[edstrelow]

Quote:

I heard the 007 the other day for the first time through a 717 with a DAC1.  While it was good, I felt it was by far the bassiest headphone I've ever heard referenced as an audiophile-grade headphone.  I was very surprised.  The bass didn't feel super-controlled either.  I'm sure there's far better rigs than what I heard it on, but my first experience was not a jaw-dropper.  Compared to that headphone I prefer quite a few dynamics.

Was this a Mark 1 or the 007A (the Mark2).  Sounds like the earlier model which many people thought was bassy.  The A model has somewhat of a bass hump, but to my ear a more prominent lower treble peak (7-8kHz, I think) which is rather more obvious.  As others note, the ear pads are set up to be rotated to get the best bass, which presumably varies from person to person.  Stax doesn't give any advice on the best orientation.  I get the best results with my 007A with the seam at eye level as Spritzer suggests.

 

[svyr]

The things I found annoying with my SR-202/404 and SRM-252a/300 (not totl, but still) were: 
 
a) When you move your ears, the sound distorts (e.g. eating)
b) Clipping for low singal level music (about 3% of my classical library). Kevin suggested more expensive amps with 60db gain will likewise clip (something about clipping the hv rails - I don't quite recall). Dynamic cans are absolutely fine there.

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

The things I found annoying with my SR-202/404 and SRM-252a/300 (not totl, but still) were: 
 
a) When you move your ears, the sound distorts (e.g. eating)
b) Clipping for low singal level music (about 3% of my classical library). Kevin suggested more expensive amps with 60db gain will likewise clip (something about clipping the hv rails - I don't quite recall). Dynamic cans are absolutely fine there.

I have never understood what your amp problem is, I never had anything like this with the 7 or so Stax amps I have.
 
 
 
However getting back to isues with stats, I am continually puzzled by the fact that my stat systems do not seem to sound quite the same day after day.  Some of this is the variable times I spend warming up the systems, the stat amps and phones seems to need at least several minutes of high volume playing or a half hour or so of playing with less volume to get best results.  I do realize that some of the warm-up is not in the stats at all, but other equipment, I find my DAC's in particular lose sound quality if not regularly used.  So some of what I hear as variablity may be things other than the stats, but because they are so revealing they show the warm-up of other equipment too.

 

[labrat]

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[n3rdling]

Labrat, how do you like the ESL 57's with Gradient subs vs without any subs?  I have 57's but haven't had a chance to hear a pair with the Gradient subs.  Do you feel the subs are too slow for the 57's and make the overall sound a bit disjointed?

 

[labrat]

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[labrat]

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[DJ The Rocket]

I've spoken to many who just don't like the sound of Electrostats. I'm just wondering why.

Your guesses are pretty good. Some of it is due to people being used to headphones that distort, so that's what they expect and [think they] want. Think about the studies that have found for most people, a lot of the pleasure of listening to music comes from predicting what's going to happen as you listen along, and so just by sounding different, in any way at all, they can easily be perceived as worse. The way around this is to take the time to get used to the sound. I believe that the majority of listeners will come to prefer a distortionless sound the majority of the time, but nothing will ever be absolute.

E-stats are very revealing, I don't often enjoy using my Stax for streaming music, or for most 128kbps mp3s. If you only stream music and aren't interested in changing, dynamic drivers are ideal for masking the flaws in a recording. And even on clean recordings, more detail isn't always preferable, but that's largely genre-dependant IME. Nobody needs to hear the bass player farting or whatever. But I listen to electronic music usually and for me, more detail is almost always better.

For me, electrostatic are inherently more fragile than dynamics. I've had two O2s that developed temporary channel imbalance due to the humidity (I believe). This is why I got rid of my stax rig.

Fragile is really not the correct idea here. They won't all last forever, but Stax specifically are renowned for lasting 40+ years without the slightest loss in sound quality. There's no tiny voice coil wire to break, the sole moving part is the diaphragm itself. Not what I'd call fragile

Channel imbalance is indeed a common issue for older e-stats, and unfortunately it sounds like you weren't educated about the idiosyncrasies of e-stats before getting yours. I know how easy it is for a problem like that to infect your mind and ruin your ability to enjoy something. It's like when I plug earbuds in after listening to headphones without turning the volume down first, and they play super loud for a second or two. I always think they're blown now and I will literally hear faults that aren't there for the rest of the day. That's what my brain expects to hear, so that's what it hears.

I think the occasional imbalance is just the price you pay for the performance. As well as the actual price of buying them Humidity may well be one factor, but it's certainly not the only one, maybe not even a major one. I live in the desert (<10% humidity most days) and imbalance still happens. But it's a minor annoyance next to the unmatched sound quality