Headphones

Fun, short read- http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2013/12/29/head-fi-versus-hi-fi-beats-by-dre-and-the-future-of-the-high-end/ "Beats – by itself – is outselling the entire hi-fi industry combined, by a factor of two."

Well, with my newfound love of Stax headphones I thought I'd start a Stax thread. So talk about your Stax cans/energizers/amps...etc. I've got a pair of SR-Lambda Pro headphones recently and I love them. Right nw I've got them hooked up as follows: Wadia 23 RCA>Denon AVR-100>SRD-7 Pro>SR-Lambda Pro I've also heard these out of Hirsch's ES-1 and the 007t amp. The ES-1 trumps all of them of course. Overall they're the clearest sounding headphones I've heard. Vocals are warm but well articulated, the highs are sparkling and fast. The bass is full and rich but does lack the speed of a dynamic headphone at times...but it can go quite deep on some recording…

I am planning to buy the Stax x9000, but my friends say that the x9000‘s driver is easily to be malfunctioning, and the cost of repairing it outside of warranty is very high as we know. Therefore, I want to do a survey to see what the failure rate of the x9000 really is. Thanks in advance for participating in the survey

I figured it was worth its own thread to look at these aftermarket cables that have popped up. Now I don't really want to be a part of the whole cable mess but with electrostatics it is rather simple... the main component is capacitance. The cable will always add some and it determines how hard the entire system is to drive. So TLDR, more capacitance... everything is worse. The amp has to work much harder to try and push current into the top and bottom end. As a baseline, I tested a spare SR-X1 driver I had here and between the +/- inputs it is right on 40pF. We want to keep this as low as possible to keep the load low. So first off we have this ebay find, staight…

So a new electrostatic seems to be incoming: https://apos.audio/products/sjy-argos-electrostatic-headphones?utm_campaign=hyperfuse_last_day%20%2801KZW4554JVNW58G1HET4TN43W%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alex_nongdpr_never_subbed_active_180&_kx=cd77Rbf3yu6_OAujM-M4VU1ihuQFsjtyVcb-jl8r-OKxvi62Czezy2yxdLQUUnAj.Ldk8SW I've been keeping an eye on them for a while, no idea what that company is but hey, more the merrier and all that. I just saw the new updated page for these and it is just what the fuck, are they retarded? First off, "fully vented drivers" being spun as something that is positive. Hello, what is the number one rule of planar design? Something about a…

For the past 15 years or so I've been happily grooving with my Grado RS-1 and AKG K340, I've heard other setups during that time but never felt the urge to upgrade or buy anything new. Then I made the mistake of reading through the Head Case LCD-2 thread and decided that I needed to get my hands on an Audeze to hear it for myself, a couple weeks later an LCD-XC showed up on the local classifieds and that was that. First impressions; WTF is this alien tech?? This was a like a replay of my first headphone meet where I heard Biggie's dialed in RS-1 system and had a bunch of preconceptions shattered. How is something this fast while having the bass weight & impact of a…

Just in case anyone here still listens to headphones. The Marketing The Review No USB-C audio? am dissapoint. An apple airpod max pro 2 ultra or whatever they are called rival? Well, it has the premium pricing, vs the XM6 (relatively) pleb version.

Hi all, I have a pair of Stax SR-007 e-stats - a 007 Mk 1 (s/n 71169) for which I made a new pair of diaphragms last year (long story, will make another post just about that here on HC soon) and a 007A (s/n SZ2-1636). In the last few days I've been noticing that the pair of metal arcs on the head assembly of my 007 Mk 1 makes a slight ringing sound transmitted to the drivers when I move my head, especially when these arcs are touching the headband. I don't recall them doing that before, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. This ringing sound disappears if I either touch the arcs with my hand or reposition the unit so that the arcs no longer touch the headband. H…

Hello Everyone, Stax noob here. I'm fairly new to electrostatics, but I did do my research before upgrading from my SRM-3. I managed to snag a 717 in what seems to be extremely good condition for around 670 USD a couple months ago. I've been really enjoying it, but I want to make sure the thing will last. I've read several times now that the electrolytic caps are a concern with aging Stax amps, and I want to know if they are any parts that need to be replaced in my unit in the near future. I'm also interested in making upgrades if possible and converting my unit from 100V input to 120V, but those are less of a concern. I cracked the amp open and pulled of the de…

Now it shouldn't come as a massive shock to anybody but I'm not much of a SR-009 fan. From day 1 they always sounded messed up to me and the BK and S didn't really make it any better, even a bit worse with the 009S. To this day I have only one 009BK (as it is a limited edition) in my collection and one regular 009 that showed up here randomly and was a stark improvement over all the other sets I've owned. No idea why those sound different but better not mess with them. Now the plan was always to do something with the 009's to improve them but there was always something better to do. Well with surgery pending a couple of months ago, I finally had time to do some…

Who knew? https://www.cnn.com/world/wired-headphones-comeback-spc

They're here!

The Stax Sigma series panoramic earspeakers. 1. Models and nomenclature The Stax SR-Sigma panoramic earspeaker was introduced in 1977. There have been 3 versions officially released and 1 after-market version commissioned. The original low bias, grey grilled 1977 Sigma model (bias voltage of this model being 230V or “Normal”). The driver used was later recycled in the very successful Stax Lambda Semi-Panoramic earspeaker. The first release Sigma had a fabric coated, round bodied cord that connected the earspeaker to its amplifier/transformer. Later versions of the normal bias Sigma (1987) used a lower capacitance, flat black cable that was recycled back from the (then…

I use the Stax setup at home. Here are the phones list Sony R10 (Hard to find), Sr-4070, ZMF Verite, Focal Stellia Any suggestion so far?

It started with repairing a badly damaged shangri la jr driver 2 years ago, I almost rebuilt the set from the diaphragm to the stators，and of course the dust cover😦 The first thing I discovered is that the 'nano-technology' used by hifiman actually comes from the covering used by indoors aircraft model enthusiasts，the name is OS film and it is still available on ebay or https://www.indoorffsupply.com/shop/os-film-25ft-roll-1 the driver of the hifiman estats is completely glued which is similar to the early stax lambdas, but hifiman glue is significantly worse...after opening the driver i found that they only use OS film for their dust cover, the diaphragm…

Time for some impressions of this rare beast. The Icelandic distributor has a set on loan and they carved an entire afternoon out of the schedule for me to try it and do some comparisons. I showed up with the HE90 I built from spare parts, Aristaeus, Carbon amp and a port modded SR-007Mk2. Since they were using the built in dac on the HE-1, I just plugged both amps into as well to equalize the comparison. Over all, I like the build quality of the headphones. Imagine a HD800 built properly and you are pretty much there. The leather earpads are super nice and the headband has nice extension to even fit my large melon. I don't think they are super comfy though …

I'm pretty sure everyone has done this at one time. Hung onto a headphone or piece of gear that You want to like, but don't. Mine is a q701 I bought used 12 years ago real cheap. Cheap because it smelled like an ashtray. Pulled it apart and cleaned it well, and did the bass port mod. I don't like the sound. Put it away and then tried it out again when I changed DACs and amps. I still don't like it. I'm trying real hard to make myself get rid of it. It's hard to be a horder.

This seems like it's perfect for Head-Case—an electrostatic headphone tuned like the HD650: https://www.audeze.com/products/crbn

I’m going to post this in its own thread as so many people are asking me for X9000 impressions, and it makes sense to have them somewhere where they are easy to find. I was also going to take some pictures to add to this review but I’m just wiped. Might add some later if these ever present storms let up for some good light. I’ve now had the SR-X9000 here for over a week so time for a writeup... as my email inbox is full of people asking for just that. 🙂 First impressions were very promising, the build quality is superb, and those drivers are just a marvel to behold. I do like the new replaceable cables even, though it is a bit of a copy of the King Sound set…

https://gradolabs.com/products/hp100-se Just found out aboot these today thanks to @DouglasQuaid Anyone have hands/ears on yet?

Looking for something that will noticeably outperform my jaba Jabra Elite 45h - Titanium don't want to pay more then 270 dollars. Any suggestions

Just got these in a week ago, just got back from Kerry’s comparing these with his SR007mk1 and SR009. some photos of them https://imgur.com/a/sFUOz0S the website for them https://www.eslabhk.com/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-100926089806656515&hl=en http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-100926089806656515&hl=en This was posted over on HF earlier today and it deserved it's own thread. It's a Swedish film about audiophiles with a guest appearance from a unique headphone. They turn up about 30 seconds in. A small teaser...

The aim of the thread is to consolidate all the info that is out there of old and frankly strange electrostatic headphones we come across. I really should have started one of these back in 2005 when I started my collecting but hindsight and all that... So I'll start off with one so rare that there is pretty much no info out there for this set. Here is what it looked like when I got it: These were made by Audiotec in France and aside from some brochures back in the say we know nothing about them. There isn't even a model number on them or a left-right identifier. They are quite big, roughtly the same size as the SR-Omega and the back of the fork is pretty m…

Hello. I have a pair of Lambda Nova Basic. Both drivers are slanted forward and left one has less bass. Volume is slightly unbalanced but mostly noticeable for stereo music. Should I risk it? Audio signature suddendly changed today and then it sounded normal again (that's when I noticed both drivers slanted forward. Left one was only slightly slanted now both of them fully are)