The Stax Thread III

[Chefguru]

So - back to the question about whther to depart from a Stax own energizer in favour of a third party (but maybe non-warrantied?) unit.

Spoke to an offical UK Stax agent today and they pretty much said i) If you use another energizer and the headphones go "bang" then you're out of warranty, - and - perhaps more interestingly, 2) The T8000 is designed very precisely for Stax brand headphones, and although other providers sound better initially, more volume and better "pop" (which is how they win their audience he claimed,) the circuitry and the voltages are incorrect and will damange the h-phones over time.

Really?

I mean......REALLY??

Such a silly response from Stax.

Audeze has a much more reasonable answer … which is of course because they’re not trying to make you buy their amps.

 

[aokman]

Such a silly response from Stax.

Audeze has a much more reasonable answer … which is of course because they’re not trying to make you buy their amps.

More just ass covering because they don’t know what you will drive them with, a lot of STAX amps fall into the boutique, bordering on DIY territory… If your STAX fail, how do they know the amp didn’t cause it…

Im sure they also want you to buy their amps also obviously but I’m sure they have had RMAs from clear damage caused by a 3rd party amps over the decades also…

You could just easily use an unrestored, old STAX amp that kills them and they deny warranty over that lol…

But at the end of the day, what are the odds

 

[LarsHP]

Thanks for this! If I can make sense of the website, I will contact the seller and ask them if they can post a picture of it next to another silver appliance, to confirm that it's indeed silver and not the ‘new’ (?) darker color. It's always difficult to say for sure on a photo when there is nothing to compare.

You're welcome. You will of course have to create an account in order to contact the seller, who will most likely be suspicious when contacted by a newly created account, in English, and from another country. However, it may be worth it considering you have difficulty finding the unit in the right color.

 

[SolarCetacean]

Im sure they also want you to buy their amps also obviously but I’m sure they have had RMAs from clear damage caused by a 3rd party amps over the decades also…

I recall that Stax Japan posted on their Twitter account around 2 years ago an image/video showing a damaged 009S driver that came in for RMA. It had been used on a 3rd party amp and there were scorch marks from where arcing occurred between the stators. They accompanied that photo with a warning to only use Stax amps. Unfortunately, X no longer allows plain browsing of accounts without a login, so I can't find that tweet anymore.

I'm sure none of the reputable 3rd party builders would make an amp that does this as the KG designs all have specific safety features to guard against damage, but there is no shortage of sloppy work out there as pointed out by the mafia folks.

 

[TheAbyss2022]

It's funny of Stax to diminish 3rd party builders, they must have forgotten the failure rates of the SRM-T2.

 

[harris4crna]

Been using various Stax HPs with my BHSE for 10 years. No bangs.....

 

[newbluesuit]

You're welcome. You will of course have to create an account in order to contact the seller, who will most likely be suspicious when contacted by a newly created account, in English, and from another country. However, it may be worth it considering you have difficulty finding the unit in the right color.

I see now that the price is actually higher than that of a new SRM-D50, because this seller is selling together with a pair of SR-007 mk 2, which I have no use for. I would prefer to buy a new SRM-D50 anyway (hopefully they still make them in silver).

It's strange to me that no one here seems to know anything about this change of color (nor care about it for that matter). It seems to me more problematic that Stax are changing their products without even informing their resellers than them discouraging their customers from using third-party energizers.

The official Stax reseller I received the dark grey SRM-D50 from knows nothing about this change of color and will contact Stax to hopefully get some clarification from them, but told me it may be a while until they get a response.

 

[SolarCetacean]

I see now that the price is actually higher than that of a new SRM-D50, because this seller is selling together with a pair of SR-007 mk 2, which I have no use for. I would prefer to buy a new SRM-D50 anyway (hopefully they still make them in silver).

It's strange to me that no one here seems to know anything about this change of color (nor care about it for that matter). It seems to me more problematic that Stax are changing their products without even informing their resellers than them discouraging their customers from using third-party energizers.

The official Stax reseller I received the dark grey SRM-D50 from knows nothing about this change of color and will contact Stax to hopefully get some clarification from them, but told me it may be a while until they get a response.

I have seen black SRM-700Ses in classifieds listings and Stax makes no mention of black being an available color for the SRM-700S. All promotional images and store listings are of the silver model. Stax changing minor aspects of their products without announcement is par for the course; there are all sorts of discussions on the different variants of the 007mk1 (70xxx vs 71xxx vs sz1xxx serial numbers) and after they changed to the mk2, people noticed differences between the original run of mk2s from the so-called mk2.5, mk2.9, and mk2.95 production runs which are ostensibly all the same (all mk2 units), but reportedly sound slightly different from one another.

Other stealth changes include the stock tubes on the 700T amps changing from Electro-Harmonix 6SN7GTB to JJ Electronics 6SN7GTB; the image used on the 700T's product page was changed but no other announcement was made. That was probably due to the Ukraine war (EH tubes are produced in Russia). The D-series amps (D10 and D50) are produced in China rather than Japan and I've read that the D50 was never offered for sale in Japan; come to think about it I don't recall seeing it at e-earphone in Tokyo while every other Stax amp model was there (indeed, I just checked e-earphone's website and the D50 isn't listed). My best guess as to the color difference is that the supplier for the casework changed and the new supplier didn't offer it in silver. That is not an uncommon practice across multiple industries.

 

[newbluesuit]

I have seen black SRM-700Ses in classifieds listings and Stax makes no mention of black being an available color for the SRM-700S. All promotional images and store listings are of the silver model. Stax changing minor aspects of their products without announcement is par for the course; there are all sorts of discussions on the different variants of the 007mk1 (70xxx vs 71xxx vs sz1xxx serial numbers) and after they changed to the mk2, people noticed differences between the original run of mk2s from the so-called mk2.5, mk2.9, and mk2.95 production runs which are ostensibly all the same (all mk2 units), but reportedly sound slightly different from one another.

Other stealth changes include the stock tubes on the 700T amps changing from Electro-Harmonix 6SN7GTB to JJ Electronics 6SN7GTB; the image used on the 700T's product page was changed but no other announcement was made. That was probably due to the Ukraine war (EH tubes are produced in Russia). The D-series amps (D10 and D50) are produced in China rather than Japan and I've read that the D50 was never offered for sale in Japan; come to think about it I don't recall seeing it at e-earphone in Tokyo while every other Stax amp model was there (indeed, I just checked e-earphone's website and the D50 isn't listed). My best guess as to the color difference is that the supplier for the casework changed and the new supplier didn't offer it in silver. That is not an uncommon practice across multiple industries.

Sure—but the issue here is that every website other than Stax International still shows a silver D50, and many of them explicitly describe it as ‘silver’, when Stax actually delivers dark grey units without any notice (there is no way to tell other than to open the box and take the unit out, which resellers would typically not do unless they want to demo the product in their showroom). I can understand that a product that's been around for several years will have gone through some changes, but the information should have been updated concurrently (and everywhere, not just on the Stax International website).

 

[ericj]

I recall that Stax Japan posted on their Twitter account around 2 years ago an image/video showing a damaged 009S driver that came in for RMA. It had been used on a 3rd party amp and there were scorch marks from where arcing occurred between the stators. They accompanied that photo with a warning to only use Stax amps. Unfortunately, X no longer allows plain browsing of accounts without a login, so I can't find that tweet anymore.

I'm sure none of the reputable 3rd party builders would make an amp that does this as the KG designs all have specific safety features to guard against damage, but there is no shortage of sloppy work out there as pointed out by the mafia folks.

I'm not sure how you'd accomplish that without a serious error, like not having at least a few megohms on the bias supply output.

 

[Torino]

@newbluesuit:
maybe this is something for you:

https://headfreaks.dk/products/stax-srm-d50-demo

 

[newbluesuit]

@newbluesuit:
maybe this is something for you:

https://headfreaks.dk/products/stax-srm-d50-demo

Thanks! I just sent them an email to confirm the color of that unit.

 

[alota]

@newbluesuit:
maybe this is something for you:

https://headfreaks.dk/products/stax-srm-d50-demo

Great shop and great customer support

 

[Torino]

I bought my X9000 and T8000 there. The price was unbeatable, the contact was very nice and the shipping was really fast. I can only recommend the shop.

 

[LarsHP]

I see now that the price is actually higher than that of a new SRM-D50, because this seller is selling together with a pair of SR-007 mk 2, which I have no use for. I would prefer to buy a new SRM-D50 anyway (hopefully they still make them in silver).

It's strange to me that no one here seems to know anything about this change of color (nor care about it for that matter). It seems to me more problematic that Stax are changing their products without even informing their resellers than them discouraging their customers from using third-party energizers.

The official Stax reseller I received the dark grey SRM-D50 from knows nothing about this change of color and will contact Stax to hopefully get some clarification from them, but told me it may be a while until they get a response.

In the text, he makes it clear that he will sell them separately.

Yesterday another seller at Finn.no has posted a used SRM-D50 in silver for NOK 7500. That said, I would prefer buying from Headfreaks.dk if it's indeed in silver.