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The Stax Thread III

Mar 20, 2025 at 8:04 AM Post #27,586 of 28,117
See what arrived from Benson of ESLab HK today! The ES-2a and the EX-1a. :)

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Mar 20, 2025 at 8:09 AM Post #27,587 of 28,117
Kiats said:
See what arrived from Benson of ESLab HK today! The ES-2a and the EX-1a. :)

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Please do report on the ES-2a as soon as you feel comfortable that you have a feel for their performance. Once question, in the picture you provided, there seems to be a fitment issue with the pad. Is that easily resolved?
 
Mar 20, 2025 at 8:10 AM Post #27,588 of 28,117
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Mar 20, 2025 at 8:21 AM Post #27,589 of 28,117
genefruit said:
Please do report on the ES-2a as soon as you feel comfortable that you have a feel for their performance. Once question, in the picture you provided, there seems to be a fitment issue with the pad. Is that easily resolved?
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Haha! Did not notice until you mentioned it. I looked. Both sides seem to be uneven where the seam is. Though it does not seem to impact the cushioning nor the sound. Nor the ear pads loose.
 
Mar 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM Post #27,590 of 28,117
newbluesuit said:
Today I got to compare the Warwick Bravura, the Audeze CRBN2, and the Stax SR-009s, and then at a different store the Hifiman Shangri-La Jr and (again) the Stax SR-009s. The Bravura was obviously powered by the matching Warwick Sonoma energizer (with its embedded DSP and DAC). In the first session the CRBN2 and SR-009s were both powered by a Stax SRM-400S energizer (solid state) fed by a Chord Qutest, while in the second session the Shangri-La Jr and SR-009s were both powered by the Shangri-La Jr energizer (tubes) fed by a T+A DAC 200.

The source was uncompressed audio files that I am very familiar with, ranging from acoustic jazz to hard rock with both male and female vocals. I have to say that I am not a big fan of the Chord sound and that I have never liked tubes, so the conditions were not ideal, but I believe that I am familiar enough with both to properly identify what is specific to them and try and not take that into account too much when judging the headphones.

Technically, the SR-009s is the clear winner among these four in my opinion, but the CRBN2 is not too far behind. The bass feels ‘raised’ on the Audeze, which makes it difficult to evaluate its extension in comparison to the Stax. In every other frequency range the Stax felt ahead of the Audeze, but not by a huge amount. Both are very impressive headphones, also in terms of build, finish, and comfort. The Audeze are heavier and have a bit more ‘clamp’ than the Stax, which I found more comfortable as a result, but that is not to say that there is any issue with the CRBN2 in this respect.

The most surprising thing to me about the CRBN2 (having never heard the CRBN) is its frequency response, which is very different from any of the electrostats I have heard so far. While it is not my preference (too much midrange and not enough treble for my taste, though not by much), it sounded very well rounded and accurate to me (unlike the recent planar offerings from Audeze, such as the LCD-5 and the MM series). I can imagine that many people would find the tuning of the CRBN2 perfect as it is (whereas with Stax in general, properly ‘cleaning up’ the midrange with a bit of EQ is always going to result in a marked improvement in my opinion). However, since I would personally choose to EQ the CRBN2 as well, the SR-009s with EQ remains my preferred option.

The Shangri-La Jr is the brightest electrostat I have ever heard, resulting in a very wide and detailed presentation but relative lack of ‘body’, not unlike the Sennheiser HD 800 (unfortunately I did not have the HD 800 with me to compare). Its bass extension is definitely not on par with the SR-009s, however, and the bass even felt recessed on many recordings (probably more so than on the HD 800). I found the treble a bit harsh occasionally, but that was also the case with the SR-009s plugged into the Shangri-La Jr energizer (though less often), so clearly the energizer was at least partly responsible for this. It may be interesting to try the Shangri-La Jr headphones with a good solid-state energizer, but that was not an option at that store. While the midrange on the Hifiman is less ‘awkward’ than on the Stax, I still felt that it could use a bit of EQ (and you’d need EQ to get back some of the missing bass anyway). The weight and comfort of the Shangri-La Jr are very similar to those of the SR-009s.

At one point I thought that it may make sense to own both the SR-009s and the Shangri-La Jr (not with the Shangri-La Jr energizer, though), because the Stax, although technically superior overall, cannot match the ‘width’ of the Hifiman. Exactly at that moment, the frequency response in the right cup of the Shangri-La Jr went significantly darker all of a sudden. Fiddling with the cable a bit solved the issue (which I could not reproduce), but I was painfully reminded of Hifiman’s extremely poor build and quality control.

Also typical of Hifiman is the cheap-looking finish, which in the case of the Shangri-La Jr headphones and energizer is a very sparkly and rugged silver-ish coating that seems to come straight out of a drag queen’s makeup set (and probably wears off just as easily, based on my experience with the HE1000 V2). This particular unit also crinkled loudly when moving the left cup around, although that did not occur when the headphones were properly placed on my head, so it did not impact the listening experience. Still, I find that completely unacceptable for such an expensive product.

While it does offer a good amount of detail, the Bravura mostly sounds and feels like a decent pair of closed-back dynamic headphones to me (in fact I’m pretty sure that the Denon AH-D9200 would beat the Bravura in many if not most respects—the store did have a unit on display, but unfortunately I did not have enough time left to do that comparison). The higher midrange is very forward, sometimes painfully so—yet the overall experience is rather dull and lifeless. Bass extension is poor, and what bass there is has little to no impact. The presentation is also fairly narrow.

It’s probably not a bad pair of headphones from a technical standpoint, but whatever Warwick are doing with their DSP is completely off, and there is no way to bypass it (I don’t really understand the point of DSP without any option for the user to tweak the frequency response—or at least switch between three of four preset options—anyway). What’s more, the whole set does not feel nor look premium at all: the materials are nothing special, and there are big ugly logos everywhere, with no particular care for coherence (the logos all use different fonts, and there are at least three different types of silver finishes on the energizer alone!). It’s a complete mystery to me how such a product can sell at such a price (but does it?).

Hopefully these notes will be useful to some of you.
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Of what I've heard (009, OG CRBN, Bravura) this tracks pretty well. I had a better first impression of the Bravura but in general I get if people don't love the Warwick sound. Both the Bravura and the Aperio are aggressively forward in the midrange and closed in soundstage/air wise and feel more like semi-closed headphones. Great detail and dynamics though (besides the subbass, but decent impact for planar-stats overall).

The impressions of the CRBN2 are really annoying me, as the only opportunity for improvement was clearly resolution.. it did everything else just fine. Tone, balanced presentation, nothing offensive in the sound, decent bass for a stat.. it just simply couldn't compare to stats resolution wise and thus didn't sound like a stat. Was hoping that would be the one thing that would change, but with all of the impressions I've seen thus far confirms it's really just more of the same. I'll still look out to hear it, but I'm expecting more of the original from everything I've seen.
 
Mar 20, 2025 at 8:58 AM Post #27,591 of 28,117
RogueCrusher said:
I received mine this Tuesday. OG black color option and the slightly more expensive Stax flat cable. What color did you order? Was curious to see some more pictures of the other color way pictured below…
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I got an email saying mine is due to be delivered on Monday. I got the cheaper cable option since Benson told me that it doesn't have an effect to the sound quality.

I will provide some pictures once received, I got the brown colour.
 
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Mar 20, 2025 at 1:56 PM Post #27,593 of 28,117
TheAbyss2022 said:
I got an email saying mine is due to be delivered on Monday. I got the cheaper cable option since Benson told me that it doesn't have an effect to the sound quality.

I will provide some pictures once received, I got the brown colour.
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Cool, I think the brown looks sick. Time for everyone to post on the ES-2a thread…
 
Mar 20, 2025 at 2:37 PM Post #27,594 of 28,117
Mar 20, 2025 at 2:40 PM Post #27,595 of 28,117
Cool, I think the brown looks sick. Time for everyone to post on the ES-2a thread…
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The brown looks SO damn cool, but the original black ES1-a was gorgeous too. Tough choice! Think I'd like the Stax ribbon cable better, though. It's got so much precedence of being "the" electrostatic cable, it's an inherently ultra-low capacitance design, it's proven durable as hell, and I'm just not a big fan of the soft, slightly loose textile cover of the ES-R10 cable (which this looks like).

ES1a and ES2a are the sexiest looking e-stat headpohones.
 
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Mar 20, 2025 at 4:37 PM Post #27,597 of 28,117
@SolarCetacean The 009s out of the Jr energizer had a bit of harshness in the treble but the usual ‘body’ and bass extension were present. The Jr headphones out of the same energizer had significantly less body and bass extension, and the treble was harsher than the 009. The pads on the Jr did not seem worn at all. I find it unlikely that the energizer was the only ‘issue’ with the Jr set I demoed yesterday. Also, the set was shipped from China to Switzerland in August last year, so I don't think it had to travel in cold weather. Your experience may be indicative of a lack of consistency in the production of the Jr by Hifiman. Possibly your own unit comes from an earlier, better batch than the ones we demoed recently.

I agree that the Jr has a better midrange than the 009s, but I still think that both headphones can benefit from EQ in this area, so it would not be a deciding factor for me. The CRBN2 is the winner in this respect, and that's probably its strongest selling point (I also agree that its midrange is close to that of their early planar models, which was a happy surprise for me, as I'd pretty much written them off after hearing the wonky LCD-5 and MM models).

The price difference between the 009s and the Jr in Switzerland is about the same as in the US, but the CRBN2 is 15% cheaper than the X9000 here. You'd expect Audeze to be less competitive outside of the US, but it seems they are making an effort for foreign markets, while Hifiman and Stax seem to be doing so in the US but not so much in Europe. The CRBN2 is also more in line with current tuning preferences, I think, so I can see a market for it in spite of its overall technicality being a bit behind the best Stax models. Audeze also has stellar customer service, which puts them way ahead of Stax in this category (not to mention Hifiman…).

@Chefguru I haven't heard the original CRBN, and I did not have a 007mk2 to listen to yesterday, but comparing my notes from yesterday and those form my earlier Stax listening session (comparing the 007mk2, 009s, and X9000), I'm pretty certain that the CRBN2 is technically superior to the 007mk2 and in fact much closer to the 009s in this respect.
 
Mar 20, 2025 at 4:45 PM Post #27,598 of 28,117
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