[Hakone]

Hello fellows.
I have a bit of an unusual question it seems. You see I have finally gotten around to acquiring a Stax set which is currently on its way, but this has brought up a tiny concern. My girlfriend can not wait to sample them, but being made aware of the voltage located that close to her ears made her somewhat worried. She's concerned the metal in her ear piercings might be a bit too conductive and eventually lead to her getting shocked.
 
Now I must admit I do not know much about situations where this might happen, but is there really a chance that you could get exposed to the current of the headphones? And what would really be necessary for such a thing to occur?
 
Thanks in advance for any enlightening answer!

 

[DaBomb77766]

While the voltage is relatively high, I don't think the amount of current going through them is enough to cause any worry.  You'd need a helluva lot more voltage to get an arc from the drivers to her earrings, and even if it did it would probably just be a painful shock at worst.  I'm sure Stax has thought of this when they designed these.
 
Anyway, I've never heard of anyone having any problems like this.  If it were a problem at all it'd probably be everywhere by now.

 

[bcg27]

A shock one would get from rubbing your feet on a carpet and touching a doorknob is caused by a voltage at least an order of magnitude higher than what is present in stax phones.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

A shock one would get from rubbing your feet on a carpet and touching a doorknob is caused by a voltage at least an order of magnitude higher than what is present in stax phones.

 
Even that would be an understatement, if I recall electrostats require around 900 volts, whereas electrostatic distcharge from, say, rubbing your socks on a carpet is approximately 20,000 volts.  But still, the amount of energy involved in that would be miniscule compared to the amount going through the Stax headphones.  Still, the voltage simply is not high enough to cause any concern.

 

[deadlylover]

There's this clear protective bit on the driver that's supposed to protect from humidity and whatnot, and because of that, there shouldn't be any contact with the stators in any way. There's also the cloth/foam mesh and a metal grill getting in the way of things. It's not quite the same, but I used to wear my 202's with wet hair all the time (too lazy to dry), I'm not sure if they liked that but I've never gotten zapped before (or maybe I have, but I've never noticed =P).
 
 

 

[Hakone]

Actually, I think the voltage in question is 450 volts. At least I think that was the voltage of the 303