[Lloyd297]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul L May I ask two or three questions all related on-topic I hope: 1. Lloyd makes the SRX-III Pro sound mighty appealing but I thought they were 20+ years old now and I also thought that Stax had a change of ownership around 1996 with support of older products not necessarily being their main priority? If you buy a pair of these and they go wrong (and leaving aside arguments about reliability) are they basically dead i.e. no longer repairable? 2. Assuming it's all green lights on question 1, assuming you want to silently wait for a week or year or three for the right SRX to come along and in the meantime, you still want to start your Stax journey is it worth getting the SR-404 over the SR-303 or is there little in it? 3. I borrowed an SR-404 (but have not heard the SR-303) with the SRM-313 and intensely disliked the brightness but it calmed down after a couple of days and during the 10-day stay seemed to get better and better. I then borrowed the SRM-006T but only had 3 days as I would be away and I could not get into the amp enough. Too soft and details masked, it seemed to lack the speed, bite and dynamics of the SRM-313 and I am a tube afficianado so it's not an inherent inability on my part to enjoy tube gear when it's done well (IMHO of course). Given the price differential I was really surprised but it has now been suggested to me that I will not have heard the 006T properly as it also takes 7 to 10 days to really come alive. Is this true? So, now I'm confused as to: - whether to take the best value package of SRS-3030 to get me going, whether to hold out for SR-404 speakers and whether to take advantage of the discontinued SR-4040 with MK-I 006T amps dealers are now offering at deal prices - whether I basically came to the right conclusions already - whether to bypass it all and wait only a little time for an SRX set-up of suitable condition/vintage

1. Yep, I think it'll be difficult to get any faulty X-III's repaired but they seem to be extremely hardy and resilient. Another thing is that they're not that expensive. It's not as if you're paying over a grand so even the small chance of them going wrong is IMO worth taking a chance on.

2. I haven't compared the 303 to the 404 but will say I don't find the 404 has the amazing qualities of the X-III in the areas of timbre, balance, or snap/slam. It does have, however, an extra half-octave of bass, a little more HF extension and a very palatable and enjoyable sound.

3. I completely agree with your remarks about the 006t. It seems to have the qualities of bad tubes without compensating virtues. And my experience is that it never becomes good. IMO what people call burn-in is just them becoming accustomed to the sound. When I bought my 404/006t I was disappointed at first but grew to like it after further listening and assumed that the combo had broken in. It was only when I compared it to the X-III that I realized it still had all the old flaws. I love the sound of my X-III's with the Golden Tube SE40 so a good tube amp works very well with Stax phones. If you have to go for a Stax amp I'd probably go for the solid-state. But, to be honest, if I were you I'd get an X-III with transformer. They're not that hard to find. My only caveat is that you might find them a little up-front. If you dislike "in your face" immediacy it might be better to go for the 404/303.

 

[Lloyd297]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stax-i-nox This is a great informative thread! I recently pulled all my vintage Stax stuff out of storage...( I have a great sound system, so I stopped listening to headphones so much)...but got the bug again, so.....First of all, a few years ago, I sold on Ebay, the Srd-7SB I remember testing it with the amp I had at the time and that the sound was not as good as the T1...but after reading the post's here, I wish I had it now to test my newer amp...a digital amp with IcePower. In any case, I am finding that out of the Stax I have, Headphone Inventory: Stax Sigma Pro Stax Gamma Pro Stax Lambda Signature (1987) Stax Omega I w/oiginal box Headphone Amp Inventory: SRD-P SRM-1 MKII B series 117-225 Volts SRM TI B Series 117 Volt only SRM TI B Series 117-225 Volts (1987) Sony XaxES CD runing RCA cables direct to the Stax amps. ....I am getting the most accurate sound with the Lambda Signature (1987) with both the T1 and the SRM-1 MKII. Very detailed and forward presentation with the Signatures as opposed to the Omega 1, which is as accurate, but with a more laid back sonic presentation along with more of a sense of the recorded space, such as with Chesky or Dorian recordings. I noticed, after reading a another post here, that switching to 220V, the T1 sonics improved a bit....am using a 1000watt heavy duty converter, it's huge and very heavy....the MKII on the other hand did not seem to work as well in 220V...a little too etched sounding, highs too bright. In 110v, the mkII is a bit better in retreval of detail, like the sound of the violin bow on the string, jazz clarinet honkiness etc. than the T1 in 110V!? Cables make a huge difference...I have Jena cables, which are incredible at inner detail retreval. Some old silver cables were nice, good detail, but lost some of the punch. Power cord very important as well...I have a shielded import that is much better than the stock Stax cord. The Gamma Pro actually is very good, like the Signatures, but without the recording space coming through. Sigma Pro's compared to the rest of these is just too rolled off on the highs for my liking....they are very smooth, but the detail in the treble, which for me makes the sound real, is not there...like there is a veil between the music and my ears. The Omega's seem to be at their best with the T1 in 220v mode. It's fun to listen to all this vintage Stax again....I forgot how well produced the sound was from this equiptment! I have not heard any of the new cans or dedicated special amps for the Stax ....would like to at some point.

I'm jealous...........but the salient question is: what equipment are you listening to that caused you to put your entire Stax headphone menagerie in the cupboard! The Voice Of God?

 

[Stax-i-nox]

LOL....Eagles are more elegant and gracious in their swooping

Will do John.....I want to listen a bit more to make sure. Carl, the Gamma Pro's are not bad, not bad at all...do you have a pair? What I find is that they tend to not reveal the sonics of where the recoding was made, in other words, no "semi-panoramic" effect like the lamda Sig's have...a more in your head sound, but with pretty good detail presentation.

I am wondering if a change to a newer electrostatic panel in the Sigma Pro's would take care of those missing highs? Has anoyone done that yet?....I thought I remember reading on a post somewhere that it was tried......what were the results?

 

[Paul L]

Thanks to all for the advice. There are a lot of models listed there which I'm not familiar with so I can see me exprerimenting.

The UK dealer was wrong in my view to think that Stats would not be for me. I don't enjoy my Senn HD600 and the 404/006T combination reminded me of it too much. In contrast, the 404/313 had a studio-like sound to my ears which I can understand some folks finding clinical. I already listen to electrostatics (Cadence Amaya), I have 6B4G (300B family of tubes but faster and less rosy) monoblocks driving them and in the bedroom I have Opera Superpavarottis on TV duty driven by a Unison S6 with Winged C Svet EL34 tubes. In other words, I have choices on amps not dissimilar to the Golden Tube.

There are less choices on ePay here in the UK but as I believe I like stat rather than dynamic from what I can tell so far, I can see me picking up more than one type and just enjoying the journey.

Oh, sources are Marantz CD63MKII-KIS so okay but not esoteric and SME10/Glider-II/EAR834P Deluxe & MC3 so a little more serious. Cables generally by LFD which are a class act.

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stax-i-nox Carl, the Gamma Pro's are not bad, not bad at all...do you have a pair?

The only electrostatics I have, for now, are the Senn HE60s. That will change soon, I hope. I have some Kosses making their way around the globe, but are taking a detour to somewhere in Texas first. I'm planning on adding some 4070s before the end of June, and of course there is always my long term quest for the original Omegas.

So much work so little time/money.

 

[Stax-i-nox]

Acoustic Reality Digital Amp with VMPS RM40's speakers....w/ribbon tweeter and mid range ....pretty close to the voice of god

If you have not heard the VMPS speaker, try to hear them... incredible sound.. for an even more incredible price.......their RM30's with the new CDWG is getting a lot of good feedback.....one reviewer likened them to electrostatics!....VPMS is a small company in California, not that well known, but with a fantastic product........Acoustic Reality is in Denmark...so that would be a stretch to hear the amp...but it's sound is phenomenal as well.

www.vmpsaudio.com

www.acoustic-reality.com

 

[Lloyd297]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul L The UK dealer was wrong in my view to think that Stats would not be for me. I don't enjoy my Senn HD600 and the 404/006T combination reminded me of it too much. In contrast, the 404/313 had a studio-like sound to my ears which I can understand some folks finding clinical.

If you find Sennheiser HD600's a bit on the muted side than I'm sure you will revel in the SRX-III. If you like the sense of complete unveiled transparency then this is the one. The HD600 has more bass extension but lacks the timbral beauty and differentiation of the Stax. OTOH the 404 is more veiled-sounding, especially with the 006t.

My advice: get both X-III and low-bias Lamda's with transformer for two different views on the music at a reasonable price.

 

[Carl]

Sounds like the guy needs an HE60.

 

[Paul L]

Probably not Carl but I appreciate the thought. I understand the Senn electrostatics to lack refinement in the upper frequencies and I dislike this, a lot of equipment does it as we know and so stands out in A-B dems and finds it's way going home to a new family only to be listened to less and less before finally being pushed out. Many cables are notorious in this respect, indeed I have just rejected a well reputed one as being a bit of an inverse bell-curve with pushed HF and LF rather than pushed midrange.

I think it's like any pastime, you buy one or two things and serve an apprenticeship, it took me 3 coffee machines, visits to others and much frustration to crack that one, I shall turn attention to sorting out headphones now as I enjoy headphone listening in the evenings when the volume has to go down on the speaker system.

It's a bit sad actually that we don't have an outlet to get to grips with things such as a bunch of Stax products, I don't mean as in retail but as in somewhere to get familiar. I guess it comes down to making a connection with someone who has some toys and extends an invitation for a listen.

I accept fully Snake's point about acclimatisation and psychological effect of listening, however you learn to overcome it if you listen for enough years and have enough reference points and counterpoints. During my 404/313 and 404/006T listens I had my Senn HD600's on hand plus speaker listening plus two sources, 3 different interconnects, 3 different power cables and a bunch of software from full orchestral symphonic and concerto, classic jazz, modern audiophile jazz, rock, easy listening etc. on both vinyl and CD. As such, I do believe that when I could not create leading edge attack from the 006T it's because it's not there, it's there on my Audio Innovation First Audio monoblocks and it was there on the 313. When I heard softness on the 006T that I could not overcome it's because it's there and doesn't need to be, listen to an EAR amp and ask yourself if valve equipment needs to sound clichéd and stereotypical.

The part I forgot to post was that all equipment I borrowed was at least 2 years old and probably more like 4. The general wear and tear marks on both amps and the 404 earpads suggested they had all seen their fair share of use but I would suspect they needed a good run to get back on song. So, the only thing to my mind which could have upset my findings were if someone said that the 006T would need more days than I had it to come back on song and if it would suddenly transform. If that were the case, I would have to get it back and allow it to do so to hear it properly.

As I say, I'm much obliged for the various comments, much to think about it and the best way will be to take a road-trip of a year or more, as it were, picking up adventures along the way at little outlay. I expect I shall print out the last couple of pages to help along the way.

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul L Probably not Carl but I appreciate the thought. I understand the Senn electrostatics to lack refinement in the upper frequencies and I dislike this

Who told you that?

 

[Paul L]

I read it in a review somewhere

I should have added that as I don't take anything for granted it means I shall certainly seek out Senn electrostatics for myself to get a proper listen.

Can I take it this is the route you took and, if so, can you state the reasons? If you've already done so through various threads then don't worry about repeating again, I will search back later when I've got more time and gen up.

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul L I read it in a review somewhere I should have added that as I don't take anything for granted it means I shall certainly seek out Senn electrostatics for myself to get a proper listen.

There's no refinement lacking in either of Sennheiser's electrostatics, at any frequency. The problems you've read about relate to the HEV70 amp, but they can be mitigated by eityher buying a better amp, or feeding the HEV70 from a preamp or any other suitable gain stage.

You'll find out soon enough that most electrostatics amps, at least from major manufacturers (Sennheiser, Stax, Koss) tend to be rather poor, with the odd important exception.

Quote:

Can I take it this is the route you took and, if so, can you state the reasons? If you've already done so through various threads then don't worry about repeating again, I will search back later when I've got more time and gen up.

I have a HE60, correct, and while my system isn't exactly world class, I do feel I know them well enough to comment on them.

My take on it is this: In the world of speakers you'll find a great deal of companies that give their speakers, to various degrees, a relaxed, detached sounding midrange that supposedly audiophiles classify as "musical", but really the music isn't like that, it's just an added colouration that appeals to some people. Unfortunately, this particular colouration messes with the timbre of the music, and it's something that becomes increasingly annoying the more layers of the music your peal back, the deeper you look. And while you can, sort of, get away with that with speakers, which are diffuse and have a hard time presenting the entire timbral picture anyway, with headphones, which can let you pear into your favourite music like a microscope, it becomes increasingly apparent that you're not getting the whole picture. Imagine a high resolution photograph of the Mona Lisa, realisitic, but not real. Stax spent a lot of time in the 80s and 90s trying to achieve the ideals of speakers through headphones, and because of this the, a lot of their headphones, the Omega 1 and 2 in particular, share this this problem with speakers. The Omegas are gorgeous sounding headphones, don't get me wrong, but when it comes to the headphone that I'd use for everyday listening, such colourations would slowly but surely get on my nerves. Best kept for when the mood is right. The HE60 isn't a perfect headphone by any means, but it's almost total lack of annoying qualities (speaking just of the headphones, not the amp here) is an amazing thing.

The description you gave of your setup and objectives made me think you were after a similar sort of arrangement. What are your thoughts about that?

 

[Paul L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl The description you gave of your setup and objectives made me think you were after a similar sort of arrangement. What are your thoughts about that?

Exactly my sort of language and many thanks. No bull5h*t, a considered opinion which others may take issue with but exactly the goal I have in headphone listening. I agree that the syrup or deliberate tonal balance some manufacturers aim for can fool us but if we continue we recognise it and then grow through it. I want neither the harshness of poor solid state nor the euphonics of poor tube, I want to wade through both and listen into the performance properly.

Now, there's an entirely different school of thought that this is dangerous territory as you don't just get the acoustics, the coughs, the scraping of feet and all the other non-musical cues, you also get the recording, production and pressing faults and as we know it matters not whether our sources are black discs, silver discs, radio waves or compressed bytes, the music industry has disgraced itself for decades.

I've been through that one too as I suspect you have and I'm happy to seek the whole hog, warts and all. Just as I start to get excited though I learn that the HE60 is also out of production. There are no free lunches in life, are there? Ah well, I shall seek them out anyway alongside other options.

 

[Tachikoma]

Err... this is a little OT, but I could really use the help. An hour ago, I noticed that my right channel was slightly softer than the left, so I opened up the headphones to try and fix the rubber band that probably acted as the driver's mechanical damper... and I used paper glue. After I put the headphone back together there's a weird low frequency hum in my right driver. (it still works though, phew) Does anyone know what could be causing this? I hope someone knows how to undo the damage my foolishness might have inflicted on my headphones...

 

[Duggeh]

Maybe your right channel voluem was set differently to your left in the first place, ive had that happen to me a coupel of times. As for what might have gone wrong with your attempted repair, im sorry to say that I cant help you with that. But I hope that it works out okay, or that it can be re-repaired.