[jdouglas]

So, I posted earlier about mid-summer, regarding my experience with both Ety's ER-4P and ER-6. Unfortunately, my ear is shaped oddly enough that they don't seem to fit me, even with different size foam tips. While earmolds were a possibility, there was no guarantee they'd fix the problem. And finally, I commute around Boston and Cambridge a lot, and the idea of not being able to hear traffic really concerns me (it's hard enough avoiding cars without headphones on).
So... that brings me to the Stax. After trying the Koss KSC-50's for about a month, I received the SR-001 and have been using it now for about a month, with the new 3rd gen iPod. Here's my report:
At first, I didn't really like them, and was thinking of even selling them. The sound quality seemed only marginally better than the KSC-50, treble TRULY is rolled off (as many other reviewers have said), and the amp only lasts about 4 hours before needing new batteries. In addition, fiddling around with having the amp in my backpack (i'm a student) and the ipod in my pocket, sometimes created a tangle of cables, and is distressing when you live in a high-pace city like Boston. I'd also keep forgetting to turn the amp off, after turning off the iPod, so whenever I wanted to use the headphones, I'd find the batteries dead, and have to go trek to the store to buy more.
I might as well comment on the good points here, though. First off, the bass really rocks

I owned the Grados SR-60's a long time ago, and they had really nice bass, as do the KSC-50's. But the Stax is better. I don't know the frequency response on these phones, but I'd say they go a lot deeper than either the Grados or Koss. Maybe almost as deep as the Ety's. You can feel the bass a bit more than the Ety's I think, but yes, they do sort of have that feeling of being weird because you don't physically feel the bass much.
Another good point is the fit. For some people, I understand that these phones don't fit well. For me, however, I find they fit like a glove. You kind of really have to stick them in (not as much as Ety's, but the tips still go inside your ear canal) and once in, they stay put (for me, at least). I haven't even used the headband at all, because I've had no need for it yet. Also, I haven't had any dropouts due to swallowing, coughing, or wind (as some others have). Only with yawning occasionally.
These phones also isolate well. Not so much that I can't hear traffic (unless I'm blasting music), and with the music off, my hearing is only slightly impaired. So, in general, you can still stay in touch with the real world

At the same time tho, they leak very little music. I find that on a bus or subway, I can blast them as loud as I like and nobody near me can hear it. However, in an elevator or waiting room, where there's very little ambient noise, turning it to a moderate volume ensures that I'm not disturbing anyone else. Even at high volumes tho, in this environment, you're not going to leak a great deal of noise, but enough that people near you can sorta hear what you're listening to.

There were some other things, however, which made me finally decide this unit was a keeper. First, I tried a pair of Duracell Ultra alkalines (last about 6 hours) and for whatever reason found the sound significantly improved over the batteries I received with the unit. The second was lowering ambient noise. In a totally quiet room, far more details and nuances will become obvious. Ety's would have an advantage here, because they lower the ambient noise for you. (hehe, i wish ety's fit my ears.) Finally, I'm lucky that on the iPod there is a Treble Boost, which while not perfect, will make the Stax must more neutral. With treble boost, they're pretty balanced, still a little dark-sounding, and definitely not shrill. All these things seemed to transform the sound. There was a sense of spaciousness I hadn't picked up on before. New details made themselves apparent. Instruments became more realistic, had more definition to them (especially guitars, but also other instruments benefited too). But I've also found random times, I'll just be walking around, or going somewhere, and I pick up things I didn't before. I think you definitely get more used to these phones with time, and learn to appreciate what they do well, while downplaying their minuses.
So after living with the Stax for a month, I decided to go back to the Koss, just to see how they compared. Immediately, I realized I didn't like the sound of the Koss: it was grainy, the bass was lean and weak (weird, cuz i thought the opposite when I first got the Koss! i guess everything's relative...). Instruments didn't have as realistic timbre like they did with the Stax. Nonetheless, the Koss are great-sounding headphones, but after living with each headphone for a month, I think there are definite differences that put the Stax above the Koss.
Finally, I purchased some PowerEx NiMH batteries and charger on-line from Thomas Distributing. The batteries themselves are great, I haven't heard a noticeable degradation in quality compared to Duracell's, but what was even better was they included this free handbag. It just so happens this bag is the perfect size to house the Stax amp and iPod (or possibly a cdp and amp). I never realized how much easier this could make life. I have enough batteries to last me a week (6 in my case), plus I keep 4 constantly on the charger, ready to go. The headphones are small enough that they fit nicely in this little handbag. And b/c the iPod and stax amp are together, I don't find myself forgetting to turn the amp off anymore. And because everything is self-contained, there's no tangle of cables. It is a little difficult to control the iPod tho, a remote might come in handy here, but I've found it perfectly manageable thus far. If necessary, sometimes I just carry the ipod in one hand, and the bag in the other. Most times, tho, I just put everything in the bag and carry it with one hand. And rarely, if I'm really lazy, I'll just put the bag in my backpack, to free up both hands. Anyhow, I think a bag to organize stuff can really make a huge difference, if you commute around a city and campus a lot.

So, I think I'll end this by saying that the Stax SR-001 has a lot of potential for some people, but is probably not for most. On one hand, there are Ety's, which probably sound far superior. If Ety's fit your ears, and you're not a 24/7 pedestrian, than great for you. For other people, there's large circumaural phones like the Grados or Senn's. These are also nice, but if you're in a lot of crowded places like subways, elevators, buses, classrooms, etc. they really leak too much sound. And they're also big and bulky, not exactly low-profile. Big dork factor

For the rest of us tho, I'm glad there's the Stax. It's the only phone I've been able to find that leaks very little sound, but lets a good amount of sound in, and is sleek, portable, and comfortable (will vary from person to person, of course). The downsides are the sound quality (somewhere between Koss KSC-50's and Ety's, I'd say, assuming you have access to a Treble Boost) and extra hassle of an amp.

 

[Trawlerman]

Great review. Many thanks.

I've had a pair of SR-001s for aoround five years now and love them.

 

[edstrelow]

I agree with most of your observations about these phones. I have used them for about 2 years now and have had several pairs of stats over the years. At their current prices from Japan, they are a great bargain. They have many of the best features of good electrostatics but at a very reasonable price. For years electrostatics were considered "high end,' but I doubt that any comparably good dynamics can be had for anything close to the current price, certainly by the time you add a headphone amp, which is included in the SR-001.

I tend to agree they have good bass, not as good as the Stax 404, but still excellent. Some of what helps them is that they are efficient compared to most stats and that gives them good dynamics, as long as their batteries are not too run down. They can of course be powered by an external power source and that tends to also help bass/dynamics. I generally feel that the cleanness of electrostatic sound makes the bass come alive and sound realistic, more than comparable dynamics. With the 404's and even the 001's I often seem to feel the bass in my chest region even though I am sure the phones can't be putting out that much energy.

You don't mention your interconnect between player and amp. I found that the short Headroom mini-miniplug helps improve the somewhat attenuated treble over a stock cable. There may even better interconnects for them. Anyone out there made any comparisons?

 

[jdouglas]

Interconnect is just a stock mini-to-mini. I have both a short one (not from Headroom) and another, which is about 3 or 4 feet. If there's a difference, it's subtle, at least on my setup. I know the person I purchased mine off of used a Kimber mini-to-mini cable with the Stax, and was very happy with it (he's sugano on this forum). For me, anyhow, I have to deal with the fact that the iPod is not that great of a source (the amp section has a sort of tinny and thin sound to it), and the quality of some of my mp3's don't help the issue much. Hence, I don't really think the Kimber cable is a great choice for me, or at least its not very cost-effective (it's a $50 cable, I believe).
Same for the external power supply: I've heard of a customized battery pack or power supply that can give the voltage the Stax want (I think they want 2.0V?), and this would probably improve the sound. But for me its not practical, b/c I use these strictly for portable purposes. At home, where I'm not under the limitations of size, or leaking sound, or a sub-par source, I have far more options, and would definitely choose something other than the SR-001.
I think if I were using the SR-001's with a top-notch source, probably both the cable and power supply upgrades would definitely make sense.

 

[edstrelow]

The Headroom cable is the "plastics one" and it is $19.99 on their site. I found it a notable step up from the stck cable I got from a prior owner, especially in treble performance.

As to how these stack up with other phones, Stax makes the phone itself with their regular plugs, so it can be run off other Stax amps. I think it is designated SR-003 although it is not on the current Stax site. I use one with an old Stax SRDP amp for use with a portable DVD player, generally with a Sennheisser 360 headphone surround sound adapter. I find the set-up is great.

As regards the little SR001 amp, I believe it is considered a good piece of equipment. I demolished my original SR001 phones in an accident and ended up selling the amp to a more technically knowledgeable person, who used the amp to run other big Stax phones, Lambdas I think, using a homebuilt adapter plug. He claimed that the performance specs on the little amp were very good and that was pleased with what they did for the big phones. I think he used an outboard power supply.

Because the SR001 set-up was so cheap from Japan, I then just bought another complete set through Audio Cubes to replace the first set.

 

[slindeman]

Edstrelow,

Many people have complained that the SR-001 Mk2 system has a severely rolled off treble, and I wanted to know if you experienced this and if so would you attribute it more to the small portable amp or to the headphones. Since you have both the SR-001 and SR-003 you'd be the one who could say. The reason I ask is that I recently acquired the SR-003 with a SRM-212 amp, and I don't experience rolled-off treble at all. Since the SR-003 is identical to the SR-001 except for the plug, I was expecting to get a more rolled-off treble based on the reviews I've seen. I haven't compared the SR-003 directly to my SR-404 yet, but have compared it to an older electret and it definitely has more treble energy than the electrets. In any case, I think the SR-003 sounds great, better than HD600 in my opinion, and not far off from what I remember of the Etymotics I tried last year.

 

[edstrelow]

I think that both phones roll off about the same. I agree, the phones are identical except for their plug.

I noticed last night when I was listening to the 003's through a regular stax amp (the SRM3,) that it sounded as if there was more treble on that system, so maybe the little portable Stax amp also has some treble roll-off.

Other explanations could be the cd-amp interconnects, I have much better interconnects with the big Stax amp.

As well, with all products and especially electrostatics, there are significant changes in tone quality after 1/2 hr warm up. Generally I find that a cold system has less and harsher treble. As the system warms up the treble is more extended and smoother.

I suspect most people don't warm up the portable system because it woudl drain the batteries so there may be more cold listening. I generally try to turn the bigger systems on for 10-30 minutes and play them loud for a few seconds before I use them.

Also the 2 AA cells on the little amp may not give as extended a frequency response as a transformer. Stax recommends a 4.5 volt external source even though the batteries only give a max of 3 volts. The times I have used an external power supply with the little Stax amp they seemed to show more treble and dynamics.

I don't find the treble oll-off to be a big problem. Since the phones are so fast, they do not seem dull-sounding as one might otherwise expect. There is a lot of coveremphasised treble on recordings, especially rock/pop so the treble filtering effect of the phones is probably useful with much of that kind of music although less desireable with most classical recordings. If these phones had the same treble response as say the Lambda's, I think many listeners would find that the combination of overemphasised treble and poorer treble reproduction from portable sources would sound very harsh.

 

[joelongwood]

I. also, do not find the treble roll-off on the Baby Stax to be overly objectionable. The exquisite midrange and punchy bass more than make up for it, IMHO.
As for what causes the treble roll-off, I believe the chief suspect to be the amp. For whatever technical reason that I can't begin to comprehend, when I hooked up a JMT-built CHA47 portable amp between the PCDP and the Stax portable amp, the treble response was not nearly as rolled-off. To my ears, it sounded rather extended, actually. But carrying two amps around is a bit much, so I'll live with the roll-off.

 

[jdouglas]

Just for fun, I decided to measure the low-frequency response of my stax today. i found it still audible down to 22 hz, and pretty much no attenuation at 24 hz!!! that's pretty amazing for a headphone, in my opinion.

about that treble response, i'm just thankful that ipod's have an equalizer. i went to watch a dvd last night with the stax (and couldn't eq anything) and found the treble roll-off very annoying.

 

[Trawlerman]

Quote:

Originally posted by edstrelow snip...... Also the 2 AA cells on the little amp may not give as extended a frequency response as a transformer. Stax recommends a 4.5 volt external source even though the batteries only give a max of 3 volts. The times I have used an external power supply with the little Stax amp they seemed to show more treble and dynamics.

As you have pointed out, the Stax SR001s when running batteries only give 3 volts but the mains supply gives the recommended 4.5 volts.

Does anybody think it feasible to build an external battery box to complement the SRM001s built in one. This battery box would carry 3 x 1.5v AA cels giving the 4.5volts required.

It may be worth considering connecting the 3 x AA cells in series as per normal to give the required 4.5 volts. Additionally you could the add another bank of 3 x AA cels and connect this in parallel so that you have 6 cells in two banks but only giving out 4.5 volts overall.

Come to think of it a pair of 9 Volt PP3s cells could be wires in parallel and built into a box the same size as the Stax amplifier, with the output voltage dropped down to give 4.5 volts. I would think that battery life would be considerable this way.



I think this would probably a reasonable way of making not only the battery life better but also for helping the amplifier drive the phones that much better without having as much treble rolloff.


Am I crazy? Probably so i'll go back to my corner now

 

[jdouglas]

nope, not crazy at all

setmenu has built one of these external battery packs, there's some info on it if you search the forums.

 

[Sugano-san]

Quote:

Originally posted by Trawlerman Come to think of it a pair of 9 Volt PP3s cells could be wires in parallel and built into a box the same size as the Stax amplifier, with the output voltage dropped down to give 4.5 volts. I would think that battery life would be considerable this way.

I am not entirely sure that this would work as envisaged.