jenneth
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2001
- Posts
- 509
- Likes
- 17
Hi All,
I’ve had my Stax for about a week now, I felt that I need to share my findings with someone. Please forgive me for this rather poorly written review; this is my first full length review, so bear with me.
-Setup-
Stax SRS-4040
Cal CL-15 (my friend’s)
Granite Audio #470 (new pair)
-The Construction-
When I opened up the boxes, I was immediately impressed with the build quality of the AMP (SRM-006t) it’s solidly build and heavy. Through the ventilation holes on top you can see the circuit boards with two vacuum tubes on top of it. The earspeaker (SRS-404), unlike the amp, seem a little cheap. Granted it’s very light, but I was disappointed with its uses of plastics. I was expecting something like Sennheiser HD-600 or Grado RS1 (with metals and wood). It came with a couple of cardboard boxes, I was hoping for a nice wooden box (like AKG K1000 or Grado RS-1).
When I first put on the earspeakers I found it to be extremely light and comforting, even more so than the HD600 (I’ve previously owned the HD600). I especially love the adjustable leather strip/belt on top; it allows the earspeakers to fit comfortably with my head. It has two sets of outputs, unit one includes one pair of balanced and unbalanced outputs, unit two has two pairs of RCA (inputs and outputs). I’ve connected XLR connectors to my CD player, RCA to my sound card. I can switch the inputs via the input select button on front of the amp. It’s very convenient if you use more than one CD player, or use your CD player in conjunctures with something else.
-The Sounds-
One thing I noticed immediately was the presence of ‘headstage,’ unlike many dynamic headphones Staxs sounded very three dimensional. I felt as if the singers/musicians are sitting right in front of me, accompanies by orchestra that surrounds me. SRS-4040 sounded very detail (right term?), it has plenty of bass, well-defined trebles, and superb mid-ranges. I agree with Vertigo_1’s review of his Stax, Staxs are “extremely fast and transient.” I think I know what Vertigo_1 was talking about, the sounds literally ‘jumped’ out of the earspeakers; they are lively and energetic. Instruments do not blend or ‘merge’ with one another. I can hear the beginning and ending of an instrument, because of this characteristic, everything seems to speed up a notch (without losing any detail). I heard sounds that weren’t there before; it was a very unique and fantastical experience. However, I was a little disappointed with the bass, while it has plenty of it, it’s not as clear as I had hoped. If you look at its FR Response chart, it flickers a bit between 5Khz to 20 Khz.
I left the CD player running overnight (my friend would’ve killed me if he found out). Next morning when I got up, I immediately went back to it. It sounded a little ‘warmer’ than previous night, everything seem to blend in a little bit better, but not to a point where every sound is clogging together. The most dramatic change is the fact that basses now sound much deeper, not mention clear. I was thrilled by the change.
The Staxs are very unforgiving to bad recordings, or CDs with a lot of synthetic sounds/efx. It was very apparent with Britney Spears ‘Oops I did it again’ (Don’t ask me why, I can assure you I didn’t came up with the idea); it sounds murky and dark. The headstage collapsed the moment I hit the ‘play’ button. Ms. Spears’ raspy, girlish voice didn’t help either; I apologized if I offended anyone, she sounded as if she singing through a vocal enhancer (maybe she did). After much listening, I found that SRS-4040 is at its best with strings, or instruments that situates in the mid-to-high frequency, for example, ‘Princess Mononoke Hime’ and ‘Falcom Neo Classic’ (accompanied by London Symphony). Every sound were reproduced flawlessly, the trebles were extended to its extreme, incredibly fast and clear. By this time, the headstage had expanded into a small to medium hall, the acoustic is incredible.
-MP3s-
The SRS-4040 is surprising good with the MP3s as well. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I’m using a Digitial Audio Labs CarDeluxe audio card (it has balance outputs). While you can distinguish the minute drop in fidelity with its CD counterpart, I was nonetheless impressed with I’ve heard. It’s difficult to describe the difference, but I would say that with a good CD player the headstage is about a medium hall, whereas with mp3s it’s about a small room. One thing I should mention is that most of my mp3s are 192kbit, 128kbit mp3s sounds muddier; the headstage collapsed almost entirely. In addition, I could occasionally hear the clippings (I suspect they’re from bad encodings). I didn’t realize that there would be that much difference between 128Kbit and 192Kbit.
-Weaknesses?-
It takes about 15 to 30 minutes before the system heat up… it might be a problem with some of you. Also, the amp get quite hot after couple hours, I don’t know if I could actually burn the tubes. In addition, Staxs are very open, even more so than that of HD-600, my roommate was somewhat annoyed by this. But regardless of these imperfections, I’m very satisfied with my decision; it seems that my $2000 was well spent.
I hope everyone enjoy reading this, if I made a mistake in identifying any term or anything please let me know, thanks.
Jenneth
I’ve had my Stax for about a week now, I felt that I need to share my findings with someone. Please forgive me for this rather poorly written review; this is my first full length review, so bear with me.
-Setup-
Stax SRS-4040
Cal CL-15 (my friend’s)
Granite Audio #470 (new pair)
-The Construction-
When I opened up the boxes, I was immediately impressed with the build quality of the AMP (SRM-006t) it’s solidly build and heavy. Through the ventilation holes on top you can see the circuit boards with two vacuum tubes on top of it. The earspeaker (SRS-404), unlike the amp, seem a little cheap. Granted it’s very light, but I was disappointed with its uses of plastics. I was expecting something like Sennheiser HD-600 or Grado RS1 (with metals and wood). It came with a couple of cardboard boxes, I was hoping for a nice wooden box (like AKG K1000 or Grado RS-1).
When I first put on the earspeakers I found it to be extremely light and comforting, even more so than the HD600 (I’ve previously owned the HD600). I especially love the adjustable leather strip/belt on top; it allows the earspeakers to fit comfortably with my head. It has two sets of outputs, unit one includes one pair of balanced and unbalanced outputs, unit two has two pairs of RCA (inputs and outputs). I’ve connected XLR connectors to my CD player, RCA to my sound card. I can switch the inputs via the input select button on front of the amp. It’s very convenient if you use more than one CD player, or use your CD player in conjunctures with something else.
-The Sounds-
One thing I noticed immediately was the presence of ‘headstage,’ unlike many dynamic headphones Staxs sounded very three dimensional. I felt as if the singers/musicians are sitting right in front of me, accompanies by orchestra that surrounds me. SRS-4040 sounded very detail (right term?), it has plenty of bass, well-defined trebles, and superb mid-ranges. I agree with Vertigo_1’s review of his Stax, Staxs are “extremely fast and transient.” I think I know what Vertigo_1 was talking about, the sounds literally ‘jumped’ out of the earspeakers; they are lively and energetic. Instruments do not blend or ‘merge’ with one another. I can hear the beginning and ending of an instrument, because of this characteristic, everything seems to speed up a notch (without losing any detail). I heard sounds that weren’t there before; it was a very unique and fantastical experience. However, I was a little disappointed with the bass, while it has plenty of it, it’s not as clear as I had hoped. If you look at its FR Response chart, it flickers a bit between 5Khz to 20 Khz.
I left the CD player running overnight (my friend would’ve killed me if he found out). Next morning when I got up, I immediately went back to it. It sounded a little ‘warmer’ than previous night, everything seem to blend in a little bit better, but not to a point where every sound is clogging together. The most dramatic change is the fact that basses now sound much deeper, not mention clear. I was thrilled by the change.
The Staxs are very unforgiving to bad recordings, or CDs with a lot of synthetic sounds/efx. It was very apparent with Britney Spears ‘Oops I did it again’ (Don’t ask me why, I can assure you I didn’t came up with the idea); it sounds murky and dark. The headstage collapsed the moment I hit the ‘play’ button. Ms. Spears’ raspy, girlish voice didn’t help either; I apologized if I offended anyone, she sounded as if she singing through a vocal enhancer (maybe she did). After much listening, I found that SRS-4040 is at its best with strings, or instruments that situates in the mid-to-high frequency, for example, ‘Princess Mononoke Hime’ and ‘Falcom Neo Classic’ (accompanied by London Symphony). Every sound were reproduced flawlessly, the trebles were extended to its extreme, incredibly fast and clear. By this time, the headstage had expanded into a small to medium hall, the acoustic is incredible.
-MP3s-
The SRS-4040 is surprising good with the MP3s as well. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I’m using a Digitial Audio Labs CarDeluxe audio card (it has balance outputs). While you can distinguish the minute drop in fidelity with its CD counterpart, I was nonetheless impressed with I’ve heard. It’s difficult to describe the difference, but I would say that with a good CD player the headstage is about a medium hall, whereas with mp3s it’s about a small room. One thing I should mention is that most of my mp3s are 192kbit, 128kbit mp3s sounds muddier; the headstage collapsed almost entirely. In addition, I could occasionally hear the clippings (I suspect they’re from bad encodings). I didn’t realize that there would be that much difference between 128Kbit and 192Kbit.
-Weaknesses?-
It takes about 15 to 30 minutes before the system heat up… it might be a problem with some of you. Also, the amp get quite hot after couple hours, I don’t know if I could actually burn the tubes. In addition, Staxs are very open, even more so than that of HD-600, my roommate was somewhat annoyed by this. But regardless of these imperfections, I’m very satisfied with my decision; it seems that my $2000 was well spent.
I hope everyone enjoy reading this, if I made a mistake in identifying any term or anything please let me know, thanks.
Jenneth
