[bobkatz]

Hooray! I found some NOS SR-5 earpads in a sealed bag in my closet with Stax parts. I just put them on and the phones feel comfortable as new. I'm going to check them out again soon!

 

[Aspirant Audiophile]

No way, you remembered me! Sorry I forgot it was you.



The Mjolnir Carbon amp is definitely shall we say "warm" but i think in a nice way. With the 007 M 2 I also do a little brightening at the top. At least with my aged 007's. My 007's predate the Carbon amp and either they've warmed over time or my memory is faulty, or what I recall was with the older KGSS that I had (which was a bit bright I thought). The older KGSS is an older generation and I think it was a good attempt, but the Mjolnir Carbon is such an improvement on it.

I need to get some new pads for my old "pro-ized" SR-5. Would SRX earpads work?

My custom transformer based Stat amp is sweet, warm and punchy, a hair light in the bass below 100 Hz. It's an excellent competitior to the Mjolnir Carbon and surprisingly, I have no preference, I like both amps as long as I can equalize the phones for the phones and the amp.

Attached are my headphone EQs and you can see that I also need to do a little HF rise for my 007s. All of my EQs have been empirically created by matching them up as close as possible with my calibrated loudspeakers in my mastering room which have a slight bass rise below 125, then are flat up to 1 kHz, then HF rolled off to something close to the B&K curve.

I like the RME DAC, its line output sounds quite neutral to me. I have not shot it out directly against my Prism Lyra, but I feel that both DACs are in the same league sonically. Except the Prism does not have built in EQ like the RME. My tests for DACs have been to put them into a pitch and catch situation (out DAC ----> in ADC) and capture the return into my DAW to compare with the source. In no case, including the Prism, the Cranesong Hedd Quantum and now the Grimm UC-1, does the return come close to the original. There is always some loss of depth and spatiality. Right now the Grimm is the winner, by a nose. But to my ears in the pitch and catch, the losses I hear are in depth and space and clarity. But I have not perceived any harshness or brightness with any of the premium DACs I mentioned, just different degrees of loss of space or clarity. So we have to agree to disagree. I have never auditioned a Lavry, however.

Here's where we disagree: With EQ, into either my Mjolnir Carbon or my new custom transformer-based stat amp --- I find the RME DAC to be very nice, clean and accurate. Neither dry nor pure, just simply neutral.

Attached are some screenshots of 4 EQs. If you compare EQ #1 versus #2, it shows the subtle differences between the two Stat amps, using the Audeze CRBN as a constant headphone. The BK Stat amp needs a bit more HF rolloff and/or bass boost. But in the end both amps sound marvelous with the BK transformer amp sounding a bit "fatter" but not in any objectionable way.

EQ #3 by comparison is the 007 Mk 2 with the BK stat amp. Absolutely it needs a bit of an HF rise, so here you and I agree considerably. Again, I do not remember that need so either my memory is faulty, or the headphone has aged, or my memory of the 007 goes back to my old KGSS amp which I sold which I felt sounded bright. I really like the Mjolnir Carbon, however, it has the warmth that I seek. I am quite impressed by the 007 Mk2 with proper EQ compensation. it does not have the imaging/soundstage of the Audeze CRBN, but it's right up there in tonality and punch now. I give the equalized CRBN a 10 grade and the equalized 007 Mk2 a 9.5. They are both excellent headphones.

EQ #4 by comparison is the old, pro-ized by you SR-5. It's a bright and thin phone with out EQ and it does not throw a big soundstage like the two giant circumaural successors but I would throw this equalized phone out of bed! Not at all...after this EQ it's very respectable. With this EQ I feel the old SR-5 is now a a "reference grade" phone. And amazingly, all three of these Stats can take a bottom end boost to compensate for their relative weaknesses, without overload.

In all respects, the three equalized stat phones beat all of my planar dynamics. The equalized Audeze LCD-5, however, comes the closest with EQ and I give it a surprising 9 grade. Audeze worked real hard to make the LCD-5 have the best pinnae-compensation curve out of the box.

I had the Bricasti DAC on trial and did not like it, it sounded bright to me. I know there have been a lot of firmware upgrades for this DAC so it's a chameleon at this point and who knows what version anyone is evaluating.

Gold...

 

[Svperstar]

No way, you remembered me! Sorry I forgot it was you.



The Mjolnir Carbon amp is definitely shall we say "warm" but i think in a nice way. With the 007 M 2 I also do a little brightening at the top. At least with my aged 007's. My 007's predate the Carbon amp and either they've warmed over time or my memory is faulty, or what I recall was with the older KGSS that I had (which was a bit bright I thought). The older KGSS is an older generation and I think it was a good attempt, but the Mjolnir Carbon is such an improvement on it.

I need to get some new pads for my old "pro-ized" SR-5. Would SRX earpads work?

My custom transformer based Stat amp is sweet, warm and punchy, a hair light in the bass below 100 Hz. It's an excellent competitior to the Mjolnir Carbon and surprisingly, I have no preference, I like both amps as long as I can equalize the phones for the phones and the amp.

Attached are my headphone EQs and you can see that I also need to do a little HF rise for my 007s. All of my EQs have been empirically created by matching them up as close as possible with my calibrated loudspeakers in my mastering room which have a slight bass rise below 125, then are flat up to 1 kHz, then HF rolled off to something close to the B&K curve.

I like the RME DAC, its line output sounds quite neutral to me. I have not shot it out directly against my Prism Lyra, but I feel that both DACs are in the same league sonically. Except the Prism does not have built in EQ like the RME. My tests for DACs have been to put them into a pitch and catch situation (out DAC ----> in ADC) and capture the return into my DAW to compare with the source. In no case, including the Prism, the Cranesong Hedd Quantum and now the Grimm UC-1, does the return come close to the original. There is always some loss of depth and spatiality. Right now the Grimm is the winner, by a nose. But to my ears in the pitch and catch, the losses I hear are in depth and space and clarity. But I have not perceived any harshness or brightness with any of the premium DACs I mentioned, just different degrees of loss of space or clarity. So we have to agree to disagree. I have never auditioned a Lavry, however.

Here's where we disagree: With EQ, into either my Mjolnir Carbon or my new custom transformer-based stat amp --- I find the RME DAC to be very nice, clean and accurate. Neither dry nor pure, just simply neutral.

Attached are some screenshots of 4 EQs. If you compare EQ #1 versus #2, it shows the subtle differences between the two Stat amps, using the Audeze CRBN as a constant headphone. The BK Stat amp needs a bit more HF rolloff and/or bass boost. But in the end both amps sound marvelous with the BK transformer amp sounding a bit "fatter" but not in any objectionable way.

EQ #3 by comparison is the 007 Mk 2 with the BK stat amp. Absolutely it needs a bit of an HF rise, so here you and I agree considerably. Again, I do not remember that need so either my memory is faulty, or the headphone has aged, or my memory of the 007 goes back to my old KGSS amp which I sold which I felt sounded bright. I really like the Mjolnir Carbon, however, it has the warmth that I seek. I am quite impressed by the 007 Mk2 with proper EQ compensation. it does not have the imaging/soundstage of the Audeze CRBN, but it's right up there in tonality and punch now. I give the equalized CRBN a 10 grade and the equalized 007 Mk2 a 9.5. They are both excellent headphones.

EQ #4 by comparison is the old, pro-ized by you SR-5. It's a bright and thin phone with out EQ and it does not throw a big soundstage like the two giant circumaural successors but I would throw this equalized phone out of bed! Not at all...after this EQ it's very respectable. With this EQ I feel the old SR-5 is now a a "reference grade" phone. And amazingly, all three of these Stats can take a bottom end boost to compensate for their relative weaknesses, without overload.

In all respects, the three equalized stat phones beat all of my planar dynamics. The equalized Audeze LCD-5, however, comes the closest with EQ and I give it a surprising 9 grade. Audeze worked real hard to make the LCD-5 have the best pinnae-compensation curve out of the box.

I had the Bricasti DAC on trial and did not like it, it sounded bright to me. I know there have been a lot of firmware upgrades for this DAC so it's a chameleon at this point and who knows what version anyone is evaluating.

I also have an RME but I use Equalizer APO with Windows 11 for all my EQing besides throwing on a quick bass boost. You can just do waaay more with APO then the limited amount of EQing the RME allows.

 

[icnaiwhimor1975]

Carbon amp is definitely shall we say "warm"

this is because of the SiC FET output transistors which are as close to vacuum tube triodes

 

[jody2k]

I also have an RME but I use Equalizer APO with Windows 11 for all my EQing besides throwing on a quick bass boost. You can just do waaay more with APO then the limited amount of EQing the RME allows.

This is the way same here equalizer APO is underrated imo such a great Equalizer.

 

[catscratch]

You guys do know who Bob Katz is, right? I'm pretty sure we're not the ones who should be telling him which eq to use.

Regarding APO, its main draw is convenience. In terms of sound quality, I don't think it's that great. Run any peaking filter sharper than Q 2.5 and I already start to hear artifacting. But for general all-around use, gaming, watching movies, etc, it's great, and free.

 

[John Buchanan]

@bobkatz are you the very same bloke who did work for Chesky? Nice to see you here! IIRC, a long time user of Stax headphones. Did you ever get to use Stax's SRM Monitor (the diffuse field EQ and the SRM1 Mk 2 in one big chassis)?

 

[gammi]

New toy I'll be testing out with my STAX soon, Sansui AU-X11. I went through and restored the internals, replacing like 100 parts.
This amp is notorious for being so fast and run so close to the edge that it would oscillate and blow itself up

 

[icnaiwhimor1975]

This amp is notorious for being so fast and run so close to the edge that it would oscillate and blow itself up

260V/us ?

 

[jody2k]

You guys do know who Bob Katz is, right? I'm pretty sure we're not the ones who should be telling him which eq to use.

Regarding APO, its main draw is convenience. In terms of sound quality, I don't think it's that great. Run any peaking filter sharper than Q 2.5 and I already start to hear artifacting. But for general all-around use, gaming, watching movies, etc, it's great, and free.

APO has a very good lossless equalizer but that's about it I think, should only be used for that.
Can't speak about the filters as I never used that, never heard any artifacts imo.
Also having compared this with alot of other EQ software, to my ears APO came out best every time soundquality+convenience.

 

[bobkatz]

@bobkatz are you the very same bloke who did work for Chesky? Nice to see you here! IIRC, a long time user of Stax headphones. Did you ever get to use Stax's SRM Monitor (the diffuse field EQ and the SRM1 Mk 2 in one big chassis)?

Hi, John. Yep, I was the bloke! Nice to see you here, too.

this is because of the SiC FET output transistors which are as close to vacuum tube triodes

Roger, those output transistors are very impressive in the Carbon.
I was Chesky's first engineer from 1980 through 1996 when I moved from New York to Florida. Yes, I'm a long time user of Stax. I am not familiar with Stax's SRM monitor.

 

[gammi]

New toy I'll be testing out with my STAX soon, Sansui AU-X11. I went through and restored the internals, replacing like 100 parts.
This amp is notorious for being so fast and run so close to the edge that it would oscillate and blow itself up

So this was interesting. I started off with my cheapest STAX, my Lambda Pro, just in case something blew. And wow, I was actually surprised by this thing, I don't remember it being this great when I listened before, I gotta revisit it on some other amps and see if it just really came alive on the AU-X11 or if I'm misremembering. I don't use it a whole lot so I'm not super familiar with it. But my first track was O Helga Natt off of Cantate Domino and just wow, so spacious, my room turned into a cathedral.

One recurring theme was just how punchy everything was too. I played a few tracks with drums and they sounded as if the skin was more taught, they just popped. Felt so much more like a real drum than I ever remember hearing out of my STAX or any headphone for that matter. I moved up to the Nova Signature and SR-007 and same story, punchy drums, full bass, airy/spacious treble. Even the normally more damped 007 was punchy. My STAX were sounding like dynamic drivers tonight the way they were hitting.

Then came the X9000... This is normally my favorite. Idk what it was tonight, it just didn't have the punch the others had with this amp. It was very clean and smooth and the bass was there but the impact wasn't. Normally I don't find this lacking on the X9000. Very interesting result from this, the X9000 continues to be a bit of an oddball.

260V/us ?

Yup, pretty excessive hah.

 

[John Buchanan]

So this was interesting. I started off with my cheapest STAX, my Lambda Pro, just in case something blew. And wow, I was actually surprised by this thing, I don't remember it being this great when I listened before, I gotta revisit it on some other amps and see if it just really came alive on the AU-X11 or if I'm misremembering. I don't use it a whole lot so I'm not super familiar with it. But my first track was O Helga Natt off of Cantate Domino and just wow, so spacious, my room turned into a cathedral.

One recurring theme was just how punchy everything was too. I played a few tracks with drums and they sounded as if the skin was more taught, they just popped. Felt so much more like a real drum than I ever remember hearing out of my STAX or any headphone for that matter. I moved up to the Nova Signature and SR-007 and same story, punchy drums, full bass, airy/spacious treble. Even the normally more damped 007 was punchy. My STAX were sounding like dynamic drivers tonight the way they were hitting.

Then came the X9000... This is normally my favorite. Idk what it was tonight, it just didn't have the punch the others had with this amp. It was very clean and smooth and the bass was there but the impact wasn't. Normally I don't find this lacking on the X9000. Very interesting result from this, the X9000 continues to be a bit of an oddball.


Yup, pretty excessive hah.

I think @spritzer may agree with you there

 

[aokman]

New toy I'll be testing out with my STAX soon, Sansui AU-X11. I went through and restored the internals, replacing like 100 parts.
This amp is notorious for being so fast and run so close to the edge that it would oscillate and blow itself up

Man those caps are cooked! Wonder what the rise time is like with transformers.

 

[gammi]

I think @spritzer may agree with you there

What's strange is I normally never felt it lacking in impact. I'd like to do some more comparisons.

Man those caps are cooked! Wonder what the rise time is like with transformers.

Interestingly the ones I measured actually measured pretty well. Replaced them anyway with modern equivalents with lower impedance, less leakage, etc.