[astrostar59]

Those numbers seem a bit high. Did you just count people where you saw they raised an issue in the first instance, or did you read through every post to see how their issue unfolded?

There were a few folks who complained about imbalance in the first few months where the imbalance ended up going away, did you include or exclude those?

Also there were a few I recalled where the issue was the amplifier (like the one Arnaud helped someone with). Were those included or excluded?

And there were one or two who seemed to be complaining about imbalance, but when you read their later posts they didn't actually have imbalance or even stax earspeakers (just prospective complaints).

As far as I can tell, and it took an age, I did exclude the resolved ones, and the ones where the amp was to blame. The ones I added to the chart actually stated they sent off the 009s and were either waiting for them to come back or had been repaired and problem fixed. I haven't come across any that had 2 cases which is good. I haven't seen any real answer to the issue (apart from the claimed Wee issue). Seems this is only a best estimate at the numbers, as like I said, any mainstream Stax amp users won't come here, and the Chinese market and probably the Japanese as well have their own compliant threads. My positive from all this is the decreasing instances since 2011, which has to be a good thing. Mine broke but if it makes anyone feel better, I would buy again, but the choice to buy is up to the individual.

 

[donc55]

Does anyone know for sure that STAX USA will not perform SR-009 out of warranty repairs on units bought outside the USA?
 
Can they tell if the SR-009 was sold outside USA by S/N?
 
If this is true STAX USA is being a big prick!

 

[comzee]

  Does anyone know for sure that STAX USA will not perform SR-009 out of warranty repairs on units bought outside the USA?
 
Can they tell if the SR-009 was sold outside USA by S/N?
 
If this is true STAX USA is being a big prick!

If you bought it from Price Japan, for $50 Price Japan will facilitate the back and forth, between you and the Japanese Stax factory.
 
I know Stax U.S. won't honor "in warranty" foreign products, you have to ship those to Japan.
"out of warranty" no idea, I'd send them an email (the U.S. branch). 

 

[HemiSam]

  If you bought it from Price Japan, for $50 Price Japan will facilitate the back and forth, between you and the Japanese Stax factory.
 
I know Stax U.S. won't honor "in warranty" foreign products, you have to ship those to Japan.
"out of warranty" no idea, I'd send them an email (the U.S. branch). 

 
This I want to see....
 
HS

 

[kodreaming]

I can confirm Stax USA will not repair stax bought from Japan... Just emailed them this week. they can tell from SN.

 

[stax fan]

I had the chance to compare a 507, L700 and 009 for some days. I used a modified SRM T1 amplifier (anode resistors changed for floating current sources etc.) for driving the phones.
I must say the price to sound link correlated quite well. The 700 changed quite a lot after some burn in time, but no chance to the 009´s incredible fluid, homogen and detailed uncolored midrange. Sad but true the 009 suffered all of a sudden from the left channel fading ..so I sent it back. Wonder what the fault could be, I think it is not the coating of the film but a contact problem to the film..
I am looking forward to a new 009...
Have fun, Philipp

 

[mulveling]

Nobody should have expected Stax USA to aid in the service of gray-market items (e.g. PJ). From reading forums, it seems they often give crappy service to their own paying customers. They're not a stellar distributor, for sure. I hope Stax Japan can continue to normalize the prices more like they did with the L700, since it's not like you're paying a high markup for great USA service. And actually, $3,825.00 for a new USA 009 (headamp.com), isn't a bad price really -- it's come down a good bit over the years.
 
What sucks is that a lot of us PJ 009 owners were planning to go through Price Japan to act as broker for out-of-warranty service ($50 fee) -- but it appears PJ isn't back online yet, and at this point it's not clear if they ever will be (I hope Kaneda is OK health-wise). 
 
The Stax calculus on risk/price is changing. If I run into trouble in the future and can't secure 009 repair service, I'd just bite the bullet buy a new pair from Justin (Head-Amp) -- I love the 009 too much to be without. 

 

[kodreaming]

Is there no one in North America that can provide repair for Stax ? I know there is at least one guy in UK does this (expensive, but at least it is available).
 
I guess their strict repair policy worked...At this point, I definitely regret not spend another 1.5k to get a new pair from US distributor.  
This thing is basically a ticking financial time bomb that might burn a small hole in your wallet.
 
If it is made in China, I am sure people will be all over it about how ****ty the quality is, but made in Japan somehow gives this thing a special 'not-my-fault, sucks to be a fanboy with money to burn' status...
 
For any wine drinkers out there, doesn't this remind you the whole white burg premox thing ? Clearly, producers have a quality issue, but the demand is still strong, then you have ppl pouring bottle after bottle expensive wine down the drain...

 

[mulveling]

This thing is basically a ticking bomb. 

That's a little extreme. These aren't Singlepower amps here -- a 009 is never going to hurt anyone, and the majority of the 009 have proven to be reliable over the years.

 

[kodreaming]

  That's a little extreme. These aren't Singlepower amps here -- a 009 is never going to hurt anyone, and the majority of the 009 have proven to be reliable over the years.

 
Fair point. Changing my original statement to 'ticking financial timebomb that might burn a small hole in your wallet'...
 
I don't know how sure we are that the 009 have proven to be reliable over the years though.
How many 009 are out there ? 5K or 10K ? I bet there are at least 100 pairs have this problem, 1% of defective rate is not exactly reliable. 
 
What's the story about Singlepower amp ? Is it about people never get their product delievered or some of them really exploded ?

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

   
Fair point. Changing my original statement to 'ticking financial timebomb that might burn a small hole in your wallet'...
 
I don't know how sure we are that the 009 have proven to be reliable over the years though.
How many 009 are out there ? 5K or 10K ? I bet there are at least 100 pairs have this problem, 1% of defective rate is not exactly reliable. 

Hard to say what the real failure rate numbers look like -- probably higher than an HD800, but lower than the plagued Audeze/HifiMan releases. I'm not happy about it, but since I enjoy the 009 by stupid amounts over other headphones, I'm willing to subject myself to the risk.
 
Quote:

What's the story about Singlepower amp ? Is it about people never get their product delievered or some of them really exploded ?
 

A LOT of the former (particularly at the end around 2008-ish), including lots of expensive amps in for upgrades/repairs that disappeared with Mikhail. And a real risk of the latter, though I don't know of a confirmed story of a real out-of-chassis explosion. My upgraded SDS shorted/arced its Black Gate output caps and fried a driver in my Sennheiser HD580 Jubilee because those caps were way under-rated for the tube plate voltage. That was an upgrade Mikhail did near the end, when he was particularly frazzled and seemed cracked-out. He was making a LOT more mistakes than usual by then (and for him, that's saying a lot). Yes, in hindsight it was very stupid to continue dealing with him.

 

[donc55]

I would not trust anyone other than the STAX factory to repair my SR-009.
 
Bad panels can not be fixed, just replaced with new.
 
If STAX was smart, they would just give a couple of new Headphone electrostatic panels to their non-Japan distributors, for a simple swap out on the bad panel.
 
This would save shipping back to the factory in Japan.

 

[PATB]

I could not resist a brand new one for $2800 (including shipping) from PJ last year, so took the risk thinking that PJ charges $50 to serve as an agent for out of warranty repairs.  PJ has been around for 10+ years, and knew it was a one man shop, but did not take into account that it could close down at any minute. Oh well, I am just crossing my fingers.  If mine goes, I will just get another from TTVJ.

 

[donc55]

  I could not resist a brand new one for $2800 (including shipping) from PJ last year, so took the risk thinking that PJ charges $50 to serve as an agent for out of warranty repairs.  PJ has been around for 10+ years, and knew it was a one man shop, but did not take into account that it could close down at any minute. Oh well, I am just crossing my fingers.  If mine goes, I will just get another from TTVJ.

The PriceJapan website is still up.  What has changed?

 

[PATB]

 
The PriceJapan website is still up.  What has changed?

 
I heard that Kanade is sick.  You notice the "We will resume our work from Aig 08" (Aug 8) message on their site?  It is already Sept. 10!