Stax Interview and Factory tour 12/12/12

[gurus]

Quote:

 
   If there are any dealers or past or present out there who had intimate dealings with Stax in the heydays please post up or start a new thread with what you know of the companies workings in those times.

 
I was involved with a chain of 3 high end stores in Ontario Canada that carried the complete Stax lineup. One of the few dealers selling Stax at that time in the late 70's. Being in the audio business, I ended up being friends with Mr. Harold Morishi*a and his wife Ruby and had dinner in his apartment in Toronto a couple of times. Morishi*a, a diminutive little man in size but with a big heart and a 6th degree black belt in Karate with the gentlest of demeanor,  was responsible for introducing the Stax product line in North America and was the sole distributor for the product line in Canada (and for USA on and off through the years till his death a few years ago.)
 
Missing from the line up are the Stax Class A amps in the factory tour pic of Stax products. That confirms the rumour, as per Harold, that maybe they were not original Stax products but were sourced in an OEM/Marketing arrangement for distribution through Stax channels in N. America. I did own a
Stax DA-300 Class A amp for a year or two. I also currently own Stax speakers cable (courtesy of Harold) that were never marketed in N America, probably the only pair of its kind. These cables also seem to missing in the pic of the Stax lineup. So maybe another outsourced product by Stax.

 

[gurus]

Double post!

 

[arnaud]

Quote:

Missing from the line up are the Stax Class A amps in the factory tour pic of Stax products. That confirms the rumour, as per Harold, that maybe they were not original Stax products but were sourced in an OEM/Marketing arrangement for distribution through Stax channels in N. America. I did own a
Stax DA-300 Class A amp for a year or two. I also currently own Stax speakers cable (courtesy of Harold) that were never marketed in N America, probably the only pair of its kind. These cables also seem to missing in the pic of the Stax lineup. So maybe another outsourced product by Stax.

 
The power amps were there, we even had a chat about it with Suzuki-san, it's just that we're missing one of the shelves else the bottom of one in the pics for some reason.

 

[wuwhere]

Quote:

 
I was involved with a chain of 3 high end stores in Ontario Canada that carried the complete Stax lineup. One of the few dealers selling Stax at that time in the late 70's. Being in the audio business, I ended up being friends with Mr. Harold Morishi*a and his wife Ruby and had dinner in his apartment in Toronto a couple of times. Morishi*a, a diminutive little man in size but with a big heart and a 6th degree black belt in Karate with the gentlest of demeanor,  was responsible for introducing the Stax product line in North America and was the sole distributor for the product line in Canada (and for USA on and off through the years till his death a few years ago.)
 
Missing from the line up are the Stax Class A amps in the factory tour pic of Stax products. That confirms the rumour, as per Harold, that maybe they were not original Stax products but were sourced in an OEM/Marketing arrangement for distribution through Stax channels in N. America. I did own a
Stax DA-300 Class A amp for a year or two. I also currently own Stax speakers cable (courtesy of Harold) that were never marketed in N America, probably the only pair of its kind. These cables also seem to missing in the pic of the Stax lineup. So maybe another outsourced product by Stax.

 
They also made ESL speakers, Stax F81 and F83.
Stax ESS speakers
 

 

[wuwhere]

These
 

 

[gurus]

Quote:

 
They also made ESL speakers, Stax F81 and F83.
Stax ESS speakers
 

 
Yeah, I remember them.

 

[wuwhere]

Quote:

 
Yeah, I remember them.

 
At one time I was looking for ESL speakers, there were ML, Acoustats, Quads, others and Stax but they were not as popular as the others. But I remember Stax making ESL speakers.

 

[Magick Man]

Tell `em I'll give them $30k for that T2.

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

interesting!

 

[wuwhere]

They tried to diversify but they just could not afford to do so.

 

[Hutnicks]

Very good. Thanks for that reply. Do you have any idea what the staff count was in the 70's 80's?
 
I suspect we may have run into each other at some time As I am an Ontarian and have either done business with or just plain made a nuisance of myself at just about every high end shop in this province
 
 From the interview I suspect they are quite gun shy about new innovations due to the Sigma debacle. I wonder if that was the tuning point in their history.
 

 

[Hutnicks]

They sure did and not a bad one at that. Unfortunately for them Quad owned, and pretty much still does own the ESL market. For good reason too. Mr Walker had sense enough to stay out of the earspeaker market though

 

[Currawong]

The guy who designed the big amps (at least if I understood that it was those amps he designed) now owns a company called Fidelix that I've reported about at the Tokyo festivals. He also worked in Sony with the owner of TakeT who makes the odd, but impressive H2 headphones. I found all this out by accident when had the crazy idea to suggest they pair up to design a combined system. The ironic thing about the old Stax hi-fi gear is that in this day and age when such crazy expensive gear is the norm they could have been extremely successful with it.

 

[arturo71]

Thank you very much. I've looking for this report for some weeks.

Beyond the interest of this interview, which is clear, I find it important that manufacturers open their gates to members of internet communities like this one and not only to professional reviewers.

 

[gurus]

Quote:

They sure did and not a bad one at that. Unfortunately for them Quad owned, and pretty much still does own the ESL market. For good reason too. Mr Walker had sense enough to stay out of the earspeaker market though

 
 
Quote:

 
At one time I was looking for ESL speakers, there were ML, Acoustats, Quads, others and Stax but they were not as popular as the others. But I remember Stax making ESL speakers.

 
One of the best electrostatic speakers during those days was the Dayton Wright Mk 11/111. ( http://www.dayton-wright.com/XG-8-Mk3.html ) It was the only one that could actually produce real bass. Unfortunately like most electrostatics during that time the reliability was pretty poor. Dayton Wright also made a mighty fine preamp (tho plagued with Emi/Rf problems). I owned the preamp but not the speakers.
 
Though, I did own a pair of Accoustats.  And the brand Accoustat is alive and well in China. At least it was in 2005, when I ran into owners who were displaying the product at a booth during the Guangzhou Import and Export Fair.  I will see if I can dig up some pictures.