I have spent some time the last few weeks reading away from this forum. What!! Yes there is a world outside head-fi. But seriously, so many non stat forums have a go about Stax gear. It is the same story, too much detail, plastic, unnatural. I disagree of course. IMO they can't handle or are not used to being hard wired to the music. The transient response and low mass of the drivers makes music so fast and detailed.
Why is this? I will try in my own pathetic way here to explain (IMO).
What has most folk grown up with as regards their awareness of music and how it should sound?
1. The radio and amplifiers
Well it was nice when we had those big and warm sounding radio gram monsters in the lounge. Anyone lucky enough to have parents with a Harman Kardon Citation 1? Then things went south somewhat with the '12 transistor' radios as such like. And don't forget the radio stations compressed everything down to 25 DB dynamic range.
2. The speaker
Well, what was available when I was young and that my parents could afford? Not much, mainly 2 box infinite baffle types. If you were lucky the odd Snell thrown in or a BBC monitor. These were the 'go to' speaker if you were serious back then.
And these were more often than not fed by a very average turntable made by Sansui or something and 70's thin (poor) quality vinyl pressings. Things have moved on, but at a certain level speakers (in the main) still sound too cold and detail driven to me and have no heart. Unless you go a bit more crazy on the budget.
There are some great speaker system out there. I have heard the B&W Nautilus and it was impressive and 3D like. There is also the healthy revival of high end horn designs. But I still prefer the sound of my 009s. Maybe I am accustomed to that and it my 'safe' zone. Regardless I get so much enjoyment from it, and of course, it doesn't mean the neighbours are breaking my door in!
3. The recordings
In a studio the mixing desk will typically have mid sized studio monitors like these:
They are usually slightly over detailed so the mixing engineer can hear everything. They then have a low end single box speaker to check how it sounds from a portable radio (though less relevant with iPhones and IEMs). There may be a larger speaker array that handle sub bass, but many studios tend to semi ignore that aspect. Only the club mix recording I used to get when I was a DJ was it obvious they had spent some time with a sub bass mix, as you will have heard on modern club mix dance tracks.
So we are actually listening to a better and more frequency wide faster speaker system than most mixing desks will have. I think this aspect has meant we can hear the micro detail stuff so well, fake record scratch samples in dance music, mixing mistakes and noise, background noises, you name it we can hear it! It may sound different to the artists impression in that studio as well. Does it matter? Maybe. Does it get us closer to the music, the artist, hell yes IMO.
It takes a while to get your brain to 'accept' these aspects, the low level information that is more obvious. It is accurate or 'normal'?. Once you do accept that you are a Stax believer. Those that don't may stay with Planars or conventional speaker headphones. Dare I say it - behind the fog of conventional drivers. Maybe it is a step to far for some.
4. Live Music
We hear from the many that the Stat sound - 'it doesn't sound like live music'. But I have been to classical concerts that sound screechy, too quite, too loud, too brassy, too soft, or just nice and natural. It depends on the acoustics in the venue, where you are stood, how many people in front of you (absorbent mass). Back in the 70's live music often sounded terrible. The mixing all over the shop, speakers not up to it, really really poor. It was often the experience of being there that made it worth it.
More recently I have been to see Kraftwerk which sounded fantastic and Leftfield that made my ears bleed, well, I couldn't hear anything much for 3 days after. The bass was so strong it nearly made me levitate. So what is 'live' sound? There are many.
Stax systems
Back to Stax systems, of course, all this extra information and insight comes at a price, as in many things in life. In this case more is more, not less is more. And it is worth the price IMO. No headphone system or even speaker system is good at everything, but to me Stats get closer in all the areas I care about. Yeah, some say we don't have that killer bass, I disagree. It is killer bass, just different bass. It is textured and detailed bass, not thumping one note head-ache and fatigue inducing bass. If I wanted that I would be driving around in a Kev'ed up motor scaring the neighbours.
All this detail makes it doubly important to get the right DAC and system balance, the right source adjustments if using PC audio. The constant 'it is too bright' or 'how do I tone down the brightness'. It is IMO down to the source and amp to do that, or at least remove that problem in that source so it doesn't get realised in the detailed headphone system, not mask it with a duller sounding driver at the other end.
I will shut up now. Hope you enjoyed my little report.
