[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl *Draws sword*Then a duel it shall be!

HAH![whips out lightsaber, which flickers badly due to vintage dirty potentiometers, making cool SNKX-KNXS sounds as it does so] Uh, waitaminnit-- gotta get my can of DeoxiT--


Quote:

It's the non-Pro version. I've already emailed him about it, and he's going to correct the listing.

Yeah, another eBayer gets carried away. At least he had the decency to take the auction down. And at least it's another SR-X Mk3.


Quote:

All going well a 4070 shall be making it's way to me in a few weeks...

Wow! You may be the first person to buy one, anywhere. Be sure to report back on that one.


Quote:

everyone in the 80s was buying Lambdas, Sigmas, and Alphas/Gammas, and the SR-X Pro kindof got forgotten about.

I don't even remember seeing it in the sales flyers. Never saw one in the flesh. I've wondered if it was sold by special order only. But yes, the Lambda Pro got all the press and buzz. Well, it had bass. Another type of masking effect.

Quote:

But, I mean, who doesn't want a supra-aural electrostatic.

You can't argue with a question like that. Who indeed? Who indeed worth mentioning?


Quote:

I wonder if they'll sound like electrostatic Grados?

Oh. Sure. Electrostatic Grados. [commences manic giggling]


Quote:

Incidentally, the Gamma is the Alpha. Gamma is the overseas name.

Gosh. Gaijin Alfas. [looks at Stax History site] The Alfa Excellent has funny squared-off earpads.


Quote:

I wouldn't have a clue how they compare to the rest of Stax's line.

I saw the Gammas in stereo boutiques in the US. Apparently they didn't make much of an impact in the market, or on people's memories or ears.


Quote:

Another rare old Stax that doesn't get talked about - the Lambda Spirit. I saw one of these on Yahoo Japan a while back. From what I can gather it was designed as a slightly cheaper version of the Lambda sig.

It looks just like my Lambda Nova Basic, with the little Xh amp. What makes you think it was a version of the Signature? What info do you have on it?

Here's an interesting one: the SR-80MX. Looks like the electret SR-80 but instead of the SRD-4 transformer box it's a variant of the Xh amp. --why? Another electret model that sank like a rock was the SR-50, a closed-back design. Bet it sounded terrible.

 

[smeggy]

Yeah, I noticed the Alfa and gamma had different earpads and different release dates, a couple of years apart if memory serves. I guess I will get a SR-X one of these days. They are certainly easier to find than Sigma Pros that's for sure, miserable buggers just don't want to let those go

Talking about supra-aural, I believe my old Micro-Seiki 'stats were semi-supra and rested on the ears. I can't remember exactly as it was a long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away. As I recall they were very bright and had little bass to speak of, still, in an era of muffled Senns they were nicely detailed though horribly expensive for my level of income at the time.

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta Wow! You may be the first person to buy one, anywhere. Be sure to report back on that one.

There are a few people who have them, they just tend to keep it quiet (probably to avoid having headphone maniacs pestering them for information).

I have a relative in Japan right now whom I've asked to get a set for me. Unfortunately, they don't speak Japanese, which will make things nice and easy...

Anyone know any good Stax stores in Nagoya?

Quote:

I don't even remember seeing it in the sales flyers. Never saw one in the flesh. I've wondered if it was sold by special order only. But yes, the Lambda Pro got all the press and buzz. Well, it had bass. Another type of masking effect.

Weren't the Sigmas the ones with all the bass?

Quote:

Oh. Sure. Electrostatic Grados. [commences manic giggling]

Hehe.

Quote:

Gosh. Gaijin Alfas. [looks at Stax History site] The Alfa Excellent has funny squared-off earpads.

I like the Alfa pads better. Gammas look so boring.

Quote:

I saw the Gammas in stereo boutiques in the US. Apparently they didn't make much of an impact in the market, or on people's memories or ears.

That seems to be the case. People who bought SR-X series phones still rave about how good they are today, but all I've heard from Gamma owners is muted comments like "they are quite nice", "not bad", etc.

Quote:

It looks just like my Lambda Nova Basic, with the little Xh amp. What makes you think it was a version of the Signature? What info do you have on it?

What I was intending was that they were like the Nova Basic/202. Seems quite likely. But only a couple of years after they came out the Signature and Spirit were replaced with the Nova series, which'll explain their rarity, I guess.

Quote:

Here's an interesting one: the SR-80MX. Looks like the electret SR-80 but instead of the SRD-4 transformer box it's a variant of the Xh amp. --why? Another electret model that sank like a rock was the SR-50, a closed-back design. Bet it sounded terrible.

Stax's electret collection was so hit-and-miss. Some of them were bloody good, and some weren't even close. It must have been a minefield back in the day to buy one of the good ones.

I'd be game for hearing the SR-50. I'd also like to try the Koss ESP-6 and ESP-9. Just to see what old-school closed 'stats sound like. And then I could compare them to the 4070

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy Yeah, I noticed the Alfa and gamma had different earpads and different release dates, a couple of years apart if memory serves. I guess I will get a SR-X one of these days. They are certainly easier to find than Sigma Pros that's for sure, miserable buggers just don't want to let those go

It could be worse, you could be after an SR-Omega. I've seen two since I started looking, and only one was going for a sane price... On the other hand I've seen about four Sigma Pros in varing conditions without even really looking for them.

Quote:

Talking about supra-aural, I believe my old Micro-Seiki 'stats were semi-supra and rested on the ears. I can't remember exactly as it was a long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away. As I recall they were very bright and had little bass to speak of, still, in an era of muffled Senns they were nicely detailed though horribly expensive for my level of income at the time.

The Micro Seiki were electrets, weren't they?

 

[smeggy]

As far as I recall the MX5 was elecrostatic. I don't know for sure though.

 

[spritzer]

The Sigma Pro's are great. A little rolled off and with a boomy upper bass/lower midrange but they sound very much like the Omega II's. Very comfortable even though they are very heavy but ugly as sin...

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl Anyone know any good Stax stores in Nagoya?

I know only one HFer who's been 'phone-shopping in Japan, and that's the redoubtable Inkmo.


Quote:

Weren't the Sigmas the ones with all the bass?

From owners' descriptions the Sigmas didn't sound like the next step in the evolution of the SR-X series. The Lambdas did-- to me, at least.

EDIT: No sooner do I post that than Spritzer pops up with this:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritzer The Sigma Pro's are great. A little rolled off and with a boomy upper bass/lower midrange but they sound very much like the Omega II's.

Horses for courses.

Quote:

Stax's electret collection was so hit-and-miss. Some of them were bloody good, and some weren't even close.

I vote for the SR-30 and 80 Pro versions as two of the good ones, with some minor reservations.


Quote:

I'd be game for hearing the SR-50. I'd also like to try the Koss ESP-6 and ESP-9. Just to see what old-school closed 'stats sound like.

Try rather than buy. You may like the way the ESP-6 and 9 sound, but you won't enjoy wearing them, especially the 6. Now if you're an experimenter and willing to rip out the drivers and repot them, then sure, go ahead, especially if they're cheap (not likely).

The usual problem of loading a diaphragm with a closed volume militate against a small lightweight diaphragm trying to produce deep bass, so I wouldn't expect much from the 50. I might be pleasantly surprised, but remember, it's based on the relatively unloved 40.


Quote:

The Micro Seiki were electrets, weren't they?

Not all of them. The MX-5 was. Infinity rebranded the MS-2 (and sold it for mucho) and it was a standard external-bias 'stat. Take a look at the admittedly brief entries at Audio Circuit.

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta From owners' descriptions the Sigmas didn't sound like the next step in the evolution of the SR-X series. The Lambdas did-- to me, at least.

To me, the Sigmas were desined with the goal of creating a speaker-like sound from headphones (a goal they [arguably] achieved with the original Omega), whereas the Lambda (and the SR-X series before it) was designed to offer a neutral (if headphoney) sound. Well, that's my interpretation.

Quote:

Try rather than buy. You may like the way the ESP-6 and 9 sound, but you won't enjoy wearing them, especially the 6. Now if you're an experimenter and willing to rip out the drivers and repot them, then sure, go ahead, especially if they're cheap (not likely).

I don't really mind the comfort issues with the old Kosses (heavy headphones don't really bother me unless it's for an all-day session), but I wouldn't expect too much from the sound as stock. They might be like the AKG K340 in the modification department for all I know, though.

It'd just be fun to compare them to the 4070 for a bit of a laugh.

Quote:

Not all of them. The MX-5 was. Infinity rebranded the MS-2 (and sold it for mucho) and it was a standard external-bias 'stat. Take a look at the admittedly brief entries at Audio Circuit.

I'm unfamilar with the MS-2. What's it like?

 

[Lloyd297]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl To me, the Sigmas were desined with the goal of creating a speaker-like sound from headphones (a goal they [arguably] achieved with the original Omega), whereas the Lambda (and the SR-X series before it) was designed to offer a neutral (if headphoney) sound. Well, that's my interpretation.

I think the Lambda's were a compromise between the Sigma and the traditional Stax phones. The Sigma was "panoramic"; the Lambda merely "semi-panoramic".

I heard the Sigma once and thought it had an unbalanced "distant" sound. The Lambda Pro I compared it to sounded considerably more neutral although less so, I thought, than the X-III.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl To me, the Sigmas were desined with the goal of creating a speaker-like sound from headphones, ...whereas the Lambda... was designed to offer a neutral (if headphoney) sound. Well, that's my interpretation.

And that interp is not far from the truth, 'sfarz I know. The Sigma was a brave attempt to reinvent the headphone, much as the K1000 is for the young, with-it, au-go-go crowd now. The Sigma, however, wasn't getting quite the reception hoped for and a compromise was called up-- something less like Mickey Mouse ears, something less extreme, something with the big diaphragm but more like a "regular" headphone but still outside the pale. In other words, what Lloyd said, now that I look at it. The rest is history.


Quote:

I wouldn't expect too much from the sound [of the oldschool Koss 'stats] as stock. They might be like the AKG K340 in the modification department..

I imagine the sound isn't too far off the contemporaneous Staxen; the problems are mostly related to the fact that they're closed. Drive them with something decent and they might surprise you, since your skull has the bony protruberances that will allow you to wear them without sustaining injury. Lucky devil..

Quote:

It'd just be fun to compare them to the 4070 for a bit of a laugh.

It would! Keep us posted.


Quote:

I'm unfamilar with the MS-2. What's it like?

Um, we don't know. We've yet to get hold of a working example of the MS-2 / Infinity. By "we" I mean myself and another of the refugees from AudioKarma.org, Charivari. Other owners have mentioned a lack of bass, but that was true of many headphones back then, not just 'stats. I suspect they'll be brightish. Not British but brightish.

 

[johnmatrix]

After some PMs and reading some posts from other members, it seems going with the a class D or a digital amp to the transformer box seems the way to go for <$300. I think I will save up for a Mcallister E-stat amp as that seems like a good buy as my high end option. That way I could configure it to run high and low bias staxen and maybe the He60.

 

[Lloyd297]

Another thing to experiment with the X-III is positioning them against the ear. The tonal balance changes quite dramatically as you move them up and down the ear, getting progressively brighter and airier as they get lower. The 404 barely changes as you adjust the sliders, probably because of the large all-encompassing diaphragm but the X-III has a much smaller diaphragm by comparison.

A couple of analogies of the 404/X-III comparison:

The 404 sounds like a large floorstander with much more image height, perceived bass, and overall size of sound while the X-III is like a gorgeous bookshelf speaker on stands - image height lacking as is depth of bass but coherence, balance through the midrange and timbral resolution is superior to the floorstander.

And the X-III reflects sound like a very clear but relatively small mirror. We don't see all of the original image but what we do see is faithfully reproduced.
The 404 reflects sound like a highly polished large slab of composite wood and plastic. The original colours are darkened and homogenized and the outlines are less clear in places but artificially heightened in others (like the outlines of objects at dusk). However, we do get to see the entire original object, unlike the X-III.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd297 A couple of analogies of the 404/X-III comparison..

The "reflections" one was a good one. Personally I don't find the Lambda Pro all that different from the SR-X sound, but spatially the presentation is so different that it's very difficult to compare. We haven't discussed in depth the psychoacoustic change that happens with what we might call a "super-open" 'phone, but I think we agree it forces the ear/brain to rethink the sound. Topic for another thread.

Here's another way of thinking about the difference between the Mk3 and all the Lambda variants that followed: By ignoring the low bass and the spatial exponents on the sound equation, the Mk3 is a bit of a specialist. Its smaller diaphragm does fewer things, but is more able to do those things really well. Just as with speakers, everything is simple... until the moment you decide you want to reproduce really low bass at realistic levels. Then all hell and physics breaks loose.


Quote:

Originally Posted by lloyd297 ..the X-III has a much smaller diaphragm..

But it was the big-diaphragm 'stat of the Stax line in 1976. It replaced the SR-X Mk2, which these days is sadly overlooked. Exactly the same as the 3 but with a diaphragm maybe 3/4 the size-- probably the same diameter as the one in the SR-5. What the 3 added to the 2 was maybe a half-octave of bass, but it still didn't have the bass of the Sony ECR-500. A 2 would not be a bassless purchase, pun intended, because with modern amps and preamps and/or a good direct-drive unit, some reasonable bass EQ could be supplied and you'd have a helluva headphone. Well, it's a suggestion.

 

[gordie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta And that interp is not far from the truth, 'sfarz I know. The Sigma was a brave attempt to reinvent the headphone, much as the K1000 is for the young, with-it, au-go-go crowd now.

I am so glad someone thinks I am young, with it, and au-go-go (even if I don't know what au-go-go means).

 

[Lloyd297]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta The "reflections" one was a good one. Personally I don't find the Lambda Pro all that different from the SR-X sound, but spatially the presentation is so different that it's very difficult to compare. We haven't discussed in depth the psychoacoustic change that happens with what we might call a "super-open" 'phone, but I think we agree it forces the ear/brain to rethink the sound. Topic for another thread. Here's another way of thinking about the difference between the Mk3 and all the Lambda variants that followed: By ignoring the low bass and the spatial exponents on the sound equation, the Mk3 is a bit of a specialist. Its smaller diaphragm does fewer things, but is more able to do those things really well. Just as with speakers, everything is simple... until the moment you decide you want to reproduce really low bass at realistic levels. Then all hell and physics breaks loose. But it was the big-diaphragm 'stat of the Stax line in 1976. It replaced the SR-X Mk2, which these days is sadly overlooked. Exactly the same as the 3 but with a diaphragm maybe 3/4 the size-- probably the same diameter as the one in the SR-5. What the 3 added to the 2 was maybe a half-octave of bass, but it still didn't have the bass of the Sony ECR-500. A 2 would not be a bassless purchase, pun intended, because with modern amps and preamps and/or a good direct-drive unit, some reasonable bass EQ could be supplied and you'd have a helluva headphone. Well, it's a suggestion.

Has anybody ever seen a Mk2......... or a Mk1 for that matter? The 3's were obviously the design that Stax found it hard to improve on because it went unchanged for over a decade. But how many of the others were ever produced?

I'm surprised you don't find the X-III very different from the Lambda Pro (and successors) because I find them almost diametrically different in most respects (although both do share that electrostatic purity and silkiness). Balance-wise they're almost a mirror-image of each other (i.e., in reverse) with the X-III slightly forward in the mids and rolled-off at the extremes while the Lambda Pro is slightly recessed in the mids and forward at the extremes (well, in the mid-bass 'cos the low bass is lacking despite Stax's 8 Hz fantasies!). I often listen to both the X-III (driven by adapter box and Nuforce RF9 amp) and the 404 (driven by Stax 006t amp) and the differences moving from one to the other are large and certainly not a matter of brow-furrowing nuance! In fact, I'm confident that blind-folded I could tell one from the other 100/100 times on all sorts of material (we'll ignore the fact that the feel of the two headphones would be a dead giveaway....) and I'm not sure I could do this with various power amps, preamps, etc.......

Last night I was listening to two performances of Rachmaninov's 2nd PC (Ashkenazy/Haitink on Decca and Jando/Lehel on Naxos) through both the X-III and the 404 and found myself concentrating on the X-III because it not only sounded more spacious (the 404 oddly sounding a little shut-in) but reproduced the instrumental colours much more realistically, I thought. Piano sounded sweeter, purer, and rounder, strings had more body and were lusher and more "hushed" and woodwinds had more "glow". OTOH a few days ago I was preferring the 404 on Bruno Walter's Columbia recording of the Mahler 2 as it sounded vaster and more distant.

Annyway, I completely agree with your assessment that the X-III does less than the 404 overall but what it attempts it does considerably better. I'd say that the X-III only attempts 80% of what's possible but what it does it does better perhaps than anything else out there. If, however, that 20% is vital to you (and on some material who could disagree?) then some other phones are obviously superior.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd297 Has anybody ever seen a Mk2?

[raises hand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd297 The 3's were obviously the design that Stax found it hard to improve on because it went unchanged for over a decade.

Yup, and it was only the most obvious logical development of the 2. I can't say for sure without rounding up a pile of Staxen and getting out my trusty Mitutoyo dial calipers, but I suspect that Stax's diaphragms were all of same or similar diameter until the advent of the 3. Someone had to get permission to spend the money on tooling to make the jump to the 3. Or so I suppose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd297 I'm surprised you don't find the X-III very different from the Lambda Pro (and successors) because I find them almost diametrically different in most respects (although both do share that electrostatic purity and silkiness). Balance-wise they're almost a mirror-image of each other..

I agree with you in every respect. The Lambda was an attempt to correct the midranginess of the 3, among other things. I still find the Lambda a bit midrangey, but as with the 3 I'm willing to accept certain frequency response quirks because relatively speaking there are bigger fish to fry. Smoothness, impulse response, damping, treble extension, dynamic linearity (the socalled crescendo test I mentioned in an earlier thread), out-of-head imaging... all the things that presented grave problems to the closed dynamic 'phones of the '70s and which electrostatic 'phones promised to improve upon. I'm taking a very wide view.

To me they both sound like developments of one basic idea; the Lambda sounds like there's a 3 buried inside it. To put it another way, they both sound Staxish to me. Do they sound different? Of course they do. Will one sound better on one recording and the other sound better on the next? Predictably. If someone asked me which to buy if they could only afford one and the price was the same? I'd say buy the Lambda and don't look back-- it will do more tricks. If they could afford both? Get both and don't look back.


Quote:

...If, however, that 20% is vital to you (and on some material who could disagree?) then some other phones are obviously superior.

That 20% became very important to me because I found binaural recordings took on another layer of plausibility with the bass added in, and the attention paid to opening the sound up to the atmosphere added what had been lacking in the 3 (and weirdly present in the ECR-500), the ability to play binaural recordings with rip-the-'phones-off-and-stare-wildly realism.

Do I wish the Lambda diaphragm was better damped, like the 3's diaphragm? You bet. Would I be willing to sacrifice the openness of the Lambdas to get this? Never. I'd make the diaphragms twice as big if I had to and go back to the 1-micron skins of the old Lambda Signature and deal with the "etch" somehow. Speaking of the old Sigs, I was shocked at how different the Sigs and the Nova Basic sound. Is one better? Again, they're different. Which is why I'm keeping both.