[BoyNamedSue]

Stax should seriously consider a limited edition of the sigmas with updated drivers. They offer a unique listening experience. I've owned a few other speaker-like headphones (mysphere, raal) and none can do bass like the sigmas with full bodied mids.

 

[padam]

https://www.eslabhk.com/product-page/stock-es-sigma-electrostatic-headphone
ES Lab HK already does that, you can choose 404 or L700 drivers (depending on your budget).

 

[BoyNamedSue]

Yeah, I heard of the eslabs sigma. Good to have option of their driver swap service if old sigma drivers give way. Just wishful fantasy that stax continue to innovate their brilliant designs of old, but I can't imagine designs like the sigma having mass appeal. Wearing a sigma now is a meme. The old stax would take these kinds of risk but perhaps thats why they got into their financial hole (?).

 

[padam]

They simply don't make products with mechanical damping anymore and Sigmas wouldn't work without them.

 

[BoyNamedSue]

Creating acoustically treated "rooms" for each ear was pretty ballsy for its time. This concept has so much unexplored potential.

 

[BoyNamedSue]

When i first received my pair, the mineral wool was bulging out and sound was muffled and all over the place, as if artist were at different locations of the room as opposed to on same stage. Tucking in/reshaping the wool helped straighten out the sound to be more coherent. Makes me wonder of the many possibities of type, amount, and placement of material, as well as shape of the chambers (3d printing?) can have on soundstage.

Also, I consider my sigma pro as ES version, ES for "Ed Strelow" as I gave my pair the full sorbothane treatment as detailed in his thread. This tightened up the "atmosphere" of sound and mitigated some weird resonances. Along with EQ, the tonality is now more neutral (i.e. less warm) and sound images are more clearly dileneated. The frontal placement of drivers really adds to the illusion that I am face to face with the artists, which is very connecting to music and gives a "you are there" feeling.

 

[timb5881]

I asked over in the Stax thread and I will ask here as well.
What music type gives the best results of what a Sigma can do?