Just found this article on the web:

http://inearspace.com/2015/05/22/questyles-cma800p-breathes-magic-into-stax-a-munich-high-end-show-2015-report/

Stax themselves comissioned Questyle to design the preamp.

Info and internal pics of the preamp:

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What do you think? Price is rumoured to be around 3k usd. 

PS: They also did a "golden edition":

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I think all of that is untrue in every possible sense.  Why on earth would Stax get somebody else to design a preamp for them?  Seriously? 

Well there's also some guy working for LH Labs or one of those companies that's claiming to have designed the SR-009.  I think when I looked into it, his time "working with Stax" was about 1-2 years after the 009 was even released.

I think all of that is untrue in every possible sense.  Why on earth would Stax get somebody else to design a preamp for them?  Seriously? 

Not even Kevin?

3 hours ago, luvdunhill said:

Not even Kevin?

Well they would probably ask him to do it and then fuck up the design afterwards...aka the 717.  That would also be very different because they would manufacture it, why would they get some way subpar company to make something to their specs which has no good use in the signal path.  Just doesn't make any sense. 

Much more sensible is that this is either pure and utter BS or they share the same distributor somewhere and it was them who asked for the "match" so sell more crap. 

As if there's not enough substandard goods floating around as it is.

But, everyone likes a percieved bargain, even at the risk of getting stung.

Hindsight is always 20/20 vision, except to the deluded or chronic cases of cognitive dissonance.