[Rhamnetin]

Yes I went back and forth between the Carbon and CC however after several exchanges with him I also ended up with a "plain old" generic Carbon

How do you like the BiPolar? What appeals to me is the fact that it will internally convert a single ended source to balanced out. This is the main reason I did not go with the GSX and went with the Moon instead. My sources are not balanced out

Yeah I was also looking at the GS-X Mk2, but wouldn't get to make full use of it yet due to my single ended DAC. Justin told me the upcoming GS-1 revision would convert SE to bal, I tried to be patient but then saw the Pure BiPolar in Birgir's site and caved in. The rest is history!

I like it enough that I don't plan on buying any other dynamic headphone amps. Like the GS-X Mk2 it just gets out of the way and lets the headphone show what it is capable of. It will open up new dimensions to bass and separation/layering compared to most other amps.

The KGSSHV Carbon will likely be my last electrostatic amp too, and maybe my last headphone amp period.

 

[buzzlulu]

Yes same here - a mirror situation.
I'm waiting for the GS-1 mk2 however I did see that the BiPolar will do what I need with my unbalanced source.
Let's see if I can hold out. I'm not overly thrilled with the Moon I am using - however it does have a remote control

 

[astrostar59]

Congratulations on your carbon purchase guys you will love Stax for sure. I am still waiting on my 009S lol. I do think his carbon are set at 20mA

Hmm, we had comms and you said you preferred 16.5 mA on your Carbon. Just saying.... But I would say the Carbon is super fast and transparent, so IMO not a great match to the 009, a bit too much of a good thing in the upper treble for my taste.

 

[Whitigir]

Hmm, we had comms and you said you preferred 16.5 mA on your Carbon. Just saying.... But I would say the Carbon is super fast and transparent, so IMO not a great match to the 009, a bit too much of a good thing in the upper treble for my taste.

Yes, and I would stay to that, but it is just me though as an individual. It is birgir Carbon we are talking about however . It is best to stay to what the builder recommend

 

[SeaWo|f]

On topic :: so there are what like only 5ish people on here that have gotten the 009S? I am shocked at the lack of impressions

Off topic :: isn't the GSX MKii dual mono? you could use RCA to XLR cables. The purebipolar is much more recent so the PSU and things may be more refined.

 

[mulveling]

On topic :: so there are what like only 5ish people on here that have gotten the 009S? I am shocked at the lack of impressions

Off topic :: isn't the GSX MKii dual mono? you could use RCA to XLR cables. The purebipolar is much more recent so the PSU and things may be more refined.

Sorry for the off topics guys, it’s just hard to not treat this as the new Stax thread
Even if my 009S were still listenable, I've already stated my main opinion on them. Only question mark for me now is 009 vs. 009S on vinyl source + T2. There's a chance I might actually have my T2 in August.

I actually think we'd had a good run of impressions so far. The initial batch of 009S is certainly very limited, plus the market for a $4300 headphone that needs $4500 of specialized amp to drive it (properly) is very small! What more impressions do you need at this point? Buy one for yourself! Lol.

As for the GSX, it's more like quad mono. If you use RCA-to-XLR adapters/cables, you're only utilizing 2 of the 4 modules. No differential drive. That's why it's sub-optimal. As I think JimL mentioned, you can get a Jensen transformer box to concert an SE signal to balanced before you feed it into the GSX. I've used Jensens, and while it's better to not have to use them, I think in some cases they do buy back some of the performance you'd otherwise lose in using only half the amp's circuitry - it likely depends on the headphones you're trying to drive. Easy headphones like the Utopia, I think you might still be better off without the Jensen box and extra interconnects, even running only 2 out of 4 modules. I've tried this on a HeadAmp Gilmore Balanced Reference (predecessor to GSX) and Headroom Max Balanced (i.e. the last BlockHead).

Stax amps (Carbon, KGSShv, BHSE, T2) are different - pretty much all of these can take an SE or balanced signal (even via RCA-to-XLR adapters) and still drive headphones to their full potential. In fact that's how I use the BHSE with my turntable, and will do the same with T2.

 

[Whitigir]

Wait...did you grab Purk T2 LOL ? Or is it the one in the sell add

 

[mulveling]

Wait...did you grab Purk T2 LOL ? Or is it the one in the sell add

He's in Thailand right now, what's he gonna do? LOL j/k, I'm having a beautiful new one built for me, classic KG DIY-run style with an extra couple of nice finishing touches. No minifications here!

 

[SeaWo|f]

I will be interested to hear what you think of the 009S on the T2. Not that I will ever source or build one.

I like to have a very large amount of impressions before making a jump on anything. There are so many factors setting aside personal preferences when people do reviews or leave impressions. I figure that it is safe to bet on the general trends. Although those can be influenced by particularly forceful and opinionated people..

 

[Whitigir]

He's in Thailand right now, what's he gonna do? LOL j/k, I'm having a beautiful new one built for me, classic KG DIY-run style with an extra couple of nice finishing touches. No minifications here!

Awesome, Staying original! Welcome to the club!

 

[isquirrel]

Qobuz sounds much better than Tidal and has a much larger catalogue than HD Tracks. It also lets you download in many different formats and revisit and download the same Track/Album as many times as you wish.

PM me for details of how to access it if its not in your area yet.

 

[Hubert481]

What is the difference between Quobuz Hifi and Tidal Hifi
I thought - it should sound same

 

[buzzlulu]

What is the difference between Quobuz Hifi and Tidal Hifi
I thought - it should sound same

I cannot explain it (as I currently do not have a Qobuz subscription although I will shortly when Tidal goes belly up ) however on both of my two channel forums, Naim and Linn, almost universally people state that Qobuz sounds better than Tidal.
As stated in my previous posts all tracks on Tidal on digitally watermarked (I am sure the same is true on Qobuz however possibly with a different system) and it is this which many allude to as causing some of the deterioration in quality of Tidal tracks (when compared to the same tracks on Qobuz).

Qobuz HiFi and Tidal HiFi are the same in that both are standard CD resolution. Qobuz has an enhanced tier, Qobuz Sublime, which adds hi res 24/96 tracks to the streaming options.
While Tidal now touts streaming "hi res" their version of hi res is MQA encoded. This is significantly different from 24/96 hi res uncompressed.

 

[t1174]

009s seem to be just a tuned 009. But my system do tune for 009. It makes 009s become to soft. Do I need to tune again for 009s to get the benefit of 009s and left 009 behind？ or if I do tune it, but just got a same result?

 

[Rhamnetin]

I like planar magnetic bass impact (e.g. ZMF Ori) and strong dynamics in general, so my Stax setup is designed to bring the most impact out of whatever headphone is in use (KGSSHV Carbon, currently using a Chord Hugo 2 which isn't laid back in the slightest). So I do wonder if I'd find the SR-009S too soft or not, at least relative to the SR-009.