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The Headcase Stax thread


thrice

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I'm pretty sure that riveting was done there simply to reduce assembly cost.

The rivet is so damned small, it loses the mechanical integrity of the rivet bond when heated soldering the bias wire to it.

Not enough to fully break contact and cause an obvious failure on manufacture. Could possibly cause intermittent problems after time and handling as folks have written about on the forums.

All anecdotal on my part.     

 

 

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2 hours ago, spritzer said:

I'm pretty sure that the loose bias contact is the reason for some of the imbalance issues.  Not sure why they would use such a weak mechanical contact there..

Perhaps, they took a leaf out of "The Hifiman Method To Manufacture Cheap Flagship Headphones.  Fifth Edition Version II ".

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I'm certain they can do a good amp but they are severely limited in terms of parts they can use, weight, power consumption and just how complex it can be.  Well that and they are way too obsessed with using something "cool" and not ultimate performance.  I doubt anybody thinks the 727 NO-NFB is a brilliant plan... 

 

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On 2/14/2017 at 5:02 PM, Laowei said:

Finally received my replacement SR-009 cable from STAX Japan and their shipper A&M Enterprises.  

All looks good and will be soldering it in a few days.

Talking via email with Douglas Ip of STAX, he mentioned that as of Jan 1, 2017 Yama Enterprises is no longer their STAX distributor/dealer here.   Douglas is working now to establish a company and warehouse out of Dallas/Fort Worth Texas.

Great news. 

We're getting set up as well. We were still sending in orders to Yamas and not receiving any response. Ended up visiting their office. Not sure if they knew or didn't know what was going on

Birgir got an amp order due to this :)

Edited by justin
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1 hour ago, justin said:

We're getting set up as well. We were still sending in orders to Yamas and not receiving any response. Ended up visiting their office. Not sure if they knew or didn't know what was going on

Birgir got an amp order due to this :)

Are you planning to just carry the main STAX product line, or will you also be including accessories and service/repairs too? 

 

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We've been selling the full product line for years, plus extension cables. We didn't have access to parts except maybe ear pads...but dealer cost was still more expensive than buying the pads from Japan, so it made no sense. I believe repairs might get sent back to Japan now

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We are shit out of luck on the old parts though I believe Stax has a lot of that stuff still in stock or it could be made in small quantities easily.  I mean how hard would it be to make 300 normal bias Lambda cables which are 95% the same as the 207 cable? 

The problem with something like this is knowing the older models well enough to supply people with the stuff they need.  The distributors fuck up the current lineup when it comes to parts so I have little hope for them knowing a Gamma cable from a SR-5N cable.  I've toyed with the idea for so long to import Stax into Iceland but I doubt they would want their biggest critic anywhere near this.  :lol:  Still they could make a nice amount of money servicing the old units with minimal outlay... 

Ohh and thanks for that Justin.  :)  Did you ever get those 009's fixed after the NYC meet?  I could take a look at them when I'm in the US next month... 

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If you just need an extension cable, there are still 6 pin to 5 pin vintage ones floating around. I used to have a few just because they came with the SRD7 boxes I bought, for whatever reason. They are not low capacitance so will change the sound a bit IIRC

Would love to have normal bias cables to replace the cloth cables on the vintage stuff, and of course for the odd experiment/frankenphone. And some pro bias ones so I don't have to cut up an extension cable

Edit: I also really need some vintage arc assemblies because those things are so fragile with the thin plastic. If anyone can point me to a person or place to buy some that'd be great

Edited by mypasswordis
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On 2/21/2017 at 6:47 AM, mypasswordis said:

Edit: I also really need some vintage arc assemblies because those things are so fragile with the thin plastic. If anyone can point me to a person or place to buy some that'd be great

I was looking for a number of old headband arcs back in November but turned up dry.

FWIW broken arcs can actually be "welded" back together by manufacturing companies specializing in plastics. Won't look quite the same as the original but it seems fairly inexpensive to do and thus might make more sense than hunting down rare plastic headbands.

The variation in analogous parts is also pretty interesting (and confounding). In my research I found an obscure headband screw that you'd think would be identical across the older Staxen is actually different between the Lambda, Sigma and Omega (nevermind weird production differences in the arcs themselves)...

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