[tameral]

I know Stax energizers don't get a lot of love and especially the newer ones, but I'm still in awe of what the SRM-700S brings to the table combined with the SR-007A (port modded). I have owned the 353X (recent) and KGSSHV (longer time ago) before.
I paid about half the new-price for a like-new 700S which is a good price IMO compared to the 353X and KGSSHV. At full price I would have not opted for the 700S.

I'd love to get your perspective (or anyone else too) on KGSSHV vs Stax SRM-700s. I've searched the threads and there isn't much of a comparison out there.

 

[arielext]

I'd love to get your perspective (or anyone else too) on KGSSHV vs Stax SRM-700s. I've searched the threads and there isn't much of a comparison out there.

I cannot give much insight unfortunately. I had a Stax6 built KGSSHV about 5 years ago, before I decided to sell the whole bunch. I regretted that decision once I found out that the Stax only needed a little eq and since then I bought back a pair of 007A's (had the 007mk2 before; I love that gold in black soooo much better ...) with a 353X and jumped on the 700S when I saw it pop up.
There is about 5 years in between so any form of comparison I can give is silly. I know both are great (duh) energizers, but I can't give more than that. I can compare the Stax setup to an Audio-GD master 9/Meze Elite though if that helps.

 

[arielext]

All that matters is you enjoy what you have. Once you are at that point, just ignore the noise.

I 100% agree!

I always look forward to the time I can spend with the Stax and the music. Thinking about which tracks I want to listen to, which artists, which playlist. The simple things; the music!

 

[tjlindle]

I know Stax energizers don't get a lot of love and especially the newer ones, but I'm still in awe of what the SRM-700S brings to the table combined with the SR-007A (port modded). I have owned the 353X (recent) and KGSSHV (longer time ago) before.
I paid about half the new-price for a like-new 700S which is a good price IMO compared to the 353X and KGSSHV. At full price I would have not opted for the 700S.

Most of the Stax amps are actually quite excellent, they are just overpriced for the raw performance they provide vs third-party.

But at second-hand prices they become very attractive propositions. You mentioned the 353X, I have seen those go as low as $550, that is a no-brainer at a price like that.

In some cases, especially with older headphones, I prefer the way they're voiced with period appropriate Stax amps more than with modern third-party amps that should be significantly better in theory.

 

[timb5881]

I was always under the impression that when Stax introduced a new headphone’s that they followed up with a new amp to voice the new headphones better. I may be wrong.

 

[catscratch]

Isn't the 700s just an updated 717? In that case yeah, it should be pretty good with the 007. The 717 was a little bit underpowered for the 007 imo but it had a nice clean sound with a warm tuning and made for a pleasant, mellow system. It's quite nice with the L700 too though you have to EQ the latter to tame the highs and midrange shout. Aftermarket amps will be better (at least the good ones), but the 717 was always my favorite Stax-made amp. It's too bad they're getting long in the tooth and need to be re-capped. If the 700s is anything like it, then picking one up used at half price should be a good deal.

 

[homeros8000]

I own both the Mjolnir Carbon and 700S. While I love the 700S sound signature, especially with the L500, I feel the Carbon drives the 009 more efficiently.

 

[timb5881]

Isn't the 700s just an updated 717? In that case yeah, it should be pretty good with the 007. The 717 was a little bit underpowered for the 007 imo but it had a nice clean sound with a warm tuning and made for a pleasant, mellow system. It's quite nice with the L700 too though you have to EQ the latter to tame the highs and midrange shout. Aftermarket amps will be better (at least the good ones), but the 717 was always my favorite Stax-made amp. It's too bad they're getting long in the tooth and need to be re-capped. If the 700s is anything like it, then picking one up used at half price should be a good deal.

I would say it is closer to the 727, which has feedback and I believe a ccs.

 

[kevin gilmore]

no 3rd stage current source in the 700s. reason: no current production >700v pnp transistors.
first 2 stages identical to 717. 3rd and 4th stage identical to t8000.
lots of current production surface mount transistors in 3rd and 4th stage.
tails of the 3rd stage are jfet. first use of jfet in this positon. similar to T2 in this respect.
better thermal management due to clever mounting techniques in the 3rd and 4th stages.
for those who have not seen the insides. current source resistors clearly visible in the second picture.

 

[timb5881]

Nice to know.

 

[alota]

Justo to say after long listening that the 007 with ccs and 6s4a tubes is superb. Thanks again @Firschi

 

[Svperstar]

I know Stax energizers don't get a lot of love and especially the newer ones

According to who you talk too on which forum you will get wildly different answers. For example the 717 was specially released for the 007 to give it more power, on other forums people say "there are differences in the energizers but they are minor", others say a Carbon CC really makes the 007 come alive and is basically a requirement to listen to them.

I'm not an EE an I'm not going to pretend to be one on the internet, I was hanging out in a high end audio discord and someone in there thought it was completely ridiculous to pay for a high end energizer because of the math he used to show how little power actually went to the headphones in estats. He said basically once you crossed the 400v threshold for edge cases there was no point in getting more power. Again, I am not an EE so I have no idea if his math was correct. Maybe he was just a troll.

I used to think that the Koss energizer for the 95X was "bad" because of power, turns out there is a filter in it that EQs down <200hz. I guess they assumed anyone who buys it is a classical fan not a bass head so EQing down the low end lets the high end shine. This is why when plugged into a Stax amp the bass comes alive immediately. Ofc there are big differences between the Koss energizer and the myriad of other energizers but removing the EQ filter is a big deal when it comes to sound.

Someone in another forum said they did a single blind test and couldn't hear any difference between a higher end Stax amps and the aftermarket amps. Who knows.

Also after I got the 007 I was reading reviews and some person was telling me how much my setup sucked for the 007 and how terrible it would sound...........then he admitted he had never heard either the 007 nor the amp I was using to power them, he was just repeating back what he heard online.

I couldn't imagine trying to tell someone how a pair of headphones they actually had sitting on their head sound when I never heard them before.

 

[kevin gilmore]

The koss amplifier is not deliberately equalized below 200hz. Its an AC coupled design, and the physical size of the 1kv coupling caps to the output section
and the massive amount of open loop gain limit the frequency response of the amplifier. The kingsound m10 is similar in this respect.

 

[Svperstar]

I was digging through reviews, the WooWee isn't something I see talked about a ton on here lately. According to these blind testers it was their favorite in a 4 way shootout, note the SRM-007 tube amp was rated dead last by everyone:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/amp...rkv-wooaudio-wee-stax-srm727-srm007t2.681814/

 

[padam]

An adapter based solution is an adapter based solution.
If anything, more is dependent on the particular speaker amplifier and the synergy of the whole system than the adapter itself which alters the signal in a certain way that may be beneficial for certain things.
The trouble with tests like this is that there are far too many things done at once, which will significantly affect the perception and the point system used seems a bit stupid. I could listen to the same music on a different day and rate it differently because the sound is complex as a whole, and I pay attention to different things.

It's hard not to be judgmental, but I see a lot of confusion in these posts that might clear up, once one gathers enough knowledge by spending enough time with the sound and learns what works and what not.
Differences are there, at least to my ears, and I think saying one amp is "better/superior" than another because of this and that is a bit of an oversimplification, a less powerful Stax amp still has a different sound to aftermarket amps that might actually be advantageous regarding certain things, music types, etc. etc.

Some people have the ability to figure this out on their own. Maybe they've already had many years of hi-fi experience beforehand tweaking their speaker setups etc., others might not have the knowledge to do so (yet). Just checked, I've owned Stax for over 16 years now (at first LNS + T1S, really not bad at all for a start) and I still don't claim that I know a whole lot, it's really hard to gain first-hand experience, especially with amps.

I actually learned certain things from a 2007 post from the previous thread, it was a 717 vs an original KGSS and in some ways newer versions of the latter is a considerably more "refined/evolved" version of the same "basic" sound. Some will prefer this, some will prefer that.
The information is all there, it just takes some time to dig it up and distinguish from others (already linked it before a few times I think, so if one believes that my contribution is worthwhile, it can be found).

Actually started bookmarking a lot of posts from certain members after I tried to quickly scroll through every single page of every Stax thread just to find what I was looking for. (Yeah I know, don't ask...) I guess I should really start copying those out and make my "head-fi files" segment in case links change again, and all that work is completely lost.
But it is my "filtering" based on the opinions I agree with (and skipping ones I disagree with), so I am not sure it would be as useful to anyone.