I also thought that the STAX would be somewhat cheaply made before I tried out my first pair. When I actually got them I was pleasantly surprised with the quality, though they certainly aren't built as strongly as dynamic cans such as Grados. The grill/enclosure seems to be made of a hard plastic and is a nice dark brown color (And not that ugly brown in the stock picture). The earpads are nice and comfortable, but they come a TAD bit loose/off on the very top edges every now and then (They seem to separate from that white adhesive; pushing the edges of the pads against the adhesive re-seals the gap for a while. It'd be nice if this wasn't a problem, but then again it's so trivial that I'm not sure if it can be considered a problem). The leather headband is thinner than I expected, but seems to be of a decent/mediocre quality. You might attribute its thinness to being low-quality. I heard a lot about the awful creaking noises, but I've yet to hear such noises (And the STAX fart, for that matter). The plastic band on the very top seems to be made of cheap plastic. It isn't terribly bad, but if something's going to break on my 404's, I'm pretty sure it's going to be this band first.
Overall pretty good quality, but you just have to be more careful with these electrostats than with dynamic cans. I'd like to think that people here are careful/respectful of their headphones, but from the pictures and national meet videos I've seen, that's CERTAINLY not the case (People putting their headphones on cats, placing headphones on the floor, wearing headphones around their necks, taking off and putting on headphones so quickly and without consideration that the headphone bands seem to be stretched out for a second while they are being put on/taken off, letting headphone cabls ride on/rest on their clothing, etc.). A head-fi meet would certainly be hell for me in this respect, and I'd be dead frightened to bring my cans and put them in the hands of these kinds of head-fiers (Yes, I may be a bit extreme here, but I like to keep my gear in the highest quality possible and really respect my gear, especially considering that we're talking about headphones that cost several hundred dollars here...).
