arnaud

Ck3t, what is this, please stay on topic. So where were we? Ah yes, when tyll said skinny landscape instead of cityscape in the philips video, lol . BTW Tyll, really great show report (for lack of a great show). The videos and short stories are neat way to make the report, I enjoyed it!

Be assured that the quality of the build will be top notch, it being performed by "profesionlas and qualified laboratories". Being qualified is good. But being profesionlas is just another ballgame.

complin: I've been away from France for too long, I've forgotten that the US and Japan have relatively low VAT compared to European countries. It's bound to increase in Japan (the prices I quoted include 5% local tax), but likely not in the 20% range... Note to Tyll: you provably should account for local tax in your calculations, shouldn't you?

Note that the yodobashi prices (before discount) are the msrp in japan. Same price is displayed / offered at the audio stores (such as dyna). Web order prices are typically like what I have shown above (fujiya and dyna). PriceJapan is very low, as if they're selling with virtually no margin ( because they don't have actual retail store like the others I suppose). In lights of the prices I gave, retail in the us is pretty reasonable it seems (considering there has to be a distributor and such entity has operating costs...). Not sure about sales volumes, I thought domestic sales were lower than export though.

Here are retail prices in japan in jpy (pricejapan is insanely low): Sr007a: -Dynamic audio 5555 (web order): 189000 -Yodobashi: 210000 (+10% discount for local resident when paying cash, 8% cc) -fujiya avic (web order): 168000 Sr009: -Dynamic audio 5555 (web order): 349650 -Yodobashi: 368000 (+10% discount for local resident when paying cash, 8% cc) -fujiya avic (web order): 349650

I am not familiar with the details of anaxylus mod for the HD800, but I remember it is along the same lines as people did before him. You're then just sticking additional sound absorbing material in the ear cup (over the frame part, underneath the screen) to reduce the treble response by a couple of dB or so above 5kHz. For me, it was needed to tame a little the peak at 5-6kHz, an acoustic resonance in the earcup that make the headphone artificially bright / edgy in stock form. I can imagine that, by using an amp with non negligible output impedance, one may also prefer the sound ( more body ). My understanding is that you pay the price with less control / definition of the bass, isn't it (going from 0 to 120 ohm for example)? But if you like something like the lcds, obviously you need more bass weight than what the hd800 (or sr009) shoot for. I very much agree with n3rdling on that point (ok for rock and/or crap recordings but doesn't cut for classical / some jazz piece for me).

Great article Tyll, but I have to say I liked the write up on san severino even more ). I heard about him for a long time (the lyrics are quite something) but never actually purchased any album from him. I think you got me more curious , cheers

To me, guessing the age of the current owner at Stax, it feels like he simply wanted to get out before it's too late (economic conditions, non-viability of a 5kUSD headphone business model, increasing production costs in Japan in lights of the current energy crisis...). Companies often get bought for much less than fair value when the owner(s) wants out. Only thing I can hope is that there remains a design and support unit in Japan even if some of the manufacturing will inexorably be shifted to China (Japanese companies often manufacture high-end products in Japan and lower range units in China / Tailand and so on). Chinese people are very sensitive to the origin of a product, just like other markets of high end audio. So, I am pretty certain Stax won't have the same image in China if manufacturing is completely shifted there (ignoring the facts it's apparently not that easy to manufacture something like the 009). The target is and will remain relatively deep pockets (esp. in the Chinese market). Chinese people who afford such stuff typically value the brand / foreign manufacture much more than the product itself, and actually absolutely don't mind paying through the nose (on the contrary, it's part of the social statement). Also, I don't believe you can actually mass market ES gear as there is likely no market for it (people buying cheap gear couldn't care less how it sounds). Even if the SR009 was half the price, I don't think they'd be selling 100x more units. Likely would sell more units, but it would still be a ridiculously small market.

Tyll probably meant to that a an equalized (be it diffuse or free field or whatever) measurement is such that the target response at the entrance of the ear canal (where the mic is located) is a flat line. The equalization is only valid for that head and torso and for a specific heading (free field) or an average of all possible headings (diffuse field) but basically representative of how an average person hears. As Tyll said, it doesn't matter what headphone type it is and if it is partially seeing the effect of ear reflection or not. The bottom line is that this headphone or earphone must measure flat on that dummy's microphone (equalized response). If it's an iem, indeed it must somehow have filters or other mean to reproduce effect of outer ear artificially. Worth noting these equalized target curves are magnitude only so even if you get there (flat target) you're not guaranteed to have won the battle (e.g phase may be all messed up).

A bit of a rehash but I had put a video together with the animations of SR009 response simulation (original post in the measurements thread). I used iMovie to loop over the various views so we can see it a bit better and lumped together both types of simulation results (Finite Element Method and Boundary Element Method). Never got a chance to improve the model so it might just stay where it's at now... Here's the cleaner video: http://youtu.be/dAnBTyMG93s

^^ Stay tuned...

Tyll is using an average of multiple headings (not quite diffuse but not quite free field either), my guess is that it's an average of a few representative heading for loudspeakers (around 30-45 degrees).

Ok, that was either one or the other

I see, thanks for sharing, this is quite interesting. You're an audiologist I presume?

Torpedo, is that referred to as hyperacusis? So we're now coming down to the idea that Stax is catering to the old deaf and hearing impaired portion of the audiophile crowd? I find that funny

It has now happened...

Nobody is going to advise you against it over here I believe

There's no standard which doesn't help but at least, we can say that Audeze is taking no chance with the LCD3 waterfall graph: Long time window (6ms) => That's not bad in itself as some (bad) headphones do ring down to 6ms but among the well controlled phones (HD800, SR009), 3ms scale would be more reasonable High truncation floor (-25dB) => Although there's no easy way to tell what is audible, I think 35dB should be the very minimum (esp. when the mid/highs are ~10dB down from the 0dB point...) No equalization => This may be right depending on the test rig, but in this case, it helps the LCD because the highs are shelved down from 0dB so you see 15dB worth of decay at most in region where resonances occur Very heavy frequency smoothing => You won't see sharp ridges even if they existed Not saying the headphone measures bad actually, but that makes me appreciate Tyll's work (and motivate me to help him get waterfall plotting capability)

So, does it mean this device is resampling heavily to the point that some brickwall filter is no longer necessary? What is the point of feeding it with software upsampled signal then? Edit: ok, had to read twice to see it specifically mentions about non-oversampling process . There's got to be some resampling somewhere else I don't see the point of using very high speed converter? Also, is it really expected that a resistor ladder network can be so fine that you can simply ignore reconstruction filter?

I also believe it may be difficult to speak in absolute terms. One thing easy to imagine though is that someone going back an forth between speakers and headphones would probably favor a (relatively speaking) bassy headphone to compensate for the lack of chest impact. On the other hand, someone using headphones exclusively may have more tendency to seek texture than bass quantity or at least establish a frame of reference with its existing headphones. In my case, I listened to the LCD3 coming from months of listening to the 009 and naturally found it bass heavy. Who's right? I have no clue but suffice to say, I am plenty satisfied with my current rig...

n3rdling, I felt a bit sorry for you there. At times, I don't get all the hate on HC, but in situations like this, it's simply much more fun to read about islandic culture than see experienced opinions being shot down by newbie fanboys... At first, it would seem like this place is just a Stax mafia refuge where anything non-Stax gets bashed but it's not true, it's also all about putrefied shark food .

N3erdling: x2 on the thickness / lack of texture of the bass. Coming from the 009, it's pretty stricking. Too brief impressions for me to be definitive but I posted my impressions in the report thread of Tokyo fall headphone festival.

mehhh, you're just a fanboy Tyll

HPA, actually it does feel a bit masochist. From experience: let it go couple of weeks, there's always some part of wrong doing in both parties. I (hope I) learned my lesson ...

I get to meet them next week at the local headphone festival here, will try to ask (they can answer whatever they want though, in particular fake arguments if this is something special they want to keep to them ).