[arnaud]

Stax manufactures 40 pairs of sr009 a month at best, more like 20 pairs in reality (that's based on direct talk with HQ). Consider it started selling in spring 2011 and there were serious yield issues until september, 800 pairs sold is an extremely optimistic number. Justin, where did you get this from?

Also, 20000 pairs of hd800 sounds also on the optimistic side. It is likely in the thousand digits a year, 20k is a lot. Also, it is typically not in a makers interest to reveal exact sales figures so I would be extremely surprised the hd800 serial number isn't altered as production batches and slight design revisions occur. Especially in these days where users have the stupid idea to join forces in online communities and share data such as calibration charts for their HD800s .

 

[wink]

Quote:

my HD800 is #425.  anyone still posting here that is lower than that?

Mine's a youthful #0722
 
Bought for US$1200 when the price in Australia was a cool A$2000.

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

Stax manufactures 40 pairs of sr009 a month at best, more like 20 pairs in reality (that's based on direct talk with HQ). Consider it started selling in spring 2011 and there were serious yield issues until september, 800 pairs sold is an extremely optimistic number. Justin, where did you get this from?

 
i'm just going off of serial #s.  i believe they started at 1000 and they are currently at 1800.  i base this on:
 
- My SR-009 is #1243, so #243, and i received one of the first in the U.S.  A couple hundred pairs by the time it was available in the U.S. is probably about right
- As a dealer, the latest serial #s i have are around #1800, and they are numbered sequentially.

 

[spritzer]

I do think that Justin is correct here.  Getting a straight answer out of Stax is very unlikely so the distributors are a much better bet. 

 

[squallkiercosa]

I have to add: The US is not the only market for HI-END headphones. In Russia for example the HD800 cost as much as the Audeze LC2. What would you buy? It's actually cheaper than the States... they both cost around 1300$
 
http://doctorhead.ru/catalogue?pr=48&about=1
http://doctorhead.ru/catalogue?pr=156&about=1

 

[Happy Camper]

I have to add: The US is not the only market for HI-END headphones. In Russia for example the HD800 cost as much as the Audeze LC2. What would you buy? It's actually cheaper than the States... they both cost around 1300$

http://doctorhead.ru/catalogue?pr=48&about=1
http://doctorhead.ru/catalogue?pr=156&about=1

I'd buy the HE-6.

 

[arnaud]

I do think that Justin is correct here.  Getting a straight answer out of Stax is very unlikely so the distributors are a much better bet. 

Yeah, sure... Certainly, the distributor wouldn't want to inflate potential sales figure to attract a dealer.

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

Yeah, sure... Certainly, the distributor wouldn't want to inflate potential sales figure to attract a dealer.

i've never asked the distributor how many SR-009 have been sold.  I did ask what the split was between Japan vs USA sales, and was told they didn't know.  

 

[jaycalgary]

My 009's are SN-1181. I am guessing they are the 181th pair made.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Yeah, sure... Certainly, the distributor wouldn't want to inflate potential sales figure to attract a dealer.

 
Certainly not the case with me. 

 

[arnaud]

Justin, Birgir, the more Stax sells, the better so don't take offense. It's just that we had this exact discussion during the interview last month with the ceo and sales director. We even saw some 009 drivers getting into QA and clearly there wasn't 50 drivers on the table! It's also true that Stax wouldn't want to tell the true numbers so 20-30 pairs announced may be actually a bit more than that in reality.

 

[spritzer]

No offense taken Stax never tell the full story, that's how it has been since day one.  Every schematic they send out is wrong and the board markings are even deliberately altered to make repair much harder.  This is why it's better to ask the distributors what it going on and pool the data. 

 

[En_R]

i'm just going off of serial #s.  i believe they started at 1000 and they are currently at 1800.  i base this on:

- My SR-009 is #1243, so #243, and i received one of the first in the U.S.  A couple hundred pairs by the time it was available in the U.S. is probably about right
- As a dealer, the latest serial #s i have are around #1800, and they are numbered sequentially.

I have one at 173x and one at 189x (sent to me very recently).

My friend also has one at 177x. Both the 189x and 177x pair came from Japan.

So it seems they have only made a couple hundred pairs since they offered it to the US.

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

Stax manufactures 40 pairs of sr009 a month at best, more like 20 pairs in reality (that's based on direct talk with HQ). Consider it started selling in spring 2011 and there were serious yield issues until september, 800 pairs sold is an extremely optimistic number. Justin, where did you get this from?

 
Just an update on this.  I received a few more SR-009 today (in all cases that I have ordered them, I have had to wait).  The highest serial # of the ones i received is 1899.  Subtracting from the first pair I received, this is 126 pairs over 99 days.  Which comes out to 38.7 pairs per month.  

 

[justin w.]

Quote:

 
Just an update on this.  I received a few more SR-009 today (in all cases that I have ordered them, I have had to wait).  The highest serial # of the ones i received is 1899.  Subtracting from the first pair I received, this is 126 pairs over 99 days.  Which comes out to 38.7 pairs per month.  

 
update - Stax has now passed 1,000 pairs of SR-009