The Stax Thread III

[AngryAudiophile]

The HD800 is worth keeping for live concert type recordings and classical, I do not think my 009 or 007 even remotely compare.  True, they are more clear and more realistically well defined and solid, but neither portray certain spacious genres and tracks nearly as well as the HD800.  For intimacy needs, I seek the 009.  For classical or tracks that are spaciously recorded, I swap to the HD800.  For most everything else, the 007 is on my head.

 

[blackads]

Is Price Japan still a legit place to order a new 009 from?

Also, when did the price on these drop to the ~$3300 range?  Last time I checked, which wasn't too long ago, they were $4500+.

I bought a pair of 009s and a 727A a couple of weeks back from pricejapan and could not be happier with their service - ordered and paid on a Friday, had an email to say that the 727 may take a week to get, but then on the Saturday had an email to say that they had shipped.

They arrived on the Thursday. Total price just over $5000 Au, plus import costs adding another 600. RRP of the 009 alone in Aust is $5999.

The bundled 727 deal on pricejapan includes a 240 to 100V power transformer and the set up works perfectly. Ive modded the 727 and it sounds great.

As I said, I couldnt be happier with the service from pricejapan - I dont however have any knowledge of what they may be like to deal with for warranty claims......

 

[jackskelly]

I bought a pair of 009s and a 727A a couple of weeks back from pricejapan and could not be happier with their service - ordered and paid on a Friday, had an email to say that the 727 may take a week to get, but then on the Saturday had an email to say that they had shipped.

They arrived on the Thursday. Total price just over $5000 Au, plus import costs adding another 600. RRP of the 009 alone in Aust is $5999.

The bundled 727 deal on pricejapan includes a 240 to 100V power transformer and the set up works perfectly. Ive modded the 727 and it sounds great.

As I said, I couldnt be happier with the service from pricejapan - I dont however have any knowledge of what they may be like to deal with for warranty claims......

 
I ordered from them in February of 2013 and I didn't have any problems. I made an initial deposit (for $500) for the SR-009 and then paid the remainder of the balance I owed once they were ready to ship (5 weeks or so later). They've worked perfectly so far, no issues whatsoever. 

 

 

[complin]

APuresound and stock..... but to be honest I haven't found after-market cables make that much difference with headphones.
I know this will be heresy to some! 

 
Quote:

  Complin, (probably shouldn't ask this in a Stax thread) but what's your HD800 cable? Thanks. 1-word answer is fine.

 

[realmassy]

  The HD800 is worth keeping for live concert type recordings and classical, I do not think my 009 or 007 even remotely compare.  True, they are more clear and more realistically well defined and solid, but neither portray certain spacious genres and tracks nearly as well as the HD800.  For intimacy needs, I seek the 009.  For classical or tracks that are spaciously recorded, I swap to the HD800.  For most everything else, the 007 is on my head.

Saying the 009 can't "portray certain spacious genres and tracks nearly as well as the HD800" is quite a statement. I strongly disagree with that.

 

[subtle]

I bought a pair of 009s and a 727A a couple of weeks back from pricejapan and could not be happier with their service - ordered and paid on a Friday, had an email to say that the 727 may take a week to get, but then on the Saturday had an email to say that they had shipped.

They arrived on the Thursday. Total price just over $5000 Au, plus import costs adding another 600. RRP of the 009 alone in Aust is $5999.

The bundled 727 deal on pricejapan includes a 240 to 100V power transformer and the set up works perfectly. Ive modded the 727 and it sounds great.

As I said, I couldnt be happier with the service from pricejapan - I dont however have any knowledge of what they may be like to deal with for warranty claims......

 
Thank you for the reply blackads.
 
I had no idea the price of the 009 had dropped so much since the last time I checked on it.  I think it may finally be time to place an order.

 

[rgs9200m]

Thanks Complin. Lately in general I've been finding stock cables on newer phones have improved a lot since the old days. The phones I have with permanently attached cables sound great.
The exception is Audeze, where I like Q-audio a lot.
And yeah, an 009 is a steal at these prices, and anyone who could cobble together the funds should jump on this while it lasts.
(Especially non-Stax users who will enter the wonderful world of Stax.)

 

[Crashem]

Thank you for the reply blackads.

I had no idea the price of the 009 had dropped so much since the last time I checked on it.  I think it may finally be time to place an order.

More a situation where yen is fairly weak at the moment.

 

[davidsh]

What does pricejapan do wrt decalred value, and how about taxes etc. in general?

 

[Crashem]

What does pricejapan do wrt decalred value, and how about taxes etc. in general?

Where are you at? To US, I didn't pay anything as declared value was under the allowed amount. In any case, YMMV but they will work with you.

 

[davidsh]

It's just taxes alone would be some 1000$, you see..

 

[milosz]

Responding to a few comments recently on Sennheiser HD-800's with an eye (ear?) to making some comparisons with Stax sound...
 
I used to have a pair of HD-800's. I have a kind of hyperacusis, which makes certain high frequency sounds painful at times; the HD-800's well known treble emphasis became quite unbearable for  me.  Aside from that, the sound of the HD-800 was quite transparent and wonderful and in my opinion the best non-electrostatic sound there is. HD-800's are just SUPER CLEAN.  That high-frequency exaggeration did not seem to me to be like the Lambda Signature "etch"- the HD-800's treble issue was much more pronounced, to the point where me and my hyperacusis just couldn't tolerate them.  YMMV. I tried a good many amplifiers- both tube and solid state- and while I found I liked the Bottlehead Crack/Speedball the best, I still couldn't listen to them- even with EQ applied- without suffering pain at moderate (75~80 dB SPL) levels or above.
 
It's a shame I couldn't love them, really, because they were the only non-electrostatic 'phones I have heard that approached Stax and Koss in terms of resolution and clarity.  Just look at Purrin's CSD waterfall plots and you can see some of the good technical qualities these phones have- almost no stored energy problems, unlike so many other 'phones. http://www.head-fi.org/t/566929/headphone-csd-waterfall-plots/165#post_7776220
 
Build quality was also nothing short of splendid, too.  Marvelously well made things.
 
Alas they had to go.  Just too expensive to have laying around, unused.
 
It's odd that I can listen to my Lambda Signatures at pretty high levels without this sort of pain and ear fatigue, even though there is obviously some HF emphasis in the Stax. It must be smaller in magnitude and some distance away from my hyperacussis'  most sensitive frequencies- something like that.  I can also listen to HE-6's and Beyer DT-880's without trouble, even though these both have some treble emphasis.  There was just something about the HD-800's that was actually painful for me to hear.
 
I have to say that I think my various electrostatic headphones sound even better than the very very good HD-800's, and I'm really happy for that.

 

[negura]

  The HD800 is worth keeping for live concert type recordings and classical, I do not think my 009 or 007 even remotely compare.  True, they are more clear and more realistically well defined and solid, but neither portray certain spacious genres and tracks nearly as well as the HD800.  For intimacy needs, I seek the 009.  For classical or tracks that are spaciously recorded, I swap to the HD800.  For most everything else, the 007 is on my head.

 
Live recordings in particular are superb with the SR-009s. Even when recording quality is arguable, but not completely horrible. On nice gear (which is also a pre-requisite for the HD800s) I agree with you the SR-009s are more realistic, but this is also in respect to image projections: the SR-009s can deal with small and big much better. The HD800s can do big a bit better due to their indiscriminately wide sound stage. But yes that sounds really nice with some tunes.
 
Unfortunately the more I upgraded my gear, the more I could see the limitations of the 007s in comparison to the 009s, as much as I love the former for what they do so well. As all around headphones I rate the 007s well above the HD800s.

 

[AngryAudiophile]

   
Live recordings in particular are superb with the SR-009s. Even when recording quality is arguable, but not completely horrible. On nice gear (which is also a pre-requisite for the HD800s) I agree with you the SR-009s are more realistic, but this is also in respect to image projections: the SR-009s can deal with small and big much better. The HD800s can do big a bit better due to their indiscriminately wide sound stage. But yes that sounds really nice with some tunes.
 
Unfortunately the more I upgraded my gear, the more I could see the limitations of the 007s in comparison to the 009s, as much as I love the former for what they do so well. As all around headphones I rate the 007s well above the HD800s.

 
I fully agree on all points.  I find the HD800 to warp small sounding recordings too much.  Swapping between the 007 or 009 and the HD800 instantly portrays a sense of something wrong with the generalized shape of the HD800, as well as the positioning.  These faults don't exist on the Stax headphones, but are in abundance on the HD800.  As mentioned, some tracks and genres just sound better to me through the HD800 than the 009 and I am perfectly willing to sacrifice the sublime clarity in the Stax's for the sublime spaciousness in the HD800.  For example, Suite for Cello No.6 by Janos Stalker is a lively and close up sound signature in a classical venue, the 009 annihilates the HD800 with recordings like this.  However, on the very same album there are tracks with the microphone pushed back further to accommodate more instruments.  Here, the HD800 annihilates the 009s.  As we all know, it is about preference and this is entirely subjective.  In terms of raw clarity and realism, both the 007 and 009 outshine the HD800.  Classical in general is typically rarely recorded with the microphone so intimately placed near the musicians.  When I said the HD800 performs better than the 009 earlier, II was talking about the total and full meshing of headphone sound signature and the genres generalized recording sound signatures.  Classical to me plays better through the HD800 most of the time, more than sufficient in volume and percentages to label it a better classical powerhouse than the 009.  My two cents though...

 

[complin]

Yep have to agree as it comes back to the points I made earlier about the recording.
There is these days a tendency to use closed mic techniques for many recordings. Whilst this gives oodles of detail it loses the acoustic of the performance venue and sometime the natural perspective of the instruments. In a live performance in a concert venue, unless artificially amplified you would never hear the performance in this way. The 009 will incisively reproduce this in spades. The HD800 however seems very adept at soundstage and acoustic environment but not quite up to the very fine granular analytics or the 009. This is probably why so many classical recordings of the 1960's-70's are considered as natural and soundstage kings, very little close mic stuff in those days.
Much has been talked here about the soundstage of Stax, but for me the Jecklin float holds first place as the way it presents music is unique IMO. It does have its shortcomings as do all headphones, but with good recordings you do get an out of head experience.  
 
 
Quote:

   
I fully agree on all points.  I find the HD800 to warp small sounding recordings too much.  Swapping between the 007 or 009 and the HD800 instantly portrays a sense of something wrong with the generalized shape of the HD800, as well as the positioning.  These faults don't exist on the Stax headphones, but are in abundance on the HD800.  As mentioned, some tracks and genres just sound better to me through the HD800 than the 009 and I am perfectly willing to sacrifice the sublime clarity in the Stax's for the sublime spaciousness in the HD800.  For example, Suite for Cello No.6 by Janos Stalker is a lively and close up sound signature in a classical venue, the 009 annihilates the HD800 with recordings like this.  However, on the very same album there are tracks with the microphone pushed back further to accommodate more instruments.  Here, the HD800 annihilates the 009s.  As we all know, it is about preference and this is entirely subjective.  In terms of raw clarity and realism, both the 007 and 009 outshine the HD800.  Classical in general is typically rarely recorded with the microphone so intimately placed near the musicians.  When I said the HD800 performs better than the 009 earlier, II was talking about the total and full meshing of headphone sound signature and the genres generalized recording sound signatures.  Classical to me plays better through the HD800 most of the time, more than sufficient in volume and percentages to label it a better classical powerhouse than the 009.  My two cents though...