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A headphone system question

simon g said:
Don't forget to try out Stax Electrostatics. They are quite different and many prefer them to any dynamic system
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I see this written a lot. They're not really 'different' at all. There is a sense of rightness about them, for certain, and they're faultlessly detailed but totally unfatigueing - but then that's true of many headphones. I had HD800 with a very, very good headphone amp, and moved to Stax. They were comparable, with the Stax having slightly more and better bass to the HD800 (but not a major thing). The only real thing I'd add is that the Stax truly do make me forget about hifi. I couldn't give two hoots about climbing the ladder any more - my L700s with the SRM006t is 'destination hifi' enough for me.

The only thing you will find is that the build quality of them isn't quite as good as one would expect for the price. Maybe not the case for the higher-up SRM-009, but the L700s just don't feel like a £1k+ headphone. Lovely and comfy though!
 
JTC said:
I see this written a lot. They're not really 'different' at all. There is a sense of rightness about them, for certain, and they're faultlessly detailed but totally unfatigueing - but then that's true of many headphones. I had HD800 with a very, very good headphone amp, and moved to Stax. They were comparable, with the Stax having slightly more and better bass to the HD800 (but not a major thing). The only real thing I'd add is that the Stax truly do make me forget about hifi. I couldn't give two hoots about climbing the ladder any more - my L700s with the SRM006t is 'destination hifi' enough for me.

The only thing you will find is that the build quality of them isn't quite as good as one would expect for the price. Maybe not the case for the higher-up SRM-009, but the L700s just don't feel like a £1k+ headphone. Lovely and comfy though!
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Heard 3 pairs of Stax at the Head-Room show a couple of weeks ago and found them all lacking in dynamics. They sound nice and polite but lacked the realism and dynamics of live music.
 
G T Audio said:
Heard 3 pairs of Stax at the Head-Room show a couple of weeks ago and found them all lacking in dynamics. They sound nice and polite but lacked the realism and dynamics of live music.
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This is the kind of thing that always puzzles me. If there's one thing they certainly DON'T lack, it's dynamics. Maybe it's a question of how loud you listen - I don't listen at headbanger levels. I'd say my Stax rig has greater dynamics than my previous HD800s, driven by a 120V dedicated SPL headamp (with a rep for good dynamics). Not a great deal in it, and might even go either way from track to track, but certainly the L700s can sound HUGE in my system.

In fact, re-reading what you wrote, I'd argue that realism and dynamics are the things that modern Stax do particularly well. Or at least my setup does. Perhaps, in comparison to some £5k+ dynamic headphones driven by £5k+ dynamic amps they may come off worse in the slam comparison, I can't say - but that'd be an unfair comparison.

Or perhaps I just have an unusually good pair ;) ??
 
G T Audio said:
Heard 3 pairs of Stax at the Head-Room show a couple of weeks ago and found them all lacking in dynamics. They sound nice and polite but lacked the realism and dynamics of live music.
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I'm amazed by this. I don't have Stax, but only because I use headphones quite rarely. The SR-009s that I demo'd (and had at home for a week) were the most jaw-droppingly realistic transducers I've ever had the privilege to listen to.

As I said in my post earlier, headphones really warrant personal auditioning as folk's findings seem to vary so much.

Actually, there's one other possibility - you didn't list to the SR-007s or SR-009s??
 
I wasn't the only one who thought that at the show. My assistant who plays in an orchestra and has great ears said the same. Even the guy demonstrating the Stax at the show, who incidentally runs his own record label also thought they sounded flat and lacked dynamics. I have nothing against Stax but they don't suit everyone. I also spoke to a lot of people at the show and not one said they owned Stax, so maybe Stax ownership is just a very small percentage of the headphone market. Maybe the convenience of dynamic headphones makes them more universal for internal and external use?
 
I never got on with stax either, always found them "bleached" sounding, no tonal richness.

For about a year I've been using Sennheiser HD-800S with Oppo HA-1 and think that's where I'm stopping for now. Very surprisingly, the HD-800S has made me re-appraise the original HD-800 non-S which I used to hate for fierce treble - and I don't find it so bad at all now. The S version is just a bit tonally richer and smoother. When used with a balanced cable from the Oppo the head-stage is almost 3 dimensional, noticeably better than using the normal unbalanced cable
 
The HD800S is certainly one of the best headphones I have heard. Sennheiser seem to have got the balance and tonality just right. When I have been recording live music I can remove the headphones (Sennheiser HD595s) and the sound in the room does not change to what is heard through the headphones. On other headphone brands I have tried there is a big difference between the in room performance and monitoring via headphones.
 
G T Audio said:
I wasn't the only one who thought that at the show...
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Indeed, I wasn't saying you're wrong, merely that headphones seem to be the HiFi items that polarise views more than any others.

A must audition item. At least you can do it in any quiet room.
 
The SR-009s are excellent and not mushy at all to my ears, but those fancy cans and the recommended energizer are knocking at $10k Cdn after taxes.

I do prefer the top Stax set-up to my HD800 cans, but not nearly enough be motivated to find a way to cough up the difference. On dynamics and soundstaging (I can't believe I just wrote that, as a founding member of the FEPs club) I prefer the HD800 cans, but on tone and coherence I prefer the Stax SR-009s.

But use whatever you like. Headphones are far too personal for recommendations to be anything but nudges in one direction versus another.

Joe
 
alanbeeb said:
I never got on with stax either, always found them "bleached" sounding, no tonal richness.

For about a year I've been using Sennheiser HD-800S with Oppo HA-1 and think that's where I'm stopping for now. Very surprisingly, the HD-800S has made me re-appraise the original HD-800 non-S which I used to hate for fierce treble - and I don't find it so bad at all now. The S version is just a bit tonally richer and smoother. When used with a balanced cable from the Oppo the head-stage is almost 3 dimensional, noticeably better than using the normal unbalanced cable
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Same findings here, really like this combination. I also like the lower volume performance which isn't always a given.
 
alanbeeb said:
I never got on with stax either, always found them "bleached" sounding, no tonal richness.

For about a year I've been using Sennheiser HD-800S with Oppo HA-1 and think that's where I'm stopping for now. Very surprisingly, the HD-800S has made me re-appraise the original HD-800 non-S which I used to hate for fierce treble - and I don't find it so bad at all now. The S version is just a bit tonally richer and smoother. When used with a balanced cable from the Oppo the head-stage is almost 3 dimensional, noticeably better than using the normal unbalanced cable
Click to expand...
Weird. Whilst I haven't heard the S, the two Stax headsets I've owned (404Sig and L700) were/are at least as good as the HD800 in their ability to portray colour and richness, with the L700s being a bit fuller than 404Sig and way fuller and more extended than HD800. Though I do still very much rate the HD800.

I often wonder whether the differences between various headphones is as much to do with how well it fits around your ears as much as anything else. I do know that with the Stax, I can drastically alter the tonal balance by slightly cupping my hand over the back of them, so it could well be that minor variations in head shape/pinnae size/hair-or-no-hair etc. have a disproportionate effect on how the sound is perceived. Maybe, as someone *with* a full head of hair, average sized ears and having taken the time to get the Stax to sit right on my own head, they are therefore working optimally.

A slight tangent - but only slight - is the obvious comparison with IEM headphones, where how well the seal between the headphone and the ear canal is made has a massive difference in the perception of body, bass extension and tonal balance. Doesn't seem like a huge leap to me that this might also be quite true (to a lesser extent) on over- or on-ear headphones of various types.
 
PS. I never found the HD800 to have a fierce treble, but then my pair had a quite markedly different frequency response graph than most of its serial range, so perhaps I got an anomalous pair....
 
JTC said:
Weird. Whilst I haven't heard the S, the two Stax headsets I've owned (404Sig and L700) were/are at least as good as the HD800 in their ability to portray colour and richness, with the L700s being a bit fuller than 404Sig and way fuller and more extended than HD800. Though I do still very much rate the HD800.

I often wonder whether the differences between various headphones is as much to do with how well it fits around your ears as much as anything else. I do know that with the Stax, I can drastically alter the tonal balance by slightly cupping my hand over the back of them, so it could well be that minor variations in head shape/pinnae size/hair-or-no-hair etc. have a disproportionate effect on how the sound is perceived. Maybe, as someone *with* a full head of hair, average sized ears and having taken the time to get the Stax to sit right on my own head, they are therefore working optimally.

A slight tangent - but only slight - is the obvious comparison with IEM headphones, where how well the seal between the headphone and the ear canal is made has a massive difference in the perception of body, bass extension and tonal balance. Doesn't seem like a huge leap to me that this might also be quite true (to a lesser extent) on over- or on-ear headphones of various types.
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Lot of truth in that, ear shapes, head shapes and different hearing profiles - the same profile for each ear is a rarity! I tried the HD800 and S - I thought the latter preferable but I'm sure you are correct that slight variances between samples may alter perceptions. The 800s I tried were noticably brighter than the S which sounded spot on from the off to my ears.

As it happens I also have some IE800 buds I really rate those, fantastic on the move sound.
 
Interesting. Yes, Lamba-type Stax all creak to some degree - mine included. But you get used to it, and I find I only get a creak maybe once or twice per album. Not ideal I grant you, but more than willing to live with that. I believe the Omega design doesn't creak. However, I'd never describe the Lambdas as 'on ear' - they're plenty big to be called 'over ear' and they're very light so I personally find them as comfortable as my HD800s.
 
Right. I'm going to enjoy a beer or two with my ageing HD565s on, fed from an Avondale headphone amp. Zappa's Guitar, maybe. :)
 
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