[AudioThief]

One thing to note about bass response in estats is, all is relative. Its pretty much pointless to make general sweeping statements about what someone might think of the bass in estats vs dynamics, because there are so many different factors playing part.

If you listen to old school dubstep (like Mala, Digital Mystikz) and trap music (think UZ, Stooki Sound), no estat will do this music justice. Few dynamics or planars will do the job. You'd probably need a closed headphone with bass boost. Or preferably, just speakers and a woofer.

If you listen to classical music, estats will have great bass - but might still lose out to dynamics in this department, depending on what sort of classical music you listen to, how much of a visceral experience you require / is used to etc.

In my personal experience, as a former self proclaimed bass head, the only genre I would never bother with an estat is bass centric music. Even typical EDM that has significant bass presence can sound great on a pair of estats, because while you won't have the same thump as you'd have on your fostex th-x00's, you're still getting a better overall experience due to the fidelity of mids/highs, soundstage etc.

Most importantly, if you primarily listen to your estats, your expectations will change. In my experience, as long as I get a good seal on my L500s, I have zero issues as far as bass goes until it goes into subwoofer territory. There have been only a few headphones that has ever been close to satisfying me in this regard - Fostex TH900, Denon D5000 and JVC HPDX1000.

 

[Rhamnetin]

One thing to note about bass response in estats is, all is relative. Its pretty much pointless to make general sweeping statements about what someone might think of the bass in estats vs dynamics, because there are so many different factors playing part.

The most immediately different factor is that different estats have different bass response. Also, differences in the overall tonality can emphasize a lower bass response more. HiFiMan estats don't generally have a weaker bass response, or relative bass emphasis, than their planar counterparts. DCA estats have more bass than most. And it is true that no estat will ever have the bass of a Fostex TH900, Denon, or JVC, but nor do any of them want to achieve such a bass response as all of them are more geared toward a neutral spectrum.

 

[Svperstar]

If you listen to old school dubstep (like Mala, Digital Mystikz) and trap music (think UZ, Stooki Sound), no estat will do this music justice.

If by "do it justice like a subwoofer at a rave" and no headphone can do that I agree, however if you think other headphones can then I completely disagree.

There is nothing in particular about estats that makes them incapable of playing bassy songs given the right pads/EQ, see the CRBN or the 007, or even the L500 mk2 with with blu tac mod.

Is this song a good example of what you mean?



If not could you give examples of songs that estats cannot reproduce correctly?

 

[AudioThief]

If by "do it justice like a subwoofer at a rave" and no headphone can do that I agree, however if you think other headphones can then I completely disagree.

There is nothing in particular about estats that makes them incapable of playing bassy songs given the right pads/EQ, see the CRBN or the 007, or even the L500 mk2 with with blu tac mod.

Is this song a good example of what you mean?



If not could you give examples of songs that estats cannot reproduce correctly?

This track is a perfect example of what I mean! And also a fantastic track that I used to listen to endlessly on repeat for more than 12 years ago, so thank you so much for reminding me of this fantastic track!

In my opinion, if we were to side by side any estat of your choice with lets say a Fostex TH900 or TH-X00 and a stereo with a powerful subwoofer, we would have three quite different experiences with each one. Since a lot of this musics "DNA" lies in its deep sub bass, I think that a pair of estats would deliver an experience that lies furthest from the creators intention. Now as I mentioned, all is relative - once you're fully accustomed to the estat sound, you might enjoy even tracks like these on estats. But I think it just sounds better on a pair of Fostex because they can provide that deep, heavy rumble.

But I suppose this just goes to show just how subjective it all is. If Mala sounds better to you on estats than on any other headphone, then I cannot argue against that.

 

[Svperstar]

But I suppose this just goes to show just how subjective it all is. If Mala sounds better to you on estats than on any other headphone, then I cannot argue against that.

I'm actually listening on my LCD-2 on my work from home setup, and its a great track.

 

[Rhamnetin]

This track is a perfect example of what I mean! And also a fantastic track that I used to listen to endlessly on repeat for more than 12 years ago, so thank you so much for reminding me of this fantastic track!

In my opinion, if we were to side by side any estat of your choice with lets say a Fostex TH900 or TH-X00 and a stereo with a powerful subwoofer, we would have three quite different experiences with each one. Since a lot of this musics "DNA" lies in its deep sub bass, I think that a pair of estats would deliver an experience that lies furthest from the creators intention. Now as I mentioned, all is relative - once you're fully accustomed to the estat sound, you might enjoy even tracks like these on estats. But I think it just sounds better on a pair of Fostex because they can provide that deep, heavy rumble.

But I suppose this just goes to show just how subjective it all is. If Mala sounds better to you on estats than on any other headphone, then I cannot argue against that.

If we want to listen to the music as intended, i.e. without the headphone adding or subtracting anything, then technically what we want is a headphone that adheres to the Harman linear in-room frequency response curve, as this is the best approximation we have of what you'd be hearing with a perfectly flat loudspeaker frequency response which of course is the most direct portrayal of what's actually in the sound signal passing through your system.

Some electrostats like the DCA CORINA are pretty close to the linear in-room frequency response. Those Fostexes add way more bass than that, so they're a lot more colored and thus less true to the source.

 

[lambdastorm]

This track is a perfect example of what I mean! And also a fantastic track that I used to listen to endlessly on repeat for more than 12 years ago, so thank you so much for reminding me of this fantastic track!

In my opinion, if we were to side by side any estat of your choice with lets say a Fostex TH900 or TH-X00 and a stereo with a powerful subwoofer, we would have three quite different experiences with each one. Since a lot of this musics "DNA" lies in its deep sub bass, I think that a pair of estats would deliver an experience that lies furthest from the creators intention. Now as I mentioned, all is relative - once you're fully accustomed to the estat sound, you might enjoy even tracks like these on estats. But I think it just sounds better on a pair of Fostex because they can provide that deep, heavy rumble.

But I suppose this just goes to show just how subjective it all is. If Mala sounds better to you on estats than on any other headphone, then I cannot argue against that.

I still remember your review on the atrox amp. Almost bought one myself. Do you still own it?

 

[catscratch]

Electronic music is hit and miss on estats. It's not that they don't have bass, it's that a lot of electronic music is mixed for club systems and estats are very far away from that kind of sound. As a result many tracks just won't wound right. You can get used to how they sound on estats of course, but that's not really how they were intended to sound, whatever that means.

However some electronic music, like the more ambient and downtempo kind, as well as music where the bass is more full-bodied and mixed more for neutral or higher-end systems, sounds excellent.

It's not just estats that won't do well with the more dance-oriented stuff though, anything with a tighter, more neutral bass will not sound right either.

 

[kid vic]

If by "do it justice like a subwoofer at a rave" and no headphone can do that I agree, however if you think other headphones can then I completely disagree.

There is nothing in particular about estats that makes them incapable of playing bassy songs given the right pads/EQ, see the CRBN or the 007, or even the L500 mk2 with with blu tac mod.

Is this song a good example of what you mean?



If not could you give examples of songs that estats cannot reproduce correctly?

This track is a perfect example of what I mean! And also a fantastic track that I used to listen to endlessly on repeat for more than 12 years ago, so thank you so much for reminding me of this fantastic track!

In my opinion, if we were to side by side any estat of your choice with lets say a Fostex TH900 or TH-X00 and a stereo with a powerful subwoofer, we would have three quite different experiences with each one. Since a lot of this musics "DNA" lies in its deep sub bass, I think that a pair of estats would deliver an experience that lies furthest from the creators intention. Now as I mentioned, all is relative - once you're fully accustomed to the estat sound, you might enjoy even tracks like these on estats. But I think it just sounds better on a pair of Fostex because they can provide that deep, heavy rumble.

But I suppose this just goes to show just how subjective it all is. If Mala sounds better to you on estats than on any other headphone, then I cannot argue against that.

This is amongst my all time favourite DMZ tracks and I too used to listen to this on repeat for hours on end.
IMO, the L500 mk2 is great with some types of music but not that track that A) is only available through low quality youtube rips and B) is super focused on sub bass.

Instead, a song from the same era and genre that I really like with the L500 mk2 is


Burial in general I find is awesome with headphones, but electrostatics really bring out the textures, layering, and details in his music.

Alternatively, DJ Shadow has another great pick


If bass is your thing then nothing really touches a Fostex bio-dyna IMO. With bass boost and my modded TH600 this song is a treat

 

[liltooth]

Hello all,

New here, and wanted to share my thoughts. I have the Stax SR-L500mk2 paired with the STAX SRM-400S and the Chord Mojo 2. I sometimes also run the earspeakers directly with the Woo Audio WA7e via USB, utilizing the built-in DAC. I switch between the two different setups depending on the mood.

I listen to a lot of different genres, which is why I went with the L500mk2 in the first place rather than the L700mk2 because I felt that it might be a bit more forgiving if I wanted to listen to a variety of different genres, mostly Jazz and instrumentals, pop, deep house, indie, hip-hop, R&B (basically almost everything? haha). I am not really an audiophile, I just enjoy getting lost in the music. I am relatively new to electrostats (and headphones in general), so I am not sure this was objectively the right decision to go for the L500 mk2 instead of the L700 mk2, but to my ears, it kinda made sense (it was also definitely better for my wallet).

Anyways, because of me being not fully satisfied with the bass on some tracks, this led me to obviously want to mod my Stax, so I did something — perhaps a lot of things — to suit my taste: I did the blu-tac mod with my L500mk2 and replaced the earpads with the EP-L700 — I feel they are a tiny bit more comfortable for me and it added some bass (I know some people talk about the Stax farts with the blu-tac mods, but I honestly almost never experienced them). I also had to EQ it for more even more bass. I use using Tidal via Roon, so I added a custom EQ based on the Oratory1990 L500 blu-tac eq. It started to sound really good, but I wanted to see if I could add even more Bass on this thing without it clipping, like make them Stax do something it wasn't supposed to do, where it was even too much for me on some tracks? Apparently, yes I can. And the one thing that was a game changer for me is when I added bass directly on the mojo2 "DSP control" as well as having the EQ on Roon, this works well when paired with the SRM-400S, without clipping anything and incredible quality bass. I honestly didn't think I can get this much out of it, but this combination of DAC (and its internal DSP) + Energizer + Roon MUSE EQ is magic. The quality of detail is insane. But when I decide to listen to jazz and chill, I then plug my Stax directly into the WA7e and zone out for a while, enjoying the warmth of some tubes. This also is a great combination, and does change the characteristics of my Stax for sure.

P.S. I now have to turn down the bass on some tracks because it does get a bit too much. I never thought I would say this about the L500.
___

Writing the above makes me wonder, if my current setup sounds THIS good, what would the higher end e-stats sound like? I now feel like I need to compliment my current Stax with something else...

I considered planars at first. I did demo a few but enjoyed the Audeze LCD-5 the most (I think). They were SUPER comfortable and light (and super pretty). They also sounded great, but I don't think there is a sound upgrade necessarily to justify spending this much on a new system. I can be mistaken though, it is really hard (especially for a noob like me) to judge in a few minutes whether this is something for me or not. It's also hard not be able to directly compare headphones to my current setup — to see how different genres play, or maybe test the soundstage, or how different it sounds EQed.

I absolutely love my setup, but I am wondering if upgrading to the SR-007mk2 or even the SR-009S will give me this extra something and become "THE goosebump maker" for me, maybe one of these options creates sound that are more "emotional", or "move" you more? Or is this just G.A.S? I wanted to demo them, but I can only demo the L700mk2, the rest are not available in my country and only available to order. So I am honestly relying on different opinions that I read online, and hoping someone might help me decide. Maybe let me know if the difference between the higher-end stax and my current setup is negligible? Or maybe I should consider planars? Or maybe I should actually compliment them with the L700mk2 instead? Maybe don't do anything at all?

P.S. The only other headphones I own right now are the AirPods Max (for convenience), and the Audeze Maxwell (mostly for gaming), both of them are good headphones, they do what they are supposed to, but are definitely heavy and tiring.

Thoughts/recommendations/advice is appreciated

 

[BenF]

Hello all,

New here, and wanted to share my thoughts. I have the Stax SR-L500mk2 paired with the STAX SRM-400S and the Chord Mojo 2. I sometimes also run the earspeakers directly with the Woo Audio WA7e via USB, utilizing the built-in DAC. I switch between the two different setups depending on the mood.

I listen to a lot of different genres, which is why I went with the L500mk2 in the first place rather than the L700mk2 because I felt that it might be a bit more forgiving if I wanted to listen to a variety of different genres, mostly Jazz and instrumentals, pop, deep house, indie, hip-hop, R&B (basically almost everything? haha). I am not really an audiophile, I just enjoy getting lost in the music. I am relatively new to electrostats (and headphones in general), so I am not sure this was objectively the right decision to go for the L500 mk2 instead of the L700 mk2, but to my ears, it kinda made sense (it was also definitely better for my wallet).

Anyways, because of me being not fully satisfied with the bass on some tracks, this led me to obviously want to mod my Stax, so I did something — perhaps a lot of things — to suit my taste: I did the blu-tac mod with my L500mk2 and replaced the earpads with the EP-L700 — I feel they are a tiny bit more comfortable for me and it added some bass (I know some people talk about the Stax farts with the blu-tac mods, but I honestly almost never experienced them). I also had to EQ it for more even more bass. I use using Tidal via Roon, so I added a custom EQ based on the Oratory1990 L500 blu-tac eq. It started to sound really good, but I wanted to see if I could add even more Bass on this thing without it clipping, like make them Stax do something it wasn't supposed to do, where it was even too much for me on some tracks? Apparently, yes I can. And the one thing that was a game changer for me is when I added bass directly on the mojo2 "DSP control" as well as having the EQ on Roon, this works well when paired with the SRM-400S, without clipping anything and incredible quality bass. I honestly didn't think I can get this much out of it, but this combination of DAC (and its internal DSP) + Energizer + Roon MUSE EQ is magic. The quality of detail is insane. But when I decide to listen to jazz and chill, I then plug my Stax directly into the WA7e and zone out for a while, enjoying the warmth of some tubes. This also is a great combination, and does change the characteristics of my Stax for sure.

P.S. I now have to turn down the bass on some tracks because it does get a bit too much. I never thought I would say this about the L500.
___

Writing the above makes me wonder, if my current setup sounds THIS good, what would the higher end e-stats sound like? I now feel like I need to compliment my current Stax with something else...

I considered planars at first. I did demo a few but enjoyed the Audeze LCD-5 the most (I think). They were SUPER comfortable and light (and super pretty). They also sounded great, but I don't think there is a sound upgrade necessarily to justify spending this much on a new system. I can be mistaken though, it is really hard (especially for a noob like me) to judge in a few minutes whether this is something for me or not. It's also hard not be able to directly compare headphones to my current setup — to see how different genres play, or maybe test the soundstage, or how different it sounds EQed.

I absolutely love my setup, but I am wondering if upgrading to the SR-007mk2 or even the SR-009S will give me this extra something and become "THE goosebump maker" for me, maybe one of these options creates sound that are more "emotional", or "move" you more? Or is this just G.A.S? I wanted to demo them, but I can only demo the L700mk2, the rest are not available in my country and only available to order. So I am honestly relying on different opinions that I read online, and hoping someone might help me decide. Maybe let me know if the difference between the higher-end stax and my current setup is negligible? Or maybe I should consider planars? Or maybe I should actually compliment them with the L700mk2 instead? Maybe don't do anything at all?

P.S. The only other headphones I own right now are the AirPods Max (for convenience), and the Audeze Maxwell (mostly for gaming), both of them are good headphones, they do what they are supposed to, but are definitely heavy and tiring.

Thoughts/recommendations/advice is appreciated

Here is a simple mode that works wonders with L300/500 and L700 pads:
1. Take the headphones in your hands
2. Rotate the headphones 180 degrees horizontally
3. Put the headphones on your head
4. Switch left and right RCA channels

Start listening with live performances, studio recordings may sound weird at first.

 

[liltooth]

Here is a simple mode that works wonders with L300/500 and L700 pads:
1. Take the headphones in your hands
2. Rotate the headphones 180 degrees horizontally
3. Put the headphones on your head
4. Switch left and right RCA channels

Start listening with live performances, studio recordings may sound weird at first.

Thanks BenF! I didn't realize this is a thing — will try it out!

 

[BenF]

Thanks BenF! I didn't realize this is a thing — will try it out!

Did you try it?

 

[Svperstar]

P.S. I now have to turn down the bass on some tracks because it does get a bit too much. I never thought I would say this about the L500.
___

Writing the above makes me wonder, if my current setup sounds THIS good, what would the higher end e-stats sound like? I now feel like I need to compliment my current Stax with something else...

Thoughts/recommendations/advice is appreciated

Are you running the L500 mk2 with the blu tac mod? After I modded mine the bass really came to life. I also own the 007 and the CRBN, I go back and forth between them. Some days I prefer the CRBN, other days the 007.

I think the L500 mk2, the 007, and the CRBN are all in the same "league". The CRBN wins 100% for comfort and looks imo. I recommend the 007 for sure, much cheaper then the CRBN and sounds great.

 

[liltooth]

Did you try it?

Yes, but it didn't really work for me, especially that my ears were rubbing against the mesh inside. Felt weird, I couldn't haha.