The Headcase Stax thread

[dreamwhisper]

Baby Jesus makes Stax fart.

No more feeding Baby Jesus beans! goddammBaby Jesus has some loud f'in farts!!

BTW, what's the story on the BHSE vs WES?

[Deadneddz]

My O2 mkls have just arrived from Japan in great shape and sounding sweet.

Congrats on the O2, glad they are in great shape.

The HE60 are on a level playing field with the O2 on the BH. I really can't say which one I like more. The HE60 have a slightly diffuse presentation (not as bad as the Jade), and still have quite a big soundstage that works really well with rock music. But at the same time they image quite well... strange headphones. The HE60 and O2 scale really well with better amps, but with the 404LE don't really sound that different with the BH and Exstata.

Interesting impressions Deepak. I thought the HE60 was much more diffuse compared to the O2, so the Jade would probably be a train wreck in my book. But then again I didn't listen to it on the BH. Thats one reason why I wanted to keep my set, but in the end it had to go.

I promise, I'm not affiliated with site enforcement,

Hmm...then how do you explain the custom title? Surely the site enforcement would not grant a once "revolting baby elephant" such a stark change in title...

holy crap, these Stax O2's are like a breath of fresh air when listening to music

they really just get tha fuk out tha way and let me hear what the fuk is goin on.

Congrats on your O2 purchase as well. Now its time to put your system to the test.

[spritzer]

How long have you been listening to 'stats anyway? You must have started in high school. ..or whatever is the viking equivalent.

First exposure was when I was about 12 to some Quad ESL's and the first ESP I ever tried was a Koss ESP9 which barely worked. The SR-007 was the first ESP I bought and a great leap into the unknown. Driven by a SRM-313 it had potential but I knew there was something missing so I ordered a BH from Justin. The whole madness of collecting hundreds of headphones came later...

...so the Jade would probably be a train wreck in my book.

It's a train wreck in most books. The SQ aside the build quality is a joke.

[dreamwhisper]

Congrats on your O2 purchase as well. Now its time to put your system to the test.

Thanks. I'm expecting some Blue Jeans analog and digi cables any day. That should be interesting compared to the ratshack rca's and instead of toslink, I'll be using coaxial output from the 0404 iwth the new BJ cable.

I expect some improvement, maybe not leaps in bounds, but I've always liked coaxial over toslink.

Ohh that reminds me tho- I could compare some DACs quite nicely with headphones this revealing....

What about your O2 system? You're using a T1S to drive your pair?

[dreamwhisper]

I'd like to try just be content for a while with these headphones. They're a dramatic improvement from the studio gear in terms of detail, resolution, and overall amount of information.

The only musicality they're missing in comparison is basically more sweetness of mids/more forward mids.

grainy

I don't hear any grain.

I think you listen at higher levels than I do. I can get these babies just purring softly and still have tons of detail.

I guess the way to truly test them is test them against my buddy's 10k studio monitors in his treated studio. (I think they're Genelecs)

If I'm still stoked about the O2's, I won't worry about it.

For reference, my studio monitors and sub are 3.7k. The O2 system is 2.4k.

[dreamwhisper]

OK, I think I know what you mean catscratch by grain...

Honestly, I don't care if there is headroom the amp can't reach that I'm missing right now.

I'm just stoked to hear what tha fuk is going on, it's like a religion or something

I'd rather know how shitty my gear was than not, because I think I can hear equally far into a piece of music now

And for me, it's if anything a challenge to make even more exciting music.

That's another part of it, if you have expensive, quality gear you gotta represent it. Floss those wheels, bouiYEE!

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[Deadneddz]

What about your O2 system? You're using a T1S to drive your pair?

I'm using a T1S that Milos let me borrow. But Justin is making a BH for me. The T1(S) amps are definately not ideal and listening to his 717 makes that pretty clear. But from my memory the BHSE was quite a jump from the 717, but i'll have to wait until mine is finished to confirm that.

[catscratch]

I don't listen to excessively high levels either. Well, not all the time . The 717 begins to compress dynamically at high levels anyway, and you get better performance if you back off the volume knob some ways. The grain could be attributed to a lot of things, but in my rig it's there with the 717 and not there with the SRD-7 Pro/Dared VP-20. Now if the Dared is acting as a grain filter and it's my source all along, that's possible too. In any case, it's not severe or anything, but even slight grain bothers me enough to want to switch.

But I also hear slight grain in most if not all dynamics, which makes me unable to fully enjoy them - so it could be my ears being strange. Wouldn't be the first time for that either.

Edited April 3, 2010 by catscratch

[forbigger]

folks, short of BHSE, is it suffice to say that KGSS is the next best amp for O2?

Also is there any sonic difference between normal BH and BHSE ? Thanks

[deepak]

folks, short of BHSE, is it suffice to say that KGSS is the next best amp for O2?

Also is there any sonic difference between normal BH and BHSE ? Thanks

The differences shouldn't be big. The BHSEs I have heard sounded very much like my BH- great control of the drivers and very high bandwidth. I know some people think they are bassy amps, I do not hear this. When the music has a lot of bass I can hear and feel the bass with the HE60 and O2. But say for example a lot of Blue Note jazz where Rudy Van Gelder often recorded the bassist further back in the mix, you hear the texture and depth of the bass but it is very soft and very much in the background.

For example with my HD600/ EC HD300 wrt to the the Blue Note jazz the bass was often almost as forward in the mix as the rest of the instruments. This leads me to believe that either the electrostats and/or amp have more accurate frequency response or that the electrostats are far more spacially resolving.

Edited April 3, 2010 by deepak

[Elephas]

BTW, what's the story on the BHSE vs WES?

I wanna know too!

Hmm...then how do you explain the custom title? Surely the site enforcement would not grant a once "revolting baby elephant" such a stark change in title...

Shut your mouth!

Ah, no, that's not me, a cute baby elephant wouldn't say such a thing. For some weird reason, I almost spewed my red bean soup onto my keyboard after the second "Shut your mouth!" at Spritzer.

I don't know why I thought it was so funny.

The differences shouldn't be big.

Hahaha, just what a "regular BH" owner would say.

[spritzer]

Hahaha, just what a "regular BH" owner would say.

It would be fun to compare but the older BH has more then an even chance of coming out on top in this comparison. A more thermally stable PSU and the older output stage CCS might have an performance edge. We'll see when I'll compare the BHSE, Kerry's version of the same design and the SOTA Blue Hawaii's I'm working on.

[dreamwhisper]

I remember you saying you can buy the parts for a Blue Hawaii for 1300,

so where can you buy the boards, find the parts list? Sign me up! hah

[spritzer]

I have the last of the older BH boards but they are all spoken for. In fact, I haven't even got enough for all the amps I want to build. Now Kerry has his version of the BHSE but I'm not sure if he has any extra boards.

The amp could be built for 1300$ but it would involve the cheapest parts that fit the job and getting the chassis essentially for free. 2k$ or more would be a more realistic number once you factor in all the components needed for matching, chassis, attenuation, better parts (which this amp deserves) etc.

[dreamwhisper]

NEW development... Ok, so I know where to find a board, I just need a PSU board... how complex is it?

...I know a board designer that might owe me a favour.

[spritzer]

Kerry's version comes with a PSU design but Justin sells the KGSS PSU boards which really are the BH PSU. Just use higher rated capacitors and change the zener string from 350V to 400V.

[jp11801]

ok Stax Mafia I have recently acquired the 4070s and the O2 mkl and they are both outstanding! Right now I am rationalizing keeping both as yesterday I thought the 4070 was better but today the O2 is the clear winner. Don't trust a word I say I tell ya, good thing none of you did anyway.

My O2s though are farty as heck is that just the seal breaking against my slightly sweaty shaved head? Would replacement pads help or do I just need to sit still while I listen? Details abound with both of these Stax, I had hoped to sell one of them but may wind up keeping both for the moment...

[JimP]

congrats on on the 4070 and O2mkI! I know you've just gotten these, I but I would be keen to hear more of your comparative soundbites on the two. Unfortunately I'm at a location where I cannot trial run these in advance. What could be helpful if you could associate them crudely to commonly known dynamics, eg, 4070s sound roughly like [k1000], etc. ... if that's possible at all.

[jp11801]

not really possible they do not really correlate to dynamics easily and comparison was be faulty in that they do not have the faults of dynamics I would compare them to. The k1000 comp to the 4070 leaves out the k1000 bass roll off at about 60hz and the 4070 is more detailed and faster without the peaky upper mids/lower treble. Don;t get me wrong I loved the k1ks but they are no nearly as good as the 4070s to me.

Not sure what you could even remotely compare the O2s to in dynamics as off the top of my head nothing comes to mind.

[Duggeh]

Closest to the O2 I can think of is the L3000 but I didn't have a lot of time with it.

[cetoole]

JP, I used to have a lot more issues with the fart on my o2s, it just doesnt happen anywhere nearly as much anymore, and I am not really doing anything different consciously. Just kinda adjusted to it in the first few weeks.

[jp11801]

Maybe an O2 doorag , stats gansta style

[dreamwhisper]

the O2 out of the 717 seems to me what it wouild be like if an AD2000 and AH-D5000 had babies.

Midrange a little recessed, fat low end (D5000) but the entire frequency range tight as hell and fast. (AD2000)

Nicer soundstage and more transparent than either though- this headphone baby prbly had nutritious food when he was growing up.

the AD2000 borders on stat technicality by sheer speed & impact but it falls short not being able to effortlessly pluck tones out of the air like a Staxen.

this is just the 02 with the 717, I'm sure it's different with other amps

[Audiofiler]

Not sure what you could even remotely compare the O2s to in dynamics as off the top of my head nothing comes to mind.

Not much does..however, the OII MKI's sound somewhat like the HD-800's qualities mixed with the L3000's qualities in certain areas. (Properly amped, of course)

[Questa]

Hey Guys.

What stax phones that sound closest to HE60? I tried HE60 and like it, I found it forward and aggressive, I've never read Stax that talked like that.