[vinyllp33]

Total agreement; I use the Stax SRE-925S (5 Meter) matching extension cable with my 009's and BHSE and there is zero difference in sound quality as compared to plugging the phones straight in.

And I get the added benefit of being able to chill on the couch while listening!

 

[Surge74]

This is an incorrect and misleading statement. Stax manufactures extension cables for a reason

Really? You really think extension cables don't degrade the sound quality because they are made by Stax?!

Every time you increase the length and even more troubling, add another connection you are degrading the sound quality. Especially with an analog amplified signal.

 

[NoPants]

Really? You really think extension cables don't degrade the sound quality because they are made by Stax?!

Every time you increase the length and even more troubling, add another connection you are degrading the sound quality. Especially with an analog amplified signal.

please post your impressions after shortening the stock cable, hard wiring to the BHSE, and strapping it to your back to minimize the length propagated
 
 
 
But in all seriousness, do spend the extra money to buy the official cables. I did some digging some time back and meeting proper specs for their wires isn't trivial
Ironically enough it's digital signals that potentially suffer more from long cable runs in this regime

 

[Rico613]

Total agreement; I use the Stax SRE-925S (5 Meter) matching extension cable with my 009's and BHSE and there is zero difference in sound quality as compared to plugging the phones straight in.

And I get the added benefit of being able to chill on the couch while listening!

 That's my plan exactly!  Chilling on the couch listening to tunes, sigh . . . 
 
 . . . . Now if only I had an amp . . .

  
 
lol . . .

 

[dude_500]

Unlike in conventional headphones where the cable does not measurably affect the output of the headphones, in electrostatic headphones it actually can definitely play a major role. It depends entirely on the amplifier whether or not it will matter. Electrostatic drivers are capacitors, and the cables are capacitors. As it turns out, the cable is quite a fraction of the total capacity of the headphones. Increasing this capacitance may or may not change the sound quality. Electrostatic drivers run at such high voltages, that slewing the voltage in these capacitors actually takes milliamps or even tens of milliamps of current (might not sound like much, but we're at hundreds of volts!). If the amplifier has sufficient drive power and is well designed, it really shouldn't change anything. If it's a lower power amp or lower design quality, it might be at least measurable.
 
In terms of conventional headphones, imagine a case with a 300 ohm driver, where the cable is 100 ohms. Changing this cable to 300 ohms by extending it would change the impedance of the system and would change how it is loading the amplifier. Fortunately for conventional dynamic drivers, cables are <<1 ohm.
 
Given the bias currents and topology of the Blue Hawaii, it is my opinion that there might be a very slight measurable difference using a 15 foot cable, but I would be shocked if the difference could be perceived by any human (of course assuming you're unaware of the difference in cable length). On the other hand, if one were using a Stax transformer box, I would be quite surprised if the average listener couldn't tell a difference.

 

[David1961]

Total agreement; I use the Stax SRE-925S (5 Meter) matching extension cable with my 009's and BHSE and there is zero difference in sound quality as compared to plugging the phones straight in.

And I get the added benefit of being able to chill on the couch while listening!

I also have the SRE-925S and I've also found when using it there's no difference in the SQ. However, because my recliner is at the side of my audio equipment, I hardly use that extension cable.

 

[rgs9200m]

Just from personal experience, even though I dearly wanted the convenience of a longer cable for my 007mk1 and now 009 phone,
every darn time I tried to use the stax extension cord the sound was degraded: weaker, smaller, closed in. 
I tried many times over the years with the same results. 
Of course, this was just with my stax 007t amps. Maybe a BHSE could deal with it better; I don't know.
 
I even thought something was wrong with my particular cords, so I bought new ones, and had the same results.
 
(Curiously, I have fine results with good Moon Audio extension cords for my Grado phones. Even 10-foot extensions work great; much better than the Grado extension cords.)

 

[Rico613]

^ You might try cleaning the cable ends and especially the jack on the 007t with Deoxit.  I use Dexoit with a 1/8" tip swab on jacks, and tube sockets, works great.  

 

[paulchiu]

Naturally, you clean the male end of the cords with Dexoit cleaning fluids, but do you clean the female ends?  Is it safe to drop some into the connections?
 
Quote:

  ^ You might try cleaning the cable ends and especially the jack on the 007t with Deoxit.  I use Dexoit with a 1/8" tip swab on jacks, and tube sockets, works great.  

 

[rgs9200m]

Thanks. That's something new to me.

 

[Rico613]

  Naturally, you clean the male end of the cords with Dexoit cleaning fluids, but do you clean the female ends?  Is it safe to drop some into the connections?
 
Quote:

  ^ You might try cleaning the cable ends and especially the jack on the 007t with Deoxit.  I use Dexoit with a 1/8" tip swab on jacks, and tube sockets, works great.  

 
I've done that and then worried what it is doing inside (probably nothing).  The better way would be to use a lint free swab such as these.  BTW I use the Deoxit D 5% to clean old contact surfaces and Deoxit Gold 100% on new contacts.
 
http://store.caig.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.206/.f

 

[bearFNF]

Add me to the waiting list...just ordered mine a few days ago...

 

[fhuang]

  Just from personal experience, even though I dearly wanted the convenience of a longer cable for my 007mk1 and now 009 phone,
every darn time I tried to use the stax extension cord the sound was degraded: weaker, smaller, closed in. 
I tried many times over the years with the same results. 
Of course, this was just with my stax 007t amps. Maybe a BHSE could deal with it better; I don't know.
 
I even thought something was wrong with my particular cords, so I bought new ones, and had the same results.
 
(Curiously, I have fine results with good Moon Audio extension cords for my Grado phones. Even 10-foot extensions work great; much better than the Grado extension cords.)

 
 
is it possible to have moon audio(or other vendor) to make an extension cable for stax? 
 
(yea grado extionsion cable is awful)

 

[Rico613]

  Just from personal experience, even though I dearly wanted the convenience of a longer cable for my 007mk1 and now 009 phone,
every darn time I tried to use the stax extension cord the sound was degraded: weaker, smaller, closed in. 
I tried many times over the years with the same results. 
Of course, this was just with my stax 007t amps. Maybe a BHSE could deal with it better; I don't know.
 
I even thought something was wrong with my particular cords, so I bought new ones, and had the same results.
 
(Curiously, I have fine results with good Moon Audio extension cords for my Grado phones. Even 10-foot extensions work great; much better than the Grado extension cords.)

 
Another possibility is a bad STAX cable.  Anyone else having this kind of experience with the STAX extension? 
 
I used my extension very briefly when I auditioned the LL long ago.  I don't recall any issues, but I wasn't testing the cable extension specifically.

 

[TheAttorney]

The Stax entry-level round extension cable does degrade the sound. It's not the end of the world, but it's noticeable.
The ribbon cable is better - exactly how good I don't know because I've deliberately not tried to do a direct comparison, for the following reason:
 
IMO cables can make a subtle-but-significant impact on SQ. And I've spent a pretty penny on cable improvements upstream. But sometimes you have to draw a line. For me, it's essential to use an extension cable at all times - the psychological effect of freedom of movement more than counteracts any downgrade in SQ. Because this is essential and I have no choice, there's no point in me worrying about it - why worry about something you can't do anything about?
 
Electrostatic cables need to handle much higher voltages than usual - there are different parameters at play. I guess that's why no other company has provided alternatives. Also you need to be a soldering expert to replace the cable completely. So for now, Stax is the only choice, so I don't worry about it.