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NOTE: If you want to skip the "gory details" and just read the final summary, here's the link:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/e-s...shangri-la-junior.962759/page-3#post-16899021
===========
Hi All,
Through the incredible generosity of esteemed forum member @number1sixerfan (who lives in a neighboring city), I have the Hifiman Shangri-la and Stax SR-X9000 on hand for audition over the next week, and will be comparing them to the Hifiman Shangri-la Junior which I've owned for the past few months, and also to the Hifiman Susvara (to a lesser extent), which has been my daily driver and favorite headphone for the last couple of years.
As a quick bit of background, I had never been particularly interested in estats (electrostatic headphones) based on hearing them (primarily Stax models) at various shows over the years. Weak bass and somewhat unnatural timbre were my chief complaints. This all changed when I first heard the Shangri-la Junior at the Hifiman booth at CanJam LA in the fall of 2021. I was pretty floored by the clarity, precision, voicing, and soundstage of that headphone. The bass still lacked impact, but I was impressed enough with everything else to purchase it. In the few months I've owned it, I've come to really love it, using it primarily for non-bassy genres.
I will be listening to these headphones as much as possible for the next several days, and will report my impressions via this thread. To say I'm excited for this rare opportunity would be a gross understatement.
In the interest of making this thread as useful as possible, I would be happy to entertain any requests to listen to specific songs or albums and opine on how well each headphone presents the music.
My plan is to update the thread whenever I have a salient insight worth making, as well as posting a daily synopsis of what I listened to and how my impressions are evolving. Assessing new headphones is always a process, and impressions become more accurate/stable over time. So without further ado.......
DAY 1
I'm having a flashback to being about five years old, unable to sleep the night before Christmas! For a music lover/audio geek, does it get any better than a simultaneous in-home trial of the two headphones in the world you're most interested in auditioning, especially when they are virtually impossible to acquire quickly, even at retail?? (Answer: NO)
Before we move on to initial sonic impressions, a few words about build quality, ergonomics, etc. One of the nice things about estats is that they tend to be a bit lighter than planar magnetic or dynamic driver headphones. The SR-X9000 is the heaviest of this group at roughly 450g, just about equal to the weight of the Susvara. The SGL Sr. is marginally lighter at ~430g, with the SGL Jr. being the featherweight at ~370g. The design of all three headphones is conceptually very similar with a leather head strap attached via sliders to a metal headband. The gimbals of the Stax are restricted in the amount of rotation to perhaps 15 degrees in either direction, while neither Hifiman is. The Stax has a bit less clamping pressure, and the rotational limiter means the headphone won't flop over (a la the LCD-5) when laid down on its side. In practice, all three headphones are very comfortable to wear! The pads on the SGL Jr. are slightly thinner than on the other two, and its ear pad cavity has a smaller diameter, but I still don't find my ears touching the pads.
In terms of aesthetics and industrial design, I think most people would give the highest marks to the Stax SR-X9000 here. Its fit and finish sets a new standard (by a mile) compared to the previous generation Stax headphones. Objectively, I don't think the build quality of the SR-X9000 is notably better than either Hifiman, but it manages to give off a slightly more premium feel. I really like the SGL Jr's black and silver best as a color scheme among the three, with the wood grain of the SGL Sr. pulling up the rear. I also prefer a rounded cup to an oblong one aesthetically, but everyone's preferences are different, obviously. The bottom line for me is that none of these headphones have aesthetic or ergonomic issues that would dissuade me from owning them. YMMV.
So, the first music I played was the title track and Joshua from Seven Steps to Heaven by Miles Davis. Jazz is a genre I listen to a lot these days, and Miles has always been my favorite artist therein, as he is for millions of others. The scope, quality, and influence of the man's prolific work is genuinely staggering, and he only lived to age 65! Jazz is a genre that works really well on the SGL Jr., and estats in general. The exceptional midrange and treble detail really brings the subtle inflections in the playing to life. If you're one of those people who finds extra detail/resolution unmusical, then I would suggest that estats are probably not going to be your cup of tea. On the contrary, I find that high resolution, along with accurate timbre, usually increases my intellectual/emotional involvement in a performance, particularly with acoustic instruments and/or superb recordings.
In any case, I started by listening to the SR-X9000. The first adjectives that came to mind were refined, balanced, and cinematic with good bass weight. The soundstage was wide, with excellent depth and layering. Instrumental timbre was right on. The horns had bite, without being screechy. The walking bass lines were beautifully rendered with excellent pitch definition and PRAT. Ride cymbals (and the drum kit) seemed a bit recessed (and less shimmery) compared to what I was used to with the SGL Junior. It was immediately clear that Stax has upped its technical game with the X9K. There are no obvious weaknesses here nor any hint of "estat timbre".
Switching to the SGL Jr. for familiar reference, it was immediately clear that a bit of bottom end had been sacrificed while treble energy had been increased. The subjective effects were that the band was playing in a much more live room, and that you were right next to the stage, as opposed to in the tenth row. The bass lines were still intact and grooving, but it was more the sound of the strings and less of the instrument's body. Imaging was less precise than on the Stax, but the increased treble energy gave the music a greater sense of propulsion. It felt as if the musicians were grooving harder.
Next I moved from the SGL Jr. to the SGL, which sort of split the difference between the Stax and the SGL Junior. The bass weight of the Stax was back, but with even better pitch definition. I'm not sure I've heard a headphone render the sound of upright bass more realistically than the the SGL was doing! Cymbal energy (and treble in general) was dialed back a notch or two from the SGL Jr., but imaging was more realistic, about on par with the Stax, although a few rows closer to the stage. The tonal balance and overall precision of the SGL is impossible to overstate. It's kind of like a blend of a race car and a luxury sedan.
OK, I'd just gotten my feet wet with all three headphones, and I already had a huge smile on my face. But how would they fare under a bass "torture test"? I opted for the track Urbanite Kodes by Greg Osby from the album Black Book. Osby is a saxophonist who's made quite a number of straight ahead and more experimental jazz albums. In the mid-90s, he released a couple of albums that attempted to fuse jazz with hip hop, and ended up generally not pleasing the audience for either genre. I really like the funkiness of some of this material, and the referenced track has a deep bass line that is integral to the fabric of the song.
The Osby track doesn't really work at all on the SGL Junior. That headphone's bass simply rolls off at too high a frequency to deliver more than a faint whiff of the goods down low. The Stax X9K fares much better and manages to convey the supporting rhythm of the track, although the very lowest bass notes are just a tad rolled off. The SGL Sr's bass performance on this track was pretty comparable to the Stax X9K. Neither is a bass cannon, but they reach low enough and with enough bass energy to deliver the musical message of this track rather convincingly. The fact that some estats are capable of this was a revelation for me!
DAY 1 SUMMARY / CONCLUSIONS
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/e-s...shangri-la-junior.962759/page-3#post-16899021
===========
Hi All,
Through the incredible generosity of esteemed forum member @number1sixerfan (who lives in a neighboring city), I have the Hifiman Shangri-la and Stax SR-X9000 on hand for audition over the next week, and will be comparing them to the Hifiman Shangri-la Junior which I've owned for the past few months, and also to the Hifiman Susvara (to a lesser extent), which has been my daily driver and favorite headphone for the last couple of years.
As a quick bit of background, I had never been particularly interested in estats (electrostatic headphones) based on hearing them (primarily Stax models) at various shows over the years. Weak bass and somewhat unnatural timbre were my chief complaints. This all changed when I first heard the Shangri-la Junior at the Hifiman booth at CanJam LA in the fall of 2021. I was pretty floored by the clarity, precision, voicing, and soundstage of that headphone. The bass still lacked impact, but I was impressed enough with everything else to purchase it. In the few months I've owned it, I've come to really love it, using it primarily for non-bassy genres.
I will be listening to these headphones as much as possible for the next several days, and will report my impressions via this thread. To say I'm excited for this rare opportunity would be a gross understatement.
In the interest of making this thread as useful as possible, I would be happy to entertain any requests to listen to specific songs or albums and opine on how well each headphone presents the music.My plan is to update the thread whenever I have a salient insight worth making, as well as posting a daily synopsis of what I listened to and how my impressions are evolving. Assessing new headphones is always a process, and impressions become more accurate/stable over time. So without further ado.......
DAY 1
I'm having a flashback to being about five years old, unable to sleep the night before Christmas! For a music lover/audio geek, does it get any better than a simultaneous in-home trial of the two headphones in the world you're most interested in auditioning, especially when they are virtually impossible to acquire quickly, even at retail?? (Answer: NO
)Before we move on to initial sonic impressions, a few words about build quality, ergonomics, etc. One of the nice things about estats is that they tend to be a bit lighter than planar magnetic or dynamic driver headphones. The SR-X9000 is the heaviest of this group at roughly 450g, just about equal to the weight of the Susvara. The SGL Sr. is marginally lighter at ~430g, with the SGL Jr. being the featherweight at ~370g. The design of all three headphones is conceptually very similar with a leather head strap attached via sliders to a metal headband. The gimbals of the Stax are restricted in the amount of rotation to perhaps 15 degrees in either direction, while neither Hifiman is. The Stax has a bit less clamping pressure, and the rotational limiter means the headphone won't flop over (a la the LCD-5) when laid down on its side. In practice, all three headphones are very comfortable to wear! The pads on the SGL Jr. are slightly thinner than on the other two, and its ear pad cavity has a smaller diameter, but I still don't find my ears touching the pads.
In terms of aesthetics and industrial design, I think most people would give the highest marks to the Stax SR-X9000 here. Its fit and finish sets a new standard (by a mile) compared to the previous generation Stax headphones. Objectively, I don't think the build quality of the SR-X9000 is notably better than either Hifiman, but it manages to give off a slightly more premium feel. I really like the SGL Jr's black and silver best as a color scheme among the three, with the wood grain of the SGL Sr. pulling up the rear. I also prefer a rounded cup to an oblong one aesthetically, but everyone's preferences are different, obviously. The bottom line for me is that none of these headphones have aesthetic or ergonomic issues that would dissuade me from owning them. YMMV.
So, the first music I played was the title track and Joshua from Seven Steps to Heaven by Miles Davis. Jazz is a genre I listen to a lot these days, and Miles has always been my favorite artist therein, as he is for millions of others. The scope, quality, and influence of the man's prolific work is genuinely staggering, and he only lived to age 65! Jazz is a genre that works really well on the SGL Jr., and estats in general. The exceptional midrange and treble detail really brings the subtle inflections in the playing to life. If you're one of those people who finds extra detail/resolution unmusical, then I would suggest that estats are probably not going to be your cup of tea. On the contrary, I find that high resolution, along with accurate timbre, usually increases my intellectual/emotional involvement in a performance, particularly with acoustic instruments and/or superb recordings.
In any case, I started by listening to the SR-X9000. The first adjectives that came to mind were refined, balanced, and cinematic with good bass weight. The soundstage was wide, with excellent depth and layering. Instrumental timbre was right on. The horns had bite, without being screechy. The walking bass lines were beautifully rendered with excellent pitch definition and PRAT. Ride cymbals (and the drum kit) seemed a bit recessed (and less shimmery) compared to what I was used to with the SGL Junior. It was immediately clear that Stax has upped its technical game with the X9K. There are no obvious weaknesses here nor any hint of "estat timbre".
Switching to the SGL Jr. for familiar reference, it was immediately clear that a bit of bottom end had been sacrificed while treble energy had been increased. The subjective effects were that the band was playing in a much more live room, and that you were right next to the stage, as opposed to in the tenth row. The bass lines were still intact and grooving, but it was more the sound of the strings and less of the instrument's body. Imaging was less precise than on the Stax, but the increased treble energy gave the music a greater sense of propulsion. It felt as if the musicians were grooving harder.
Next I moved from the SGL Jr. to the SGL, which sort of split the difference between the Stax and the SGL Junior. The bass weight of the Stax was back, but with even better pitch definition. I'm not sure I've heard a headphone render the sound of upright bass more realistically than the the SGL was doing! Cymbal energy (and treble in general) was dialed back a notch or two from the SGL Jr., but imaging was more realistic, about on par with the Stax, although a few rows closer to the stage. The tonal balance and overall precision of the SGL is impossible to overstate. It's kind of like a blend of a race car and a luxury sedan.
OK, I'd just gotten my feet wet with all three headphones, and I already had a huge smile on my face. But how would they fare under a bass "torture test"? I opted for the track Urbanite Kodes by Greg Osby from the album Black Book. Osby is a saxophonist who's made quite a number of straight ahead and more experimental jazz albums. In the mid-90s, he released a couple of albums that attempted to fuse jazz with hip hop, and ended up generally not pleasing the audience for either genre. I really like the funkiness of some of this material, and the referenced track has a deep bass line that is integral to the fabric of the song.
The Osby track doesn't really work at all on the SGL Junior. That headphone's bass simply rolls off at too high a frequency to deliver more than a faint whiff of the goods down low. The Stax X9K fares much better and manages to convey the supporting rhythm of the track, although the very lowest bass notes are just a tad rolled off. The SGL Sr's bass performance on this track was pretty comparable to the Stax X9K. Neither is a bass cannon, but they reach low enough and with enough bass energy to deliver the musical message of this track rather convincingly. The fact that some estats are capable of this was a revelation for me!
DAY 1 SUMMARY / CONCLUSIONS
- Initial impressions of the Stax SR-X9000 and Hifiman Shangri-la were overwhelmingly positive. These are both world-class headphones with no obvious weaknesses!!
- The presentation of the Stax X9K is slightly further from the stage than the SGL. The SGL Jr. sounds like you are on stage with the band.
- The Stax X9K has marginally less treble energy/presence than either Hifiman estat.
- While the SGL Jr. is akin to a great bookshelf speaker, the SGL and X9K are like full-range floor-standers.
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