The Entry Level Stax Thread
Mar 10, 2015 at 11:00 PM Post #1,441 of 3,323
Thanks for your responses.  The connector was attached to the amp at the time of the mishap.  The headphones fell from a high shelf and the cord was not long enough to reach the floor.  As a result the headphones/cord yanked on the connector causing 4 of the pins to shear off.  The phones are ancient and I am betting that the pins had become somewhat brittle.  I guess I better keep them in a drawer if I am going to keep them connected!  I will give them a temp repair tonight with a connector from a bad extension cable and order the proper connector for a permanent fix.
 
Mar 11, 2015 at 4:49 PM Post #1,442 of 3,323
Just received some EP-507 leather earpads from Amazon Japan to put on my SR-207. No one here has posted images of what they look like so far, so I'll post these here.





I'll probably get to installing them at a later time. I might make a YouTube video of me going through the replacement process since no one has done that either. XD
 
Mar 11, 2015 at 8:04 PM Post #1,443 of 3,323
Not sure where exactly to ask this question, but here it goes:
 
When I have my SRM-310 plugged into my Fiio E10K there is high-pitched hum.  The amp is connected via two RCA cables coming out the back through either the RCA out or in (I have tried both) which then terminates in a standard 3.5mm jack going into the line out on my E10K.  The hum is usually audible during the quiet parts of the a song, such as when only acoustic guitars are playing, but not noticeable during parts with more instruments.  I have plugged the 300 directly into my motherboard output and there is no hum.  I can connect headphones which terminate in a 3.5mm plug directly to the front 3.5mm headphone input on my E10K and there is no hum.  Any ideas what's up?  Do I perhaps need to use an RCA cable that terminates in RCA plugs rather than a 3.5mm?
 
Mar 11, 2015 at 8:37 PM Post #1,444 of 3,323
Just received some EP-507 leather earpads from Amazon Japan to put on my SR-207. No one here has posted images of what they look like so far, so I'll post these here.





I'll probably get to installing them at a later time. I might make a YouTube video of me going through the replacement process since no one has done that either. XD


That would be great.  Be sure to tell us you can hear an difference in how the 207s sound with the leather pads vs stock.  I had considered getting them for my 202 (if only for better breathing, but better sonic quality would be nice).
 
Mar 11, 2015 at 11:11 PM Post #1,445 of 3,323
  Not sure where exactly to ask this question, but here it goes:
 
When I have my SRM-310 plugged into my Fiio E10K there is high-pitched hum.  The amp is connected via two RCA cables coming out the back through either the RCA out or in (I have tried both) which then terminates in a standard 3.5mm jack going into the line out on my E10K.  The hum is usually audible during the quiet parts of the a song, such as when only acoustic guitars are playing, but not noticeable during parts with more instruments.  I have plugged the 300 directly into my motherboard output and there is no hum.  I can connect headphones which terminate in a 3.5mm plug directly to the front 3.5mm headphone input on my E10K and there is no hum.  Any ideas what's up?  Do I perhaps need to use an RCA cable that terminates in RCA plugs rather than a 3.5mm?

Hmm, I might suspect it's a ground loop issue with the SRM-310. Does it make that hum when you touch your hand to the metal case of the amp? Or does it hum when there's nothing plugged int? What about when the E10k is plugged in but no music is playing?
 
Mar 11, 2015 at 11:53 PM Post #1,446 of 3,323
Just received some EP-507 leather earpads from Amazon Japan to put on my SR-207. No one here has posted images of what they look like so far, so I'll post these here.


They should look perfect on the 207!
 
Mar 12, 2015 at 7:50 PM Post #1,447 of 3,323
  Hmm, I might suspect it's a ground loop issue with the SRM-310. Does it make that hum when you touch your hand to the metal case of the amp? Or does it hum when there's nothing plugged int? What about when the E10k is plugged in but no music is playing?


It does not make a sound when I touch my hand to the amp, it does not hum when there is nothing plugged it, it will hum while plugged into the E10 with no music playing.  Although when the amp is plugged into the E10K the hum does seem to subside within about half an hour, but it's still rather bothersome. 
 
Mar 14, 2015 at 1:54 AM Post #1,448 of 3,323
Aloha All, after reading about Stax Earspeakers, I ordered the SRM-002 in ear system from Amazon Japan for a good price.  This got me thinking about the regular models, Mahalo to Chris for starting the tread on the SRS-2170 model.  I again went to Amazon Japan and just ordered it for $420 delivered.  I live here in Okinawa, Japan so I compare prices and with the dollar getting stronger against the yen, the Japanese products get cheaper.   
 
I will post my impressions when I receive it.  Love this site.
 
Mar 14, 2015 at 7:50 AM Post #1,449 of 3,323
Aloha All, after reading about Stax Earspeakers, I ordered the SRM-002 in ear system from Amazon Japan for a good price.  This got me thinking about the regular models, Mahalo to Chris for starting the tread on the SRS-2170 model.  I again went to Amazon Japan and just ordered it for $420 delivered.  I live here in Okinawa, Japan so I compare prices and with the dollar getting stronger against the yen, the Japanese products get cheaper.   

I will post my impressions when I receive it.  Love this site.


Hey thanks!

$420 for SRS-2170? That's incredible!
 
Mar 14, 2015 at 12:48 PM Post #1,450 of 3,323
 
  Hmm, I might suspect it's a ground loop issue with the SRM-310. Does it make that hum when you touch your hand to the metal case of the amp? Or does it hum when there's nothing plugged int? What about when the E10k is plugged in but no music is playing?


It does not make a sound when I touch my hand to the amp, it does not hum when there is nothing plugged it, it will hum while plugged into the E10 with no music playing.  Although when the amp is plugged into the E10K the hum does seem to subside within about half an hour, but it's still rather bothersome. 

Hmm, if the hum subsides when you touch your hand to the metal casing, then my guess is that it's a grounding issue. Unfortunately I can't offer a fix because my amp has done the same thing but it goes away after a while and often times doesn't even happen so I haven't bothered trying to fix it. 
frown.gif

Although it might not be the most elegant solution, running a wire from one of the screws on the amp to some large metal object or a ground port on a wall outlet may do the trick.
 
Mar 14, 2015 at 2:00 PM Post #1,451 of 3,323
Hmm, if the hum subsides when you touch your hand to the metal casing, then my guess is that it's a grounding issue. Unfortunately I can't offer a fix because my amp has done the same thing but it goes away after a while and often times doesn't even happen so I haven't bothered trying to fix it. :frowning2:
Although it might not be the most elegant solution, running a wire from one of the screws on the amp to some large metal object or a ground port on a wall outlet may do the trick.


I had to ground my DAC to eliminate hum.
It's a Beresford Caiman Mk II.
The manual actually suggests grounding the DAC to eliminate hum, the DAC has a ground post on the back for this purpose.
 
Mar 14, 2015 at 5:51 PM Post #1,452 of 3,323
  Hmm, if the hum subsides when you touch your hand to the metal casing, then my guess is that it's a grounding issue. Unfortunately I can't offer a fix because my amp has done the same thing but it goes away after a while and often times doesn't even happen so I haven't bothered trying to fix it. 
frown.gif

Although it might not be the most elegant solution, running a wire from one of the screws on the amp to some large metal object or a ground port on a wall outlet may do the trick.

Thanks for the suggestion.  Right now the hum seems to have vanished so I'll let it be for now.  I'll just pick up a cheap ground loop isolator if need be.
 
Mar 15, 2015 at 1:43 PM Post #1,453 of 3,323
I had to ground my DAC to eliminate hum.
It's a Beresford Caiman Mk II.
The manual actually suggests grounding the DAC to eliminate hum, the DAC has a ground post on the back for this purpose.

 
Interesting.  I'm using the Caiman MkII as well and never had that issue that I'm aware of....I listen with some reasonably good cans so I believe I'd pick that up if it were happening.  You using a three-prong power cable, out of curiosity?
 
HS
 
Mar 15, 2015 at 3:24 PM Post #1,454 of 3,323
I'm looking for a second pair of Stax and I would like to know what is the difference between SR-5 and the SR-5 Gold?  I know the SR-5 uses the cloth cord and the Gold uses the ribbon cable, are there any other differences?  Do they use different drivers, would there be a major sonic difference between the two?
 
Mar 15, 2015 at 4:06 PM Post #1,455 of 3,323
Just received some EP-507 leather earpads from Amazon Japan to put on my SR-207. No one here has posted images of what they look like so far, so I'll post these here.





I'll probably get to installing them at a later time. I might make a YouTube video of me going through the replacement process since no one has done that either. XD

Nice, you finally got them!
Honestly though, it's not too difficult, You rip the old pads off, maybe clean the metal surface to get rid of all the old adhesive, apply new adhesive, put new mesh down, and put pad down.
Though maybe I did it wrong, because my pads keep sliding off the frame now... 
confused_face.gif

 
 
  Hmm, if the hum subsides when you touch your hand to the metal casing, then my guess is that it's a grounding issue. Unfortunately I can't offer a fix because my amp has done the same thing but it goes away after a while and often times doesn't even happen so I haven't bothered trying to fix it. 
frown.gif

Although it might not be the most elegant solution, running a wire from one of the screws on the amp to some large metal object or a ground port on a wall outlet may do the trick.

Thanks for the suggestion.  Right now the hum seems to have vanished so I'll let it be for now.  I'll just pick up a cheap ground loop isolator if need be.

Hahaha, the same thing happened with my amp where the hum just went away one day and didn't show up for another few months. Then it happened for a couple days and hasn't showed up since.
 
  I'm looking for a second pair of Stax and I would like to know what is the difference between SR-5 and the SR-5 Gold?  I know the SR-5 uses the cloth cord and the Gold uses the ribbon cable, are there any other differences?  Do they use different drivers, would there be a major sonic difference between the two?

Hmm, one of my friends has an SR-sigma with the older cloth cable, even though most of them have the ribbon cable. He said apparently there were issues with capacitance in the cloth cables or something like that, so they switched to ribbon cables. He did say from his findings it didn't affect the sound quality very much though, maybe they felt the cloth cable would degrade faster over time than a ribbon cable? I don't know honestly. The cable probably doesn't make a difference in sound quality. Though they may have made internal sonic improvements and forgot to tell everyone, as they did with the SR-007 and other models apparently.
 
If the SR-5 is anything like the SR-3 MK2 that I tried though, I would steer clear. There's something strange about the way it sounded. They don't have the openness and clarity that all the lambda models I've tried have. Though take my advice with a grain of salt since I've never heard the SR-5.
 

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