Now this is something unexpected.
Darth nut, one of the biggest advocates for the SR-007 Mk1, weighs in on the SR-X9000 (disguised as "Omega4")

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/stax-omega4-compared-to-omega1-omega2-omega3.971637/

I read through it all and I have to disagree with his findings and it rang alarm bells for me when the room had an effect...  yeah no!! 

Same here, lost me when he said that the “room effect” didn't work with his eyes closed. 

Room effect sounds reasonable compared to a lot of the stuff I have been reading lately

That review seems... absolutely deranged to me. So much pseudoscientific jargon. Invented a bunch of new words and pointless graphics and ultimately says nothing materially useful about the headphones' sound. Not to mention the parts that are based on established acoustic science like ITD and HRTFs demonstrate a complete lack of deep understanding of the underlying concepts. Feels like the author is using a Wikipedia summary section-level understanding of acoustics to sound more credible and knowledgable than they are. Embarrassing.

I dunno, I enjoyed reading it. His enthusiasm is evident, and as much as I'd love to be a cranky fun-hating git it's nice to see someone having fun with the hobby for once.

Still, pontificating at length about minute perceptual nuances is thoroughly pointless given how completely subjective and unreliable all that stuff is, and I've learned to not do it.

1 hour ago, catscratch said:

 it's nice to see someone having fun with the hobby for once.

I didn't read it, and I'm not going to because I don't care, but I wanted to second this.

Sure, if you aren't having fun then why on earth would anybody call this a hobby.  I know far too many people take this way to seriously but I'd also say his post very much goes in that direction and comes off as nonsensical at best.  Perhaps I'm biased by my own extremely low effort reviews but when you are drawing up multiple images... yeah... it all becomes a bit serious. 

I also very much agree that the review doesn't touch on how the headphones actually sound.  To me they have a deliberately compromised imaging (as in designed throw a specific image but it doesn't really work or make any sense) so I feel it is a lot of BS thrown up to try and account for that.  Electrostatics are (well should be) infinite baffle designs so if the room is having an impact... then the other side of the bipolar output is surely doing so as well.  That will cause cancellations, time smear and totally fuck up the sound. 

I find it a bit funny how both designs that pay homage to the SR-Omega, leave out or fuck with, what is arguably its main design element.  The ES-1a doesn't have the outer screen in place at all and on the X9000 they use a very different material and then angle the screen... and do it in the wrong bloody direction.  The screen should have been denser and flat to the back of the drivers. 

 

 

I’m waiting for the Stax website to post that 9000 owners need to return their sets as the screens were installed the wrong way around….. 🤣

19 hours ago, catscratch said:

I dunno, I enjoyed reading it. His enthusiasm is evident, and as much as I'd love to be a cranky fun-hating git it's nice to see someone having fun with the hobby for once.

Still, pontificating at length about minute perceptual nuances is thoroughly pointless given how completely subjective and unreliable all that stuff is, and I've learned to not do it.

I think people can and should have fun with our audio bullshit, music is fun and cool. But there is a way to do that without a bunch of self-aggrandizing hot air. The claim that the headphone design makes recordings "binaural" and the room effect commentary is too much for me to get over. The fact that several concepts of acoustics are fundamentally misrepresented but presented authoritatively is... not great. Plus, we are inventing brand-new acoustic concepts! Fun!

 

This person also has a pair of $10k-ish interconnects in this system. Make of that what you will.

Edited February 21, 20242 yr by revolink24

I started reading it but got bored after a few lines. Bunch of non sense. 

Got a chance to hear these at an audio show a few days ago and in short, they suck.  I'd heard the Stax amps are less than ideal so I did plug them into the Mjolnir audio amp at the Audeze table which improved things but not nearly enough to make them listenable.

My main problem with them is they suck at dynamics & impact, especially in the lower midrange to bass region.  Metal, rock, reggae, anything with kettle drums, all that stuff gets ruined since there's not nearly enough weight or impact down low.  There's also some kind of wonky resonance in the midrange & treble which pops up from time to time, it sounds a bit like the cuppy or slightly out of phase sound you get from most closed headphones, not nearly as bad but still enough to annoy me.

Didn't pay much attention to soundstaging, imaging, or detail & resolution.  There were just way too many issues with the frequency response & lack of dynamics for me to really care about that stuff.  Overall, I'd have to say it was one of the bigger disappointments I've had in the headphone world.