007 vs. 009 perpetual motion debate dripping from HF to HC, who whould have believed that ? 

Ali

14 hours ago, TMoney said:

The barrier to entry over there is non-existent.

Exactly as designed.

Not that HF matters as much as before to the big names, as their new products are built and priced to attract the purses of Chinese graft.

 

10 hours ago, spritzer said:

As for the Stax, haven't tried the L700 yet (waiting for Stax to release the inevitable fixed version)

What defect?

Not sure yet but this is Stax, they always release a fixed version.  I'm half joking but also been burnt enough times to not get a first of anything from them. 

22 hours ago, Ali-Pacha said:

007 vs. 009 perpetual motion debate dripping from HF to HC, who whould have believed that ? 

Ali

Yep, the plague is spreading.

 

btw, I have 2 of each and like them all.........    

How about 007 mk2 or mk2.5 without mod? I am thinking to borrow a pair of 007 to test on my KGST. Likely to be mk2 or 2.5. Since I can't mod them, are they simply different phone or same phone from different batches? I mean are the difference very significant?

I like 009 quiet much and never heard a 007 been well driven. 007 on 727 is..... far from acceptable. veiled and foggy.

Edited January 15, 201610 yr by joehpj

The difference is quite large.  The new ones are ok without the mod, the earlier ones really weren't. 

I tried and reversed the mod on my new 007A. Used the mod for a week before giving up. It made the headphone fart intolerably, just from moving my head, which ruined the whole listening experience. FWIW, I really the stock sound on the latest 007A anyway.

Did you alter the springs on the headband?  I also didn't touch the earpad springs on the new ones which helps minimize the farting... 

Does latest 007 means mk2.5 (sz-3xxx)? or even later?

BTW, I think the design of 009 included compensation for the 007/727 since they can't output so much power. You can choose either warmer 007 or a leaner 727. Perfect? absolutely not. Good? of course yes. Buyers can adjust front end or wires to adjust the sound. Stax really can't count on everyone buying 3-party amps to make their phone sounds better.

39 minutes ago, joehpj said:

Does latest 007 means mk2.5 (sz-3xxx)? or even later?

BTW, I think the design of 009 included compensation for the 007/727 since they can't output so much power. You can choose either warmer 007 or a leaner 727. Perfect? absolutely not. Good? of course yes. Buyers can adjust front end or wires to adjust the sound. Stax really can't count on everyone buying 3-party amps to make their phone sounds better.

Everyone should given that these DIY cost about the same and in some cases less a new Stax amps.  The 727 is just a bad sounding amp.

2 minutes ago, purk said:

Everyone should given that these DIY cost about the same and in some cases less a new Stax amps.  The 727 is just a bad sounding amp.

It's not the worst, but yeah for $2k ish, it is well overpriced for the performance. But thanks to Birgir, it can be modded to sound really good.

35 minutes ago, purk said:

Everyone should given that these DIY cost about the same and in some cases less a new Stax amps.  The 727 is just a bad sounding amp.

For DIY, you pay your time. Not everyone can solder and take the risk of high voltage.

For 3-party, what comes into your mind? Let's not talk about sth like WES and A10.

How about BHSE? Indeed a nice amp. Sounds great and decent case work. But you have to wait a loooong time, and pay much more than a 727.

Mjonir Audio is doing good. But it still needs time to become a "brand".(no offense)

For $2K, there's only 007, 727 and GES.

I'm not sure I ever want to become a "brand"...

As for the 009, I don't think that they were designed for the amps in mind.  In fact that would be very unusual for Stax.  It's much more likely that they got caught up in the new toy fever of the diaphragm material.  That and their measurement equipment was just not up to snuff. 

Not to buy from Birgir if you can not solder is shortsighted indeed.

Brand name or not, he makes quality stuff.

Oh I actually means in my country, few people know who's Birgir and what's Mjonir audio. Mjonir audio still need time to become famous. Not everyone here knows English. Many audiophiles still rely on local distributors.

1 hour ago, joehpj said:

For DIY, you pay your time. Not everyone can solder and take the risk of high voltage.

For 3-party, what comes into your mind? Let's not talk about sth like WES and A10.

How about BHSE? Indeed a nice amp. Sounds great and decent case work. But you have to wait a loooong time, and pay much more than a 727.

Mjonir Audio is doing good. But it still needs time to become a "brand".(no offense)

For $2K, there's only 007, 727 and GES.

Mjolnir Audio is pretty spectacular if you would asked me.  I would buy his amps before spending my hard earn on Woo & RSA or even Cavalli. His craftsmanship is pretty high and he is quite an expert on this subject too.  You can also commission other DIYs to build you high quality electrostatic amps.  For examples, all my builds were  purchased from many of the DIYers here and they all very high quality stuff compared to Stax amps as well as sounding a whole lot better.  I think the GES is decent but it won't compare well to even the KGSS so let alone the KGST or KGSSHV.  Why not check out his moving sales or Headfi FS forum for a really good deals.  Many great sounding KGSSHVs used can be had for $2600 or less.  Really is a no-brainer to me  

I had built a KGST already. It cost me only about $1.2K. Really really good for the price. I also appreciate people on HC a lot for their help.

What I want to say is

1. Not every stax owner outside of English speaking world knows stax mafia and what they are doing.

2. Some of my friends want it easy. Pay-and-get. No collecting parts. No debugging.

We all know Birgir's doing quiet good.  Mjonir audio still needs time to be come famous enough worldwide.(not sure if Birgir wanted to)

Yeah I'm not sure if I want to become any more famous.  My friends googled me once and saw me pop up in strange languages all over the world.   

Still we need to spread the gospel a bit further as a 727/009 isn't top of the line as some might think.  Part of that plan is the rebuild the Unofficial Stax Page with info about all the Stax headphones plus other electrostatics. 

So @spritzer what do you mean new ones 007 are ok? Do you mean sz-3xxx or even later?

It's harder to find a mk1 in good condition now, so if mk2.5 are near equally good and I will have them.

DIdn't we call them Mk2.9 or something like that but yeah, very latest version is great.  Serial numbers can't be used to see what version they are so just get a new 007A from Japan. 

Time to abandon head-fi I felt. There really seems to be no room for differentiating opinions in that SR-009 worshipping STAX thread. There is a whole lot of talking and not enough reason there I think. This place seems a whole lot nicer  

 

Spritzer would I need to re-wire my C serial number SRM1 MK2 from this:

 

To this (your post on Head-fi):

 

To be able to use the voltage plug? I managed to source a voltage plug and plugged in straight in but it blew the fuse. So I found your post (with the above picture) with some indication that the wires need to be wired to the voltage selector like that to able to use the voltage plug as I hate using a step down to 100v, I'd rather just use 240v.

This correct?

 

 

When Stax did 100V only amps back then they just wired the sockets every which way as they were never supposed to be used with the plug.  You need to completely match the picture above but it looks like you are lucky, just move the green and brown to the their correct spots and add the other white wire.  Just make sure it is the right one as Stax always used two white ones for some reason. 

2 hours ago, Bjorn said:

Time to abandon head-fi I felt. There really seems to be no room for differentiating opinions in that SR-009 worshipping STAX thread. There is a whole lot of talking and not enough reason there I think. This place seems a whole lot nicer  

 

Hehe I'd say most on HF wouldn't call us nicer but welcome.    Here we talk about the stuff that actually matters, not the stupid crap HF calls a Stax thread these days. 

Worked a treat Spritzer, thanks. 

Most excellent.