antonyfirst
Headphoneus Supremus
Well, now that I'm on holiday, the first thing I want to do is to review my two favourite headphones, and a great entry into the world of electrostats.
Most of my former reviews involved portable headphones/IEMs, through which I have mowed though not only in search of the perfect sound, but mostly for knowledge, fun and a sort of "review collector" attitude.
While the there's already plenty of information about the SR-003 (home version of the loved babystax), I'd like to describe them so that I have a point of reference to describe the more rare, and wonderful sounding, SR-X MkIII Pro.
Both the headphones are being run out of a SRM-1 MkII Pro. Source is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI, so things can get better by improving the source further.
Stax SR-003
This is an in-ear speaker system, with open back (which has no isolation for the outside). The SR-003 can be used either with the headband, that makes the earpieces put pressure against your ears, thus enhancing the midbass, but also being potentially discomfortable for some, or without the headband, by pushing the silicon tips (of three different sizes) at the entrance of your ears. I find it very comfortable with the headband.
There is a portable version of the same canalphone, the SR-001 MkII, with a dedicated portable amp (SRM-001) and cable connector. The SR-001 MkII is said to have an inferior amp compared to what's available for the desktop SR-003, but there is a mod by Audiocats that supposedly brings it on par to more powerful beasts like the SRM-313 or the SRM-1 MkII Pro, and better than the stock amps the SR-003 come with (SRM-Xh or its improved successor, the SRM-252). I have purchased the Audiocats modded SR-001 MkII, so I hope to give my impressions when I receive it.
Details here:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/rev...-003-a-332117/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/sta...thread-277049/
Sound
The SR-003 have a unique sound for a lesser Stax headphone. While most of them have weak bass and bright highs, the SR-003 are warm-bass oriented headphones.
They have very generous midbass and lower midrange. In fact, the bass is huge, but extremely fast and detailed. Instead of making things bloated or muddy, it's the pavement where all other sounds are etched on for a wonderful picture. The SR-003 have extreme instrument separation and clarity, and are the fastest Stax headphones thanks to the thinner diaphragm.
I have come to discover that electrostatics have crazy speed and ability to separate the sound.
The SR-003 have such resolution that they spot artifacts in my 320 kbps mp3 making them sound clear and defined (painful, in fact), like an island in the middle of the sound. They are making me think to rebuild all my music library from 320kbs mp3 to FLAC.
The upper midrange, around 8 kHz, is slightly subdued, roughly a 6 dB drop. The dip is not wide though, and at 6 kHz there is no effect left from the dip. Treble is flat way past 12 kHz. Thanks to the speed and resolution of the driver, treble is very detailed, but neither bright nor piercing.
All this makes for a very lush, smooth sound with forgiveness in regards of sibilance, without having the same muted upper midrange of my (s)old Head-Direct RE1.
Their soundstage is on par with the best IEMs/earphones, which means in the head. Voices, treble are placed in the head, while only the huge/environmental bass hits from the sides.
Instrument placement is razor sharp.
The main limit of the SR-003 is the midbass, which is too much and too often adds adds unwanted authority to a song to a song (like if the song had to present itsef with more power and “expectations” than normal), yet it lacks depth below 60 Hz.
The SR-003 are very good for rock, as they are never harsh and they give it a full bodied character. Plus, the fact that '60s-'70s rock recordings hardly have deep bass makes the limit negligible.
They make listenable Ornette Coleman too, whose sounds are usually shrill and painful.
I did not feel much improvement going from SRM-Xh to SRM-1 mkII pro with SR-003, but I did not have the two amps at the same time, and listening to SR-X mkIII pro first when I just got SRM-1 may also have mitigated the perceived differences.
Stax SR-X MkIII Pro
The headphone is one of the rarest stax on the market (about impossible to find). They use drivers common to Gamma Pro and Alpha Pro Excellent, and the same housing to SR-X MkIII.
The only pairs belonging to head-fiers have been made by Spiritzer from the above mentioned headphones. He will not be building any more due to difficulty and riskiness of the project.
The headphone is supra-aural and I find it very comfortable (much more so than ATH-ESW9 or Denon D5000). I know that some people don't like the comfort of supra-aural headphones though, so things may vary.
Sound
This is a monitor - feed it crap and nothing good comes out. On the first day when I received it, I had no decent source. I tried it with a portable CDP and Creative MuVo player - and all I heard was the shabbiness of these two.
The day after I received my current M-Audio 2496 soundcard, that while not comparable to 1000$ DACs, it's at least mid-fi.
Ok, saying it shortly, the difference was awesome and the SR-X MkIII Pro is much better than the SR-003 under the same conditions.
The SR-X MkIII Pro is the most neutral headphone I have heard to date.
There is no midbass hump, and down to 30 Hz bass is only 4 dB short of flat, and only seriously rolls off below 20 Hz. The deep bass is teeth-shacking.
The timbre is about perfect. Vocals are crystal clear. Treble is much more present than on the SR-003, but never sibilant. The whole region between 6 kHz and 10 kHz is completely flat. When the recording is harsh it can be heard so, but it doesn't grate my ears.
While the SR-003 does adds midbass to the sound and lacks some lower treble, the SR-X MkIII Pro doesn't do almost any wrong colorations, behaving like a magnifying glass for good records.
The only deviation from neutrality I find in the SR-X Pro is a +4dB hump limited around 3 kHz, that can make female vocals sweet, but sometimes screechy when the singer shouts loud. This applies also to Freddy Mercury.
They might not be perfect for '70s rock, since the bad recordings come out the way they are... and flatness for rock is not always involving.
Recordings with deep bass are lovely, and an example is Peter Gabriel's "Passion", which becomes spectacular and feels like playing in a huge surround cinema.
When the recording allows it, it's possible to ear the sound at different layers of detail. The more you pay attention to it, the more nuances you'll hear, like when staring at an old wall closer and closer, or wet sand close to the sea.
Sound stage is bigger than the SR-003. A lot in fact, taking the space of 5 heads (Tony's unit of measure for soundstage
), giving good vertical soundstage (usually the height of the head, with peaks of two heads) and some depth (the ear and cheeks width).
Instrument placement is sharp and precise, just bigger than it was with the SR-003. While the SR-003 are too constricted for large orchestral classical works, the SR-X Pro's soundstage gives them justice.
I really wish to see what a better source and a great amp like SRM-717 or Blue Hawaii could do with these headphones, since they are already mind blowing this way, and set a new standard of learning in my head-fi journey.
Tony
Edit 2009: now I have a better source and I feel I should update this review. It will be done in future, but summed up in few lines: when I tried the Gamma1, the sound was pretty cold, not much deep bass (source related) and mostly the SRX Pro were able to reveal the sources' digital glare (due to upsampling) like no other. Few days after, I finally got my Melior Bitstream dac working, known for its analogue tonality. And the result was mind blowing, which lead me selling the Gamma 1 quickly. Music sounded real, full of its colour (rather than "coloured" in a not neutral way). If the instruments when using the gamma1 as source sounded ghastly, ethereal and electric with the SRX Pro, the new experience was much better, real, tactile, and over everything else, emotional. Midrange and upper bass tonalitiey give to the instruments a lifelike timbre. Treble is gentle, but the real magic is in the way low frequencies and midrange are portrayed.
Deep bass becomes earth shaking: the SRX Pro basically have no roll off, and the Bitstream hasn't either.
So, in the end, the first line of my review, naively written in July 2008, when I probably was in a too early stage of my audiophile experience (and I still have lot to learn in my path), said it all: "This is a monitor - feed it crap and nothing good comes out".
On the other end, feed it with something wonderful, and you are going to feel like in a theater, attending to a live play. This headphone doesn't do much else than letting the source show its character, at the best of its possibilities. I expect the Omega 2 MkI to be the end-of-all among headphones following this phylosophy.
Most of my former reviews involved portable headphones/IEMs, through which I have mowed though not only in search of the perfect sound, but mostly for knowledge, fun and a sort of "review collector" attitude.
While the there's already plenty of information about the SR-003 (home version of the loved babystax), I'd like to describe them so that I have a point of reference to describe the more rare, and wonderful sounding, SR-X MkIII Pro.
Both the headphones are being run out of a SRM-1 MkII Pro. Source is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI, so things can get better by improving the source further.
Stax SR-003
This is an in-ear speaker system, with open back (which has no isolation for the outside). The SR-003 can be used either with the headband, that makes the earpieces put pressure against your ears, thus enhancing the midbass, but also being potentially discomfortable for some, or without the headband, by pushing the silicon tips (of three different sizes) at the entrance of your ears. I find it very comfortable with the headband.
There is a portable version of the same canalphone, the SR-001 MkII, with a dedicated portable amp (SRM-001) and cable connector. The SR-001 MkII is said to have an inferior amp compared to what's available for the desktop SR-003, but there is a mod by Audiocats that supposedly brings it on par to more powerful beasts like the SRM-313 or the SRM-1 MkII Pro, and better than the stock amps the SR-003 come with (SRM-Xh or its improved successor, the SRM-252). I have purchased the Audiocats modded SR-001 MkII, so I hope to give my impressions when I receive it.
Details here:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/rev...-003-a-332117/
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f6/sta...thread-277049/
Sound
The SR-003 have a unique sound for a lesser Stax headphone. While most of them have weak bass and bright highs, the SR-003 are warm-bass oriented headphones.
They have very generous midbass and lower midrange. In fact, the bass is huge, but extremely fast and detailed. Instead of making things bloated or muddy, it's the pavement where all other sounds are etched on for a wonderful picture. The SR-003 have extreme instrument separation and clarity, and are the fastest Stax headphones thanks to the thinner diaphragm.
I have come to discover that electrostatics have crazy speed and ability to separate the sound.
The SR-003 have such resolution that they spot artifacts in my 320 kbps mp3 making them sound clear and defined (painful, in fact), like an island in the middle of the sound. They are making me think to rebuild all my music library from 320kbs mp3 to FLAC.
The upper midrange, around 8 kHz, is slightly subdued, roughly a 6 dB drop. The dip is not wide though, and at 6 kHz there is no effect left from the dip. Treble is flat way past 12 kHz. Thanks to the speed and resolution of the driver, treble is very detailed, but neither bright nor piercing.
All this makes for a very lush, smooth sound with forgiveness in regards of sibilance, without having the same muted upper midrange of my (s)old Head-Direct RE1.
Their soundstage is on par with the best IEMs/earphones, which means in the head. Voices, treble are placed in the head, while only the huge/environmental bass hits from the sides.
Instrument placement is razor sharp.
The main limit of the SR-003 is the midbass, which is too much and too often adds adds unwanted authority to a song to a song (like if the song had to present itsef with more power and “expectations” than normal), yet it lacks depth below 60 Hz.
The SR-003 are very good for rock, as they are never harsh and they give it a full bodied character. Plus, the fact that '60s-'70s rock recordings hardly have deep bass makes the limit negligible.
They make listenable Ornette Coleman too, whose sounds are usually shrill and painful.
I did not feel much improvement going from SRM-Xh to SRM-1 mkII pro with SR-003, but I did not have the two amps at the same time, and listening to SR-X mkIII pro first when I just got SRM-1 may also have mitigated the perceived differences.
Stax SR-X MkIII Pro
The headphone is one of the rarest stax on the market (about impossible to find). They use drivers common to Gamma Pro and Alpha Pro Excellent, and the same housing to SR-X MkIII.
The only pairs belonging to head-fiers have been made by Spiritzer from the above mentioned headphones. He will not be building any more due to difficulty and riskiness of the project.
The headphone is supra-aural and I find it very comfortable (much more so than ATH-ESW9 or Denon D5000). I know that some people don't like the comfort of supra-aural headphones though, so things may vary.
Sound
This is a monitor - feed it crap and nothing good comes out. On the first day when I received it, I had no decent source. I tried it with a portable CDP and Creative MuVo player - and all I heard was the shabbiness of these two.
The day after I received my current M-Audio 2496 soundcard, that while not comparable to 1000$ DACs, it's at least mid-fi.
Ok, saying it shortly, the difference was awesome and the SR-X MkIII Pro is much better than the SR-003 under the same conditions.
The SR-X MkIII Pro is the most neutral headphone I have heard to date.
There is no midbass hump, and down to 30 Hz bass is only 4 dB short of flat, and only seriously rolls off below 20 Hz. The deep bass is teeth-shacking.
The timbre is about perfect. Vocals are crystal clear. Treble is much more present than on the SR-003, but never sibilant. The whole region between 6 kHz and 10 kHz is completely flat. When the recording is harsh it can be heard so, but it doesn't grate my ears.
While the SR-003 does adds midbass to the sound and lacks some lower treble, the SR-X MkIII Pro doesn't do almost any wrong colorations, behaving like a magnifying glass for good records.
The only deviation from neutrality I find in the SR-X Pro is a +4dB hump limited around 3 kHz, that can make female vocals sweet, but sometimes screechy when the singer shouts loud. This applies also to Freddy Mercury.
They might not be perfect for '70s rock, since the bad recordings come out the way they are... and flatness for rock is not always involving.
Recordings with deep bass are lovely, and an example is Peter Gabriel's "Passion", which becomes spectacular and feels like playing in a huge surround cinema.
When the recording allows it, it's possible to ear the sound at different layers of detail. The more you pay attention to it, the more nuances you'll hear, like when staring at an old wall closer and closer, or wet sand close to the sea.
Sound stage is bigger than the SR-003. A lot in fact, taking the space of 5 heads (Tony's unit of measure for soundstage
Instrument placement is sharp and precise, just bigger than it was with the SR-003. While the SR-003 are too constricted for large orchestral classical works, the SR-X Pro's soundstage gives them justice.
I really wish to see what a better source and a great amp like SRM-717 or Blue Hawaii could do with these headphones, since they are already mind blowing this way, and set a new standard of learning in my head-fi journey.
Tony
Edit 2009: now I have a better source and I feel I should update this review. It will be done in future, but summed up in few lines: when I tried the Gamma1, the sound was pretty cold, not much deep bass (source related) and mostly the SRX Pro were able to reveal the sources' digital glare (due to upsampling) like no other. Few days after, I finally got my Melior Bitstream dac working, known for its analogue tonality. And the result was mind blowing, which lead me selling the Gamma 1 quickly. Music sounded real, full of its colour (rather than "coloured" in a not neutral way). If the instruments when using the gamma1 as source sounded ghastly, ethereal and electric with the SRX Pro, the new experience was much better, real, tactile, and over everything else, emotional. Midrange and upper bass tonalitiey give to the instruments a lifelike timbre. Treble is gentle, but the real magic is in the way low frequencies and midrange are portrayed.
Deep bass becomes earth shaking: the SRX Pro basically have no roll off, and the Bitstream hasn't either.
So, in the end, the first line of my review, naively written in July 2008, when I probably was in a too early stage of my audiophile experience (and I still have lot to learn in my path), said it all: "This is a monitor - feed it crap and nothing good comes out".
On the other end, feed it with something wonderful, and you are going to feel like in a theater, attending to a live play. This headphone doesn't do much else than letting the source show its character, at the best of its possibilities. I expect the Omega 2 MkI to be the end-of-all among headphones following this phylosophy.
