High quality power cables and interconnects were used. All amplifiers were connecter to the PW DAC in balanced mode, except for the RKV which only has asymmetrical inputs.
 
Here's the price of the amplifiers in France / USA):
- Stax SRM 727 : 3000 euros inc. taxes 
- Stax SRM 007t : 3500 Euros inc. taxes
- Audiovalve RKV : 2200 Euros inc. taxes + Energizeur WooAudio Wee (500 USD + import duties)
- Eddie current Electra : 4000 USD + import duties + ~500USD PSVANES tubes complement

 
 
 
Pictures:

Test grids:





 

 
Test setup and participants:
Overall rig:

Eddie Current Electra with PSVANES tubes:

TotalDac D1 DAC on top of the Audiomat drive:

Stax 009 on top of the Electra power supply, RKV on the right side:

PerfectWave DAC on top of the Audiomat DAC:

Stax SRM-007t and SRM-727II (black):

WooAudio Wee in the foreground, AudioValve RKV with glass top on the back:

Another shot of the Electra with Stax SR-007mk2 headphones (black color, not used during blind test):

A view of the XLR interconnects and power cables:

PS Audio PowerPlant P3, NAS drive, Audio mat power supply I believe (silver color box):


 
 
Participants:
 
Karim (one of the operators) and Pierre (one of the testers):

Eric and Pierre:

Pierre and Karim:

Eric, Karim, Pierre:

Frederic wearing the SR009:

Pierre wearing the SR009:

 
Edit: correction of the names in the captures...


 
Sep 16, 2013 at 3:29 AM Post #3 of 98
Very nice conparison! Such a scientific approach to a listening session. I was trying to translate the original post using Google translator, but didn't work out very well, so thank you Arnaud for your help too.
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 9:04 AM Post #4 of 98
Nice meet. Probably the perfect number of people to get some real listening done + discussions.
 
So some questions..

When doing A/Bs were the amps being A/B'd driven from the same source? If so did you accomplish this via RCA + XLR connections to the same source (in case of the RKV+WEE) or was there just a lot of plugging and unplugging?
 
How long was each amp warmed up? This is probably the most important factor.. The RKV, 007T2 and Electra tubes all require time to warm up (I usually give them over an hour) to reach optimal temperatures, but the 727... well that could take a long, long time. If any of them were shut down during the test that could skew results.

Also some power conditioners filters add their own colorations to the sound (yep I'm actually saying this) as do interconnects, so... were all the amps plugged into the P3 (I only see the stax being mentioned) and were all the interconnects the same?
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 9:27 AM Post #5 of 98
Very nice conparison! Such a scientific approach to a listening session. I was trying to translate the original post using Google translator, but didn't work out very well, so thank you Arnaud for your help too.

 
Hi Realmassy
 
The loser of this great blinded comparison of these four amplifiers with the 009 is the Stax SRM 007T
 
This is the kind of test (done in true blind) that makes us ask us a lot more questions than it answered.
Really interesting (albeit challenging) to make this blind test.
 
Eric
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 9:30 AM Post #6 of 98
Fantastic work by all those involved! Maybe it is the scientist in me talking, but this seemed like an exciting test... wish I was there.
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 9:36 AM Post #7 of 98
  Nice meet. Probably the perfect number of people to get some real listening done + discussions.
 
So some questions..

When doing A/Bs were the amps being A/B'd driven from the same source? If so did you accomplish this via RCA + XLR connections to the same source (in case of the RKV+WEE) or was there just a lot of plugging and unplugging?
 
How long was each amp warmed up? This is probably the most important factor.. The RKV, 007T2 and Electra tubes all require time to warm up (I usually give them over an hour) to reach optimal temperatures, but the 727... well that could take a long, long time. If any of them were shut down during the test that could skew results.

Also some power conditioners filters add their own colorations to the sound (yep I'm actually saying this) as do interconnects, so... were all the amps plugged into the P3 (I only see the stax being mentioned) and were all the interconnects the same?

Hello,
 
All amps were plugged into the same source (dac PS Audio PerfectWave) the RKV (amp A) on RCA and three other amps (B, C, D) on XLR.
All amps were equalized level.
The heating time of amplis was identical (> 12 hours)
  And they remained all four lit in the night from Saturday to Sunday.
The blind test lasted four hours on Sunday morning.
Only the SRM 727 and SRM 007T received as upgrade the PS Audio P3
Electra received PSVANES to upgrade the tubes
The Combi RKV-Wee had no special upgrade apart from the well controlled sector phase.
Modulation cables (RCA and XLR) were different (system-specific), but all high-end (expensive)
Cables sectors were as high-end, unique to each system.
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 2:51 PM Post #9 of 98
Hi Realmassy


 


The loser of this great blinded comparison of these four amplifiers with the 009 is the Stax SRM 007T


 


This is the kind of test (done in true blind) that makes us ask us a lot more questions than it answered.


Really interesting (albeit challenging) to make this blind test.

Eric

Hi Eric, Yes I read it, and for me this is bad and good at the same time. It's bad because it means Stax amps are not good enough (well...we knew that, didn't we) and need to spend some money for an aftermarket solution.
But it's good because despite I like the 600Ltd and the 007t I could get even better sound...basically there's room for improvement.
In the end I've decided to get an electrostatic amplifier built by an 'almost-artisan' in Italy. It won't have the appeal of a BHSE but I'm hoping it will still a good choice.
 
Sep 16, 2013 at 7:54 PM Post #10 of 98
arnaud: Thanks for taking the time to translate this. I did own an RKV once, and while it wasn't used in this way, I did use it with HD-800s. The comment about it being less detailed but a better match with the 009s is similar to what I felt about the amp with the HD-800s.
 
Sep 17, 2013 at 8:16 AM Post #12 of 98
Hello,
 
Two comments:
 
The criteria such as neutrality and overall musicality are most subjective and personal than the other criteria.
The overall musicality can be interpreted for certain either as the synthesis of the first five criteria, or else, restrictively at overall listening pleasure or euphony.
For my personnal appreciation, this overall musicality criterion is the most important listening test to know  .
In this comparative in blind test, for this last criterion "overall musicality", for me the most important, the RKV-Wee seems to be the best of the four amplifiers : 4 citations  for the RKV-Wee amp, against 3 for the Electra amp,  2 for the SRM 727 amp and 0 (zero) for the SRM 007T amp.
 

 
 
Our blind test performed last weekend showed no statistically significant differences between the RKV-Wee amplifier, Electra, and SRM 727 for all five musical titles tested, following six criteria audio with 2 testers (No. 180 crosses decision were checked in total by our two testers during 4 hours lasted the test in blind of these four amps).
 
After that, it is not impossible that a particular amp stands out more than another on a particular style of music.
 
For example the title of jazz tested in our blind test (High Life album "Jazz at the Pawnshop" with Duke Ellington), the RKV-Wee seemed particularly comfortable with this type of music.
 
Weighted results ("Jazz at the Pawnshop" (Jazz))
 

 

 
http://www.deezer.com/fr/track/49462611
 
Eric
 
 
Sep 17, 2013 at 1:16 PM Post #13 of 98
Thank you for this review. This is how it must be done.
smily_headphones1.gif

 
Sep 17, 2013 at 5:09 PM Post #14 of 98
It's very odd that with all the criticisms/dissing of transformer coupling on these boards, these tests tend to indicate a positive trend for the RVK Wee combo in a somewhat hamstrung setup.
 
Since I use a Manely Neo 300b preamp in a similar configuration with homemade Stancor vintage trannies/Stax adaptor with my DIY re-mylared 507's at one home location, it seems to provide a bit of validation.
 
 Quite frankly, however, without actually seeing the results, I would have bet that the Electra would have been the decisive winner in all categories, and I would have lost my bet.  The RVK/Wee and 727 would not have been my race horses in the event.
 
Sep 17, 2013 at 11:38 PM Post #15 of 98
Just  a suggestion here since I see you used a PS Audio Power Plant (a regenerator)... 
Quite a few years back I tried a PS Audio Power Plant (the 3-something model, PS300 I think) on my Stax SR007 (mark 1) phone / 007t amp system,
and it completely ruined the sound (I described this sometime back here in the forums somewhere).
 
The amp started running very hot, the tubes lit up brighter than before, and the sound turned bright, aggressive, with thumping bass, and it was unlistenable.
This was completely opposite to the mellow sound I heard without the power plant.
I later used a Shunyata Hydra with this system with no  problems, just some subtle improvement in the highs.
 
I actually called PS Audio to ask if this was normal and they said it does happen with some tube amps, and in fact this was a common complaint.
They took the amp back and refunded my money.
 
So I think the Power Plant may have wrecked the Stax amp sound.
(And God knows what it did to the other amps.)
 

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