[fewtch]

To start with... this review is about 20 years too late

. The Stax SR-30 are electret earspeakers from 1982. I bought a pair from mecano out of pure curiosity, along with the Stax SRD-4 adapter to power them (together, they're known as the Stax SR-34). Because these occasionally show up for sale on the Gear FS forum here and change hands, I thought I'd write a short review. This review is based on only about 15 minutes of listening, so take it with a grain of salt. This is all I want to bother with, because very few will be interested.

The SRD-4 adapter does not plug into the wall... it contains a transformer and gets all its power from the speaker connectors on a power amp. The SR-30 earspeakers plug into the SRD-4 adapter. You can see pictures of these cans and associated adapter at the Stax website. They are a piece of Stax history, and imho deserve a little notice on that point alone. The pair I have says "Stax 25th anniversary of Earspeaker History - since 1960" on the box, so these were sold in 1985. Back to the Future!

I connected the SRD-4 to the speaker terminals of my Sony TA-AX205 vintage 1980's mid-fi amplifier (pretty appropriate, eh?), plugged the SR-30 ear speakers into the SR-4 adapter and powered up the amp. This amplifier is connected to my turntable, so I put on a record.

At first listening, the SR-30s sounded terrible. I mean really bad, tinny, whatever -- about on the level of the headphones that come free with modern PCDPs. This is coming from Sennheiser HD-580s/HD-600s, so I thought I'd give these little ear speakers a chance to show what they could do. I tried readjusting the headband and earpiece positioning, which made somewhat of an improvement (they're open cans, similar to the lower end Grados in some ways -- quite a bit smaller though). Then I jacked up the bass/treble tone controls on the amplifier a little, and the SR-30 opened up somewhat. They really needed that boost, as they were just too flat and tinny otherwise.

So what do they sound like? Well, very smooth and very subtle. Piano is actually rather sweet, other instruments vary... punch and dynamics are mediocre compared to better dynamic headphones but they exist... soundstaging is almost nonexistent, but it could be my cheap power amp. You have to listen in a very quiet environment and be prepared for concentrated listening and some subtleties. Overall, they sound quite good in some ways and fairly bad in others... certainly different than any dynamic headphones I've ever heard (in fact, they are like nothing I've ever heard before). Is it hi-fi by today's standards? Yes, but barely... then again my amplifier is not a very good one (and hardly powerful enough to power these ear speakers, at 115 watts).

The pads on the SR-30 earspeakers are supra-aural (over the ears), and the pleather makes your ears sweat and itch terribly after about 5 minutes.

Overall I think these are worth the $60 I paid (headphones + adapter), believe it or not. I'll be listening more, because despite the decidedly mid-fi character of this (amp to SRD-4 to SR-34) setup I hear something of the seductive electrostatic sound people have talked about, and it's hypnotic. If you ever acquire a [circa 1982] Stax SR-34, please give them a chance... a little patience, tweaking and ear-sweat later and you'll be hearing a bit of the super-smooth electrostatic sound (albeit at a much lower fidelity level than modern Stax headphones) for next to nothing in cost. Maybe you can feed them with something better than I have... a nice Marantz receiver or power amp with some real "oomph" might open these cans up even more. At $40-$60 for a pair of these vintage earspeakers (along with the necessary adapter), why not?

 

[edstrelow]

I wonder if there is not something wrong with the phones such as that the electret bias is failing. I had such a set-up many years ago and it was fairly close in sound to Stax' best electrostatic of the day, the SRX3. It shouldn't be hard to run on the size of amp you use either. Makes me think the bias is going. Too bad.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by edstrelow I wonder if there is not something wrong with the phones such as that the electret bias is failing. I had such a set-up many years ago and it was fairly close in sound to Stax' best electrostatic of the day, the SRX3. It shouldn't be hard to run on the size of amp you use either. Makes me think the bias is going. Too bad.

It's interesting... I was pondering this very thing this morning (before seeing your message). My old power amp eats 115 watts... not sure what it's rated at WPC output, but couldn't be that inefficient. I think it definitely should be driving the Stax louder than it is, as the SRD-4 is only rated for 5 watts (continuous) max input at 1 KHz. Maybe the electret bias is failing, maybe the diaphragms are aging... could conceivably be bad transformers in the SRD-4 too. Hard to say, but I don't think transducer-based items were meant to last 20+ years...

Anyway, I only paid a little over $50 shipped for this... if it was a pair of Stax SR-007 crapping out, I would be inclined to be a bit more upset.

 

[AudioFileZ]

I have the SR-34.  I bought it new from Atlanta's Hi-Fi Buys through their then mail order division whose name eludes me.  That mail order division allowed one to buy some brands such as STAX that weren't really available save for finding a walk-in dealer.  To get on point...these are truly econo-class cans with wimpy construction.  One of the arms that holds one cup split apart and I successfully "welded" it back together with cyanoacrylate.  Fortunately it held which is surprising giving the hit and miss nature of such.  Due to the aging of an already finicky fragile design I'd be thinking forget about buying a used set unless you're a collector of sorts.  The sound is why anyone would buy an electrect set of phones just like one buys a pair of Magnaplanar speakers.  In the incarnation of the SR-34 one gets a glimpse into the sound that STAX built their house on.  It has a ruthlessly revealing mid-range.  The highs may roll-off a bit seemingly due to the pronounced mid-range clarity and presence, but they're still quite nice.  It's the bass that, besides the cheap construction, makes this a  somewhat failed product for someone who listens to rock music primarily.  The bass is by lack of better definition, absent.  Their is no mid-bass rise either so it's quite noticeable that part of the full-spectrum is plain missing.  The solution is to equalize them and for most that means a twirl of the bass control if present.  If these were actively powered, instead of passively with the included speaker-level transformer, I'm sure they, like Bose 901 speakers, could be forced to a level of more natural bass.  At these price points that wasn't an option.  So, if you can get a pair dirt cheap (i.e. almost free) and have an amp in the closet with a half-decent set of tone controls you can overcome the SR-30 headset's sonic limitations for a very listenable outcome.  Just be more than careful since the plastic construction wasn't very good when new is sure to be more brittle.

 

[jrflanne]

I had a pair of those back in the day. Those things are the most uncomfortable phones I ever put on my head. Hot and painful. They didn't sound particularly good, as I recall. Put me off headphones for quite a while. 

 

[arjuna93]

It may be worth trying them with a better driver. With electrostatic Audio-technicas for example driver matters a big deal.