[Ali-Pacha]

Anyway, I do own 009, I used to own 007mk1 (too shy and dzingy 8-9 khz for my tastes), and have tested L700 many times. Whenever my journey to Stax would have begun today, I could buy L700 and call it a day.
007 and 009 technicalities are superior, no doubt, but you need very serious amplification, and "out of the box + from Stax amp", L700 are immensely enjoyable, with some of 009 technicalities / sparkling highs, and a low-mid bump (leaking seal ?) which gives them a foot-tapping character you won't have from 009 / 007...unless you go KG-something

Ali

 

[Tom Blake]

Anyway, I do own 009, I used to own 007mk1 (too shy and dzingy 8-9 khz for my tastes), and have tested L700 many times. Whenever my journey to Stax would have begun today, I could buy L700 and call it a day.
007 and 009 technicalities are superior, no doubt, but you need very serious amplification, and "out of the box + from Stax amp", L700 are immensely enjoyable, with some of 009 technicalities / sparkling highs, and a low-mid bump (leaking seal ?) which give them a foot-tapping character you won't have from 009 / 007...unless you go KG-something

Ali

Agree completely! My Stax journey started with the 207 then went on to the L500's (both driven by SRM-252S) and recently ended with the L700 (driven by iFi iESL). The L700's are phenomenal. I see no reason to take it further. I have a friend with 007 Mk. I and 009 along with a Carbon. There is no doubt 009's on a Carbon are better, but not enough (for me) to justify the rather significant additional cost.

 

[JimL11]

Personally i dont trust the opinion of people who own the headphones they are reviewing. Very difficult to differentiate if they are
A. Justifying their purchase
Or
B. New toy syndrom

Huh? First of all, I can't see anyone buying something they DON'T like, that would be stupid. If they bought it, they must like it, so that's a given. Doesn't mean they aren't able to describe it sounds like and what they like about it, or what they don't like about it. In fact, one of the best compliments a reviewer can give is to say they liked it so much they bought it. Second, when does new toy syndrome go away - 6 months? A year? two years? If someone likes something five years later it's not new toy syndrome, and it's long paid for, so they don't have to justify it. Would you still not trust their opinion?

 

[Thaudiophile]

Z bought l700 bought himself, couldn't it be possible that z is justifying his purchase?

 

[Ali-Pacha]

Audiophiles like us justifying their insane as well as useless purchases ? Really ?

Ali

 

[catscratch]

I agree, we should not base opinions on ownership experiences. We should base it upon the opinions of others, but only if they themselves don't base it on ownership experience. In fact, we need to be less materialistic, and resist the temptation of owning headphones. The true path to audio enlightenment is to reject the material basis for opinion, and to purge oneself of meaningless thought. Purging oneself can be achieved by expressing that thought in forum posts, and thus, post upon post, each one becomes a step, one among thousands, on the road to the true summit of audio nirvana.

 

[AnakChan]

Let's get back on track onto the L500/L700.

 

[Thaudiophile]

In about a year I will buy l700 and Mr speakers ether Electrostat then I will post a very unbiased
review with factual evidence. Amp/DAC will be kgsshv carbon/schiit yggy.

[mod edit] - removed reference to posting his own "very unbiased" review. All reviews have a reviewers bias. It's virtually impossible to avoid it.

 

[Bloos]

Is Z the only person to prefer the L700 over the 009?

I don't usually agree with z, but I prefer the L700 over the 009 for the reason that I prefer the initimate soundstage of the lambdas for the (acoustic vocal) music I usually listen to.
(like standing under an icy waterfall rather than swimming in a vast ocean, if you will.) The lambdas feel more direct in their presentation.
and when I want a more expansive soundstage, I believe a smyth realizer or OOYH does/adds soundstage much better than any headphone can anyway.
These impressions were off a 727A and 007tA, though I don't believe a "better" amp would make the 009's soundstage any smaller/closer(depth) as usually the opposite happens.

[Mod Edit: Comments of zeos removed]

 

[Thaudiophile]

I prefer the L700 over the 009 for the reason that I prefer the initimate soundstage of the lambdas for the (acoustic vocal) music I usually listen to.
(like standing under an icy waterfall rather than swimming in a vast ocean, if you will.) The lambdas feel more direct in their presentation.
and when I want a more expansive soundstage, I believe a smyth realizer or OOYH does/adds soundstage much better than any headphone can anyway.
These impressions were off a 727A and 007tA, though I don't believe a "better" amp would make the 009's soundstage any smaller/closer(depth) as usually the opposite happens.

[Mod Edit: Comments of zeo's and his purchase choices removed]

Well that's a valid reason to prefer Lambdas over the omegas. But the omegas aren't known for their soundstage, they are known for being exceptional at everything(just wanted to point this out) once you get a good amp of course.

 

[Thaudiophile]

Many comments have been deleted here but there is a high possibility that Zeos is Justifying his "future purchase" anyway this thread is about l700/l500 so we should end this conversation about zeos.

 

[Jmask5]

I had already contemplated getting the l700. I think this review has pushed me over the edge. For about 2 grand I can put together something end game for me. Now to start saving.

 

[AnakChan]

I've further had to remove posts about Zeos. Again this is a L500/L700 impressions thread, not a zeos-as-a-valid-reviewer impressions thread. Dropping a few word of L500/L700 does not make the post "on topic". I'll start locking ppl out of threads if this trend continues.

 

[Thaudiophile]

You cannot tell whether a headphone is great from a YouTube demo besides SR 009/007/Omega has never been demoed from a kg amp, OMEGAS have the highest resolution, if someone prefers details then omegas are by far the best option to look at, by looking at the impressions posted by others,I can already say that Omegas are much pretty better in every way to lower end Lambdas like l700 and l500 except one thing and that is price to performance.I don't know why is this even an argument, l700 was never supposed/made to be the best anyway.

 

[tigon_ridge]

Demo - tangible.
Subjective impressions - intangible.

I wouldn't make ultimate conclusions about headphones based on mic'd demos, but they are still useful as a somewhat indirect point of comparison, given that the same recording equipment is used consistently. They provide you with an idea of a headphone's relative frequency response, for one. For another, detail resolution. All the demos of non-electrostatic headphones I've heard lack resolution when compared to Staxes.

There is a thread somewhere started by a person who experimented with building his own electrostatic headphones from scratch, and claims that his creation compare well with the Stax flagships. This leads me to think that perhaps electrostats have probably already reached nearly the pinnacle of what's possible in audio fidelity, due to the nature of the technology. I'm a electrical engineering student, and from what I think I understand about recent developments of e-stats is that it is implausible for the technology to get much better without revolutionary futuristic materials, such as graphene. The extremely membrane being used is already extremely low mass, and strong. Any "improvement" mostly comes from fine tuning of existing technology/components. Spacing the stators farther apart, for example, makes the headphones less efficient but theoretically improves the dynamic range; solution--use a more powerful amp to compensate. However, that's more of a fine tuning than a groundbreaking change. Increasing the stators' capacitance/area density ratio is a difficult task, unless some futuristic new material can be used (graphene?). Combining these tweaks with better manufacturing techniques (usually more involved, time-consuming and expensive, requiring more human labor), you may get something that is marginally technically superior. However, whether this "improvement" passes the subjective test of individual enjoyment is something entirely different. Considering that Stax uses the same materials in their L700 as they did in their 009, one can reasonably presume the difference between these two headphones is merely a result of difference in extent of manufacturing design involvement/complexity, and fine tuning. Basically, the difference between Ultegra and Dura Ace (for those of you who are cyclists).

By the way, you can't reasonably jump to absolute conclusions about headphones you've never experienced; others' experiences will not necessarily be congruent with your own. This hobby is 40% objectivity, and 60% subjectivity.