[MorbidToaster]

Most probably this question was already answered in this forum but with 1532 pages I can't find it.

My dealer is suggesting me to buy the SR009 + SRM-007tII.

I have no doubts the SR009 are very good. Is this Stax amp a proper match? How does it compare with the more expensive Woo WES?

Thanks.

From most impressions it seems the WES isn't too well liked when compared to the Liquid Lightning or BHSE. I know I'm happy with my LL.

 

[tonereef]

I've been away from head-fi for months so missed any comments from Spritzer about why they can't live up to their potential...
 
Quote:

 

 
With the 009 we have the marriage of these two design principles, expensive housing with a very expensive driver and naturally, double the price.  The housing follows the same principles as the SR-007, milled aluminum though I know they looked into cast magnesium for the frame but it was ultimately too expensive.  It's not as substantial as the 007 housing though.  The driver uses the same resin frame as the 007 but all the parts are high precision metal.  The stators use three pieces bonded together to make it very stiff and strong plus they looked into the thermal issues quite a bit (009 driven hard can dissipate close to 1W in heat, so much for electrostatics not needing power) as the stators could get warped a tiny bit which will increase distortion.  One has to remember just how tight the tolerances are here as the total stator to diaphragm gap for Pro bias is 0.5mm or 500um.  That's very, very small indeed...  As much as I hate the 009 headband it isn't cheap to make even if it is a bit flimsy.  The 009 design also almost bankrupted Stax so that's probably why they made them so bloody expensive.  Such a shame they can't live up to their potential though... 

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

The WES is a disaster to say the least so stick with the Stax amps.  Of them the 727 is the best choice for the SR-009. 

While I've never heard the WES with the SR-009s, I can certainly attest that the 727II is a fantastic amp for the SR-009s. 

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Thought the WES was highly regarded here besides the BHSE, A10, Diy KGSSHV. 

 
First off, the A-10 isn't highly regarded by anyone.  It is just an expensive epic pile of fail and sounds horrid unless of course you happen to like THD of 10+%.  I even built my own version, the B-10, to see if there was any way to salvage the circuit by building it correctly but no, just got a slightly bit better.
 
The WES is a good example of what happens when people take an existing circuit they clearly don't understand and "supercharge it".  By doing that all the wrong decisions are made so you end up with something that is far worse than the original amp.  One thing that baffles me is not that the WES sounds bad but people pay this much for an amp and just accept that the single ended inputs should not be used due to noise issues.  It's not that hard to build a phase splitter... 
 
It is a long standing tradition in Hi-Fi to think that two pieces that cost the same deliver the same performance.  This naturally couldn't be further from the truth and most of this stuff is just expensive and is beaten easily by far more inexpensive equipment.  The BHSE is expensive to build but then we have all these ´"me too" products which are just expensive and don't deliver anywhere near the same performance level.  It is dead easy to build both an all tube amp and a solid state design to compete with the BHSE at this price level but all these companies care about it making money with huge markups.  Well either that or they just don't know how to do it. 

 

[wolfetan44]

What DAC do you use with a electrostatic?

 

[moti]

I have been offered NOS STAX SR-303. Unfortunately test listening is not possible. Can anybody share his/her experiences if compared to Lambda Pro from 80´s? Is this upgrade or what?

 

[PedroH]

Quote:

The WES is a disaster to say the least so stick with the Stax amps.  Of them the 727 is the best choice for the SR-009. 

Can you elaborate in which aspects the 727II is better then the 007tII for the SR009?

 

[livewire]

Quote:

What DAC do you use with a electrostatic?

Any DAC will do ya, but personally I prefer big heavy DACses with stiff hairy power cables
that cost ten times more than the DAC does. 
I find that this combination ensures maximum transmission of musical artifacts
to my temporal lobes with less loss. 

 

[schorsch]

Quote:

I am currently using the Stax 323II with the 009 (while waiting for a BHSE on order)... I was in Berlin recently and had a chance to listen to the 727 and compare it with the new Malvlave. I was not impressed at all by the 727 vs the 323II and I wished at the time that I had my amp with me to compare. At any rate, after about an hour of listening to this amp I thought that the 323II was pretty good for half the price (but again, I was not able to compare them side by side). Oh, and just in case you wondered, the Malvalve was impressive, but mostly for Jazz (much better than the 323II, no doubt!), not so much for classical music though. I sincerely do hope that the BHSE will sound way better than the Malvalve with classical music, which is pretty much all I listen to. 

Let us know about the comparison malvalve vs hawai )
 
Regards Georg

 

[schorsch]

Quote:

What DAC do you use with a electrostatic?

Well,
 
I use only stax DACs )
 
Regards Georg

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

What DAC do you use with a electrostatic?

 
The one in my X-Fi Titanium HD.
 
I'm not much of a believer in expensive audiophile DACs. That money's better off going toward electrostatic headphones and amps if you ask me, since those are the things actually reproducing the sound.

 

[Yuceka]

Quote:

What DAC do you use with a electrostatic?

Dude, are you serious? 

 

[johnwmclean]

Quote:

Dude, are you serious? 

 
A novice question yes, though we all started somewhere...
 
Dude.

 

[wolfetan44]

Dude, are you serious? 

Just wondering, dude. I would've never thought that we needed a special DAC for balanced amps.

 

[wolfetan44]

Double post.