The Headcase Stax thread

[Smeggy]

Originally Posted by jinp6301

meh better then penis for birthday

That all depends on the penis

[jinp6301]

uhh, maybe for you

[grawk]

jin wishes he didn't have a penis

[jinp6301]

if i didnt, I would welcome penises (well more then now)

[JBLoudG20]

Originally Posted by jinp6301

if i didnt, I would welcome penises (well more then now)

thuper

[Akathisia]

Just got my first taste of Stax from the FedEx guy yesterday, an SR-44 electret combo. Only had a brief minute to listen yesterday Pics and impressions to follow if anyone is interested.

[spritzer]

Feel free to post some impressions to get the thread back on track.

[catscratch]

Several fuses later, 717 is up and running! Impressions to come.

[MaloS]

Burn-through much? Lets see what happens...

[guzziguy]

Originally Posted by catscratch

Several fuses later, 717 is up and running! Impressions to come.

Just put a jumper in and you won't burn through any more fuses.

[luvdunhill]

Just picked up two transformers, for $35 shipped:

-Thordarson T22R31 76VA, 360-0-360V 80ma,5V 2A,6.3V 2.5A.
-Stancor P-6170 600-0-600V 200ma,5V 3A,6.3V 3A,6.3V 4A.

hmmm...

[EdipisReks]

Originally Posted by guzziguy

Just put a jumper in and you won't burn through any more fuses.

that sounds like a great idea!

[John Buchanan]

Originally Posted by catscratch

Several fuses later, 717 is up and running! Impressions to come.

Interesting - when I first got my 717, the fuse promptly blew after first turn on. Replaced it and never had another problem.

[Akathisia]

Well I finally got to spend a reasonable amount of time with my new Stax SR-44 set. Bear in mind my only speaker amp is a 2 channel Technics home theater receiver fed by a Pioneer DVD player, so I'm not sporting anything special before the electrets.

First thing, these arrived in incredible condition physically. Both the SR-40 headphone and SRD-4 adaptor are in flawless condition. Leather earpads and headband look unused, cable is soft and perfect with the little white markings perfectly intact. Aside from a tiny mark on the left grille, they seem to have been frozen in time since their production date (between 1975 and '80?).

This set has a bit of channel imbalance favoring the left driver, which I can correct with the balance knob, but a downer nonetheless. For sound quality, the bass is pretty rolled off and lacking punchiness, but it is still there and what is there is plenty tight. For mids and treble these are the best headphones I have yet to hear, every instrument is more separated and crisp than I've experienced. The upper extreme end of the highs may be rolled, or maybe I am just sensitive to harsh highs (MS-1's are harsh and fatiguing to my ears), but it is fine with me.

The biggest thing is the separation, I can easily pinpoint every sound in space and nothing pushes anything else out of the way. Very quiet sounds come on earlier in recordings than I was previously aware and new things are jumping out at me. I guess I have never heard anything decent before

These headphones do not like metal, or at least I think it sounds like shit on them. It's probably the rolled off bass but heavily distorted/saturated guitars pretty much sound like total ass with these, and some of the poor recording quality makes everything sound very congested.

Well overall I'm really happy with the purchase and would like to build a budget setup to use these with my laptop. I definitely want to move up to one of Stax's more recent offerings in hopes that the positive attributes of the SR-44 will stick around with a little more bass depth. Sorry for the poor audio writing skills, Stereophile writers can sleep safe with me around for sure.

[Akathisia]

I would resize those images but I fail at the internet

[Smeggy]

It certainly looks like you got a pristine set, congrats. Your next task is to find a cheap SR-X Mk3 and SRD-6/7. They are not big bass monsters but boy do they sound good. Mine worked perfectly fine with metal too. They can stand a lot of EQ if you need more bass and they go extremely loud if you want them to.

[Tachikoma]

This set has a bit of channel imbalance favoring the left driver, which I can correct with the balance knob, but a downer nonetheless.

Uh, if you can return these, you should. Channel imbalance is one of the first signs of driver death with electrostats.

...Then get a SR-5NB, they rock, much more so than the SR-Xmk3 But the SR-Xmk3 is very good, nevertheless.

[spritzer]

Originally Posted by luvdunhill

Just picked up two transformers, for $35 shipped:

-Thordarson T22R31 76VA, 360-0-360V 80ma,5V 2A,6.3V 2.5A.
-Stancor P-6170 600-0-600V 200ma,5V 3A,6.3V 3A,6.3V 4A.

hmmm...

Hmmm indeed! What are you planning, a GES or a some of the smaller Stax amps?

..and it's Þórðarson, not Thordarson. Your Icelandic is way off...

Originally Posted by Tachikoma

Uh, if you can return these, you should. Channel imbalance is one of the first signs of driver death with electrostats.

Ditto.

[luvdunhill]

Originally Posted by spritzer

Hmmm indeed! What are you planning, a GES or a some of the smaller Stax amps?

..and it's Þórðarson, not Thordarson. Your Icelandic is way off...



Ditto.

I'm thinking about playing around with a hybrid amp with 6S4A outputs and something DHT (non-electrostatic) for the big 1.2kVCT one. It will be a ways off though, I have plenty to work on this year.

[spritzer]

Originally Posted by luvdunhill

I'm thinking about playing around with a hybrid amp with 6S4A outputs and something DHT (non-electrostatic) for the big 1.2kVCT one. It will be a ways off though, I have plenty to work on this year.

Very cool. I wish transformers were in plentiful supply up here...