The Stax Thread III

[alota]

Buying second hand is the way to go! That's what I did with my Blue Hawaii and Holo DAC.

It's interesting how different ears and brains come to different conclusions. In contrast to @hutzelmeier I prefer the T2 over the Blue Hawaii, and the Alpha Centauri comes in third. Also, I prefer the Holo (in NOS setting) over the Computerloch, but I have to admit that I was surprised how close the Computerloch was.

Coming back to my earlier question if it's possible to tell the difference between top-tier amps if there's a break between listening to each amp: I have to say that I would almost certainly fail such a test. The sonic differences do exist, but they are too small to reliably remember with sufficient precision to make out a clear difference after taking a break for an hour or so.

Considering alpha-centauri costs 1800€, it is a good news

 

[newbluesuit]

Does anyone here know anything about the color variations of the SRM-D50 DAC/energizer? I tried the search engine but couldn't find anything on this topic.

When I saw and tested this model in a showroom a few years back, the unit was clearly silver (at least that's how I remember it). It was a similar color to the other Stax models there, with the exception of the darker SRM-D10 (the color of which I would call ‘lead’—although some might call it ‘gunmetal’ or ‘space grey’).

In this video, you can tell that the color of the D50 is indeed lighter than that of the D10:



In these videos you can tell that the D50 has a similar color to the SR-009s, if not a lighter one:




And in this review from 2019 there are pictures of a D50 together with a silver SRM-006tS and a silver Pre Box S2 Digital from Pro-Ject, and the D50 has a very similar color to those:

https://www.lowbeats.de/test-esl-kopfhoererverstaerker-stax-srm-d50/

However, recently I noticed that the listing on the Stax International website shows a very different appearance for the D50, much closer to the ‘lead’ color of the D10:

https://stax-international.com/products/srm-d50/

Yet every other online seller I can find still shows pictures of a silver D50, with many of them even stating that the color is indeed ‘silver’, such as this one:

https://www.heynowhifi.com.au/products/stax-srm-d50-compact-driver-with-dac-silver

The only place where I see third-party pictures of what looks like a ‘lead’-colored D50 is this undated review (see especially the last picture, where the D50 is next to a silver-faced SRM-500T):

https://headphonesnstuff.blog/2022/10/18/stax-headphones-d50-and-srm-500t-full-review/

My preference is definitely for the silver variation. I've never liked darker metal finishes.

So, having decided to purchase the D50, I contacted a seller here in Europe and asked about these color variations. They said that they did not have a unit in stock, but that the D50 was definitely silver and not the color shown on the Stax International website, which they called ‘unreal’ (I hadn't seen the undated review that I linked above yet, so I believed them). I found another seller that had a unit in stock and who explicitly described the D50 as ‘silver’ on their website, so I ordered it without asking them about the color.

As you will have guessed by now, the D50 I just received has a ‘lead’ finish. It's much darker than my SR-009s or any ‘silver’ device I own from other brands. I don't have a D10 to compare it with, but I'm guessing it's the same color. I contacted the reseller about this a couple of days ago but haven't heard back from them yet.

Does anyone know what is going on here? Did Stax change the color of the D50 at some point without informing any of their distributors and resellers? That would seem very unprofessional to me. I sure hope that 230V silver units can still be found, and that I will be able to get a replacement for the ‘lead’ one I just received!

 

[Loz_the_guru]

Anyone here familiar with the materials used in the 007Mk1?

I've got a pair and the clamping force has significantly reduced over time. I've got a relatively small head anyway, and it's starting to get a bit annoying.

Does anyone know if the headband/arc material is made from metal, and if so can I gently apply force to bend it? Or does anyone have any other suggestions? There are replacements available for £110ish I think, which isn't awful all things considered, but i'd rather avoid it if possible!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Chefguru]

Anyone here familiar with the materials used in the 007Mk1?

I've got a pair and the clamping force has significantly reduced over time. I've got a relatively small head anyway, and it's starting to get a bit annoying.

Does anyone know if the headband/arc material is made from metal, and if so can I gently apply force to bend it? Or does anyone have any other suggestions? There are replacements available for £110ish I think, which isn't awful all things considered, but i'd rather avoid it if possible!

Thanks in advance!

Typically this is because the head pad is stretching. Just unscrew one side and trim the elastic an inch or so, put a dot of super glue back on it (it’s glued in place + positioned around two pieces of plastic) and re screw on. No risks since that access point is separate from the drivers

 

[Loz_the_guru]

Typically this is because the head pad is stretching. Just unscrew one side and trim the elastic an inch or so, put a dot of super glue back on it (it’s glued in place + positioned around two pieces of plastic) and re screw on. No risks since that access point is separate from the drivers

Many thanks, I actually did this around a year ago in an attempt to fix it but only trimmed around a centimetre in total.

Would replacing the headband elastic be an option? It feels like the wider cushion is separate and could be slipped onto any similarity sized piece of material, although I could very easily be wrong!

 

[Chefguru]

Many thanks, I actually did this around a year ago in an attempt to fix it but only trimmed around a centimetre in total.

Would replacing the headband elastic be an option? It feels like the wider cushion is separate and could be slipped onto any similarity sized piece of material, although I could very easily be wrong!

Certainly.
If you try the trim again, go for more since it’ll eventually stretch out again anyway.

 

[ericj]

I'm revisiting the SRD-7 upgrade board i took a jab at designing 9 years ago. A lot of stuff went sideways that year and a lot of stuff got mothballed. IDK if spritzer currently has a board for sale or not.

You all know I'm a cheap person. My most expensive headphones cost me a couple hundred bucks. I've got about $250 invested in an SR-L300 on its way to me from japan.

Having glanced at the entry level stax thread, I'm taken aback by what qualifies as entry-level right now. People are even paying $150-$180 for a normal bias SRD-7. The SRD-4 remains cheap, probably having outlived most of the electrets it was originally paired with.

Aside from magnavox and other stax oem stuff i have, which is pretty rare these days, my stax transformer boxes are just a pair of srd-7 and an srd-4.

I _know_ that the srd-4 iron isn't as good as the srd-7, and neither are as good as lundahl transformers. But i dream of a world where people can get in at a lower level. Also i kinda like tinkering.

Taking some measurements from both the SRD-7 and SRD-4 here, it looks like it would be trivial to make a board that can be wedged into either one, granted some delicate transformer surgery is required to connect the center tap in the SRD-4 transformers. It just has to be a maximum height of about 55mm and have four mounting holes on it.

Looking at the SRD-6SB and SRD-7SB schematics, it appears that adapting the board for self-bias is a matter of using a unidirectional zener instead of a bidirectional, and adding a jumper wire.

From pictures, it appears that the SRD-4 and SRD-6 use the same chassis, and it looks like a 120mm*55mm formfactor could probably also fit inside an SRD-5. If someone has measurements, that would be neat.

Maybe i can make it so an enterprising nerd on a budget can upgrade an SRD-4 to drive the cheapest staxen they can lay hands on, and dip a toe into the water without having to spring for a direct drive amplifier as well.

My other hurdle is that i absolutely loathe selling stuff, but i have a friend who might be willing to handle fulfillment if he gets to pocket some of the profit. idk. Maybe i just say whatever and publish gerbers and BOM.

Edit: LOL at the forum bowdlerizing a word that is still in my signature.

Edit Edit: I may have just bought an SRD-5 for $26 shipped on that auction site. Potentially from a seller who fat-fingered a price change.

 

[catscratch]

Anyone here familiar with the materials used in the 007Mk1?

I've got a pair and the clamping force has significantly reduced over time. I've got a relatively small head anyway, and it's starting to get a bit annoying.

Does anyone know if the headband/arc material is made from metal, and if so can I gently apply force to bend it? Or does anyone have any other suggestions? There are replacements available for £110ish I think, which isn't awful all things considered, but i'd rather avoid it if possible!

Thanks in advance!

The headband is made of metal and you can definitely bend it. Having said that, you can also replace the elastic in the headband with just about any other that will fit. Also, the pads are likely starting to wear out, the foam inside them will not last long, especially with daily use, and you can look at replacing the pads also. Be aware that mk2/007a pads are a bit different, as is the spring inside them, so you'll get slightly more driver/ear distance, and that might alter the sound. To keep the driver/ear distance similar to the old pads you might have to bend the spring a bit to get the pads to compress.

In my case I always have the opposite problem with the 007s, they're too small and I have to take the suspension strap off entirely to get them to fit.

 

[Aspirant Audiophile]

Buying second hand is the way to go! That's what I did with my Blue Hawaii and Holo DAC.

It's interesting how different ears and brains come to different conclusions. In contrast to @hutzelmeier I prefer the T2 over the Blue Hawaii, and the Alpha Centauri comes in third. Also, I prefer the Holo (in NOS setting) over the Computerloch, but I have to admit that I was surprised how close the Computerloch was.

Coming back to my earlier question if it's possible to tell the difference between top-tier amps if there's a break between listening to each amp: I have to say that I would almost certainly fail such a test. The sonic differences do exist, but they are too small to reliably remember with sufficient precision to make out a clear difference after taking a break for an hour or so.

Scaling back on the hype about estat, amp and hp differences is wise, I think. I felt like I was taking a huge risk in selling my Carbon and Megatron, and I was convinced I would miss both. That feeling never really came, and now it's nonexistent. I'm six months into Paltauf use, and the only amp I 'miss' from time to time is T2...and even then, only maybe. (yes, the Paltauf was purchased secondhand)

Definitely my source plays a role in my perception. But I won't plague this forum with a speech about vinyl, tempted though I am. These days I use Paltauf for both records and streaming, and the experience of 'this is amazing, why did I ever pay more for the famous third-party amps?' only grows over time.

How much of 'burn-in' is actually just 'brain-in'? The longer I'm with the Paultauf amp, the most I think the overlap is high, something which most hifi businesses (third party, first party, all parties involved!) $eem to be keenly aware of.

 

[hutzelmeier]

How much of 'burn-in' is actually just 'brain-in'? The longer I'm with the Paultauf amp, the most I think the overlap is high, something which most hifi businesses (third party, first party, all parties involved!) $eem to be keenly aware of.

... and it is not only about burning in the sound perception circuits of our brains, but also the rest of our psychology. The book "Thinking, Fast and Slow“ by Daniel Kahneman offers lots of food for thought in this respect – for example, there is the "mere exposure effect“, saying that we usually learn to like things that we encounter often enough (given they don’t hurt), and there’s „loss aversion“, we usually respond more strongly to losses than to gains. These and other mechanisms might explain, at least in part, why we usually try to convince ourselves (and others) that equipment that we bought is really a good fit, especially if it was expensive. I think the firms exploit this, for example by recommending burn-in of headphones: If we spend just a couple of hours / days with the headphones, investing time and energy for burn-in, chances are better that we’ll start to like them and not send them back!

 

[alota]

Scaling back on the hype about estat, amp and hp differences is wise, I think. I felt like I was taking a huge risk in selling my Carbon and Megatron, and I was convinced I would miss both. That feeling never really came, and now it's nonexistent. I'm six months into Paltauf use, and the only amp I 'miss' from time to time is T2...and even then, only maybe. (yes, the Paltauf was purchased secondhand)

Definitely my source plays a role in my perception. But I won't plague this forum with a speech about vinyl, tempted though I am. These days I use Paltauf for both records and streaming, and the experience of 'this is amazing, why did I ever pay more for the famous third-party amps?' only grows over time.

How much of 'burn-in' is actually just 'brain-in'? The longer I'm with the Paultauf amp, the most I think the overlap is high, something which most hifi businesses (third party, first party, all parties involved!) $eem to be keenly aware of.

The problem, from many years, is when a person try something new and more expensive is always a giant step and see the headphone flying in the sky. In my humble experience sometimes i heard differencies, sometimes nothing. But the differencies are always small
Last experience: my amp and the lte Z10e

 

[fidgeraldo]

These days I use Paltauf for both records and streaming, and the experience of 'this is amazing,

My experience with KHV-ESD II is the same.
Not that it works fantastic with electrostatic headphones, but it works just remarkably well with dynamic and planar headphones, too.
I am using it with stock tubes, you?

Cheers

 

[number1sixerfan]

It can be hard parsing through this stuff. I think there are levels of amplication performance. And you can find gems at lower priced levels that aren't going to perform extremely different than the top tier amps, with the exception of really hard to power stats like the Shang Sr, 007, etc. In terms of the differences between the BHSE and T2 tiers, although the differences are absolutely discernable to me (and I've written about it in my impressions thread), they are subtle to a degree. If I had a Carbon or BHSE or similar, I wouldn't worry about missing out on anything, rather if you want to take an endgame leap then maybe a megatron/T2 or whatever should be the goal.

As far as lower tiered amps, there is absolutely a major difference between some of the lower tier Stax amps in example, in which dynamics take a huge hit compared to the amps mentioned above. Stats can still be very enjoyable on them, but they will certainly sound better on the higher powered amps. I have mainly only heard the Stax amps, DIY amps and other TOTL commercial amps. I'm sure some of these other gems that are mentioned can absolutely bridge the gap between the lower end Stax amps and the higher quality/expensive amps. Just explore and find what works.

But my main point here is that I agree with some others that although we talk about how good the T2, etc. are, it's not like these are night and day differences from other *quality* amps that aren't as expensive. The hyperbole kind of inflates the differences discussed on here imo.

 

[Aspirant Audiophile]

My experience with KHV-ESD II is the same.
Not that it works fantastic with electrostatic headphones, but it works just remarkably well with dynamic and planar headphones, too.
I am using it with stock tubes, you?

Cheers

Nice to see another Paltauf user here--I thought the Paltauf owners were only on the German forums!

I've only used with estats, and I'm super happy with it. Just did a shootout with three different versions of the Paltauf yesterday, with three very committed Stax hp owners who had a wealth of experience, one of whom was convinced that Paltauf is superior to all estats save T2 (and that was a maybe).

I only heard a T2 once, and it was a memorable experience, but I do think the right tube combo can turn a very good amp into a great one that comes super close to T2. At least one person who builds T2s agrees with me.

I look forward to trying other kinds of headphones, as you mention.

My input tube is some kind of exotic glass organism dug out of a bunker or an abandoned telecom storage unit. I had to hire a very smart Austrian to get a shovel and a secret passcode to source the tube. I'm not joking...much.

And...I THINK I hear a benefit

 

[fidgeraldo]

And...I THINK I hear a benefit

That's what I read about replacing the stock with Siemens CCa & E88CC, which raises the sound to the next level.
I am still not ready for that for obvious reasons, but somewhere in the future, I will.
Even with stock tubes, the sound is fantastic!
I bought it for the use of CRBN, but if I had bought it before other tube amplifiers, there is a chance it would have been my only tube amplifier.
Enjoy!

Cheers!

P.S. I am not keen on opening threads. But if you are, you could start a thread. I will gladly participate and follow.