Hey guys, I'm late to the game but had the chance to demo the SR-X1 at a meet here in the SF Bay Area today.
Catching up on this thread, it's disheartening to hear about quality control issues. They really need to get that sorted out.
Being a SR-X mk3 fan, I guess I was kind of hoping for a modern version of that - and in some ways it is, but in many ways it isn't. So from that standpoint, it was disappointing that the SR-X1 isn't just a "better" SR-X mk3. The SR-X1 is a new headphone, built from the ground up, that is certainly aware of the strengths of the older SR-X mk3, but takes the headphone in a fresh direction. It is an excellent modern headphone that is very exciting in today's marketplace, though with some caveats, even if it isn't the "SR-X mk4" I wanted it to be.
For us SR-X mk3 fans, given the SR-X1 is circumaural, the soundstaging and presentation is quite different from the SR-X mk3, which is both good and bad. Good in that yes, the SR-X1 has that sense of space and air as opposed to the directly fed to your brain nature of the SR-X mk3. But of course it loses something of what made the SR-X mk3 so special due to that, that direct, fed straight to your ear texture and tangibility.
But let's be clear, the SR-X1 is certainly a very nice sounding headphone. Someone earlier in the thread compared it to the Audeze MM-100, which makes sense to me. I don't have any time with the MM-100, but do own a MM-500 and yes, the general approach reminds me of that headphone. Just a nicely balanced middle ground modern headphone. Neutral-ish in approach, not bright, slightly rolled off maybe, but not obnoxiously so. Decent, high quality bass even if it doesn't plunge into the depths. Certainly no slouch when it comes to resolution. Soundstaging is nice and, while not wall to wall or anything, it is spacious enough, unlike most supraaural headphones.
I will say, as much as I appreciate my MM-500, it's always sounded just ever so slightly off tonally to me, even with a variety of quality amplification. I think I just don't love certain planars and prefer electrostats and the SR-X1 fixes that.
Anyway, the 2 second take-away for the SR-X1 from this brief demo is that yes it seems as if someone redesigned the SR-X mk3 to have a nicer soundstage like the SR-Lambdas or Omegas, yet keeping the generally neutral approach, and providing a pretty nice level of performance that bodes well for an entry-level (for Stax at least) price point.
But I just wonder if it will really find a place in the marketplace given all the competition out there. After all, you need a specialized amplifier for this. On that point, I did try it with the new Stax SRM-D10 mk2, fed by an iPhone and Apple lightning dongle, and that was fine enough before moving it to the bigger boy rig that you see in the photos above. Still, I wonder. All in, entry level is ~$1k with the SRM-270S or ~$1.3K with the SRM-D10 mk2. If you want that electrostatic sound, it seems like a great entry point. At the same time, $1k does buy you some very nice headphone+amp combos (e.g., HD6## + a nice modern balanced powerful amp, or a nice planar system).
I guess what I'm saying is I wish Stax (or someone else) would build a compact, $300-500 amp system that could really make these SR-X1 shine. Again, not trying to throw shade at the SRM-270S (which I haven't listened to) but if it's the same as based on past experience with entry-level Stax systems, it just leaves a lot to be desired. For me, if I get one of these, I'll just have to find a SRD-7 of some sort to feed with a good speaker amp.
Still, exciting stuff, none the less. But as an SR-X mk3 fanatic, well, those aren't going to be replaced any time soon.
Anyway, all this is with the usual caveat that these are brief first impressions and that it takes me at least 3 weeks if not longer to get to know a headphone.
-Jason