My Current Audio Systems

[tmallin]

I'm not guaranteeing these are my "final" headphones, just the best I've heard so far. I find electrostatic headphones and speakers to be the most transparent/clearest transducers, both with speakers and headphones. I listen to new models of both each year at AXPONA and at dealers. The long-term trend of both most speakers and most headphones is toward a brighter in the highs, leaner in the bass sound. This is not good, to my ears, especially since the trend in remastering old recordings is in the same direction.

People who don't listen to live unamplified acoustic music much if at all tend to lose their way when it comes to natural sounding reproduction. Last night I was at a Mexican restaurant and was treated to an unamplified male duet of singers both playing acoustic guitars. Even though I was at most five feet away from this duo, the sound was not bright at all. I was again struck by how much low end even guitars generate, not to mention the richness of the male voices. You would never know this truth from most recordings played back through most modern speakers and electronics.

Sure, one can use electronic equalization to correct the overall response any way you like and I do use such with my Sanders 10e speakers via the dbx VENU360 loudspeaker management unit which is a necessary part of that speaker system. EQ can also be used with headphones, but I think it still helps to start off with transducers which are as natural sounding as possible before electronic equalization.

The Stax SR-007 Mk 1, being a model which has been around for about 25 years is not a product of this thinner-and-brighter sound trend. Stax expert Spritzer says the set I bought is from 1999 or 2000 and thinks this was the "golden age" of that particular model's production run--late enough that early glitches had been ironed out and early enough that later production/sonic tweaking problems had not yet occurred.

I'm actually somewhat embarrassed that it took me this long to buy these since at this point they are often referred to as "legendary" among the Stax cognoscenti and since I've purchased two later model Stax phones, the SR-009S and SR-X9000. Birgir/Spritzer has been talking about these SR-007 Mk1's for a long time. The now-557 page Stax thread on one forum I've been looking at lately, Head Case, goes back to at least 2006 and Spritzer has been a major contributor there all that time.

 

[AMR / iFi audio]

I'm not guaranteeing these are my "final" headphones, just the best I've heard so far. I find electrostatic headphones and speakers to be the most transparent/clearest transducers, both with speakers and headphones. I listen to new models of both each year at AXPONA and at dealers. The long-term trend of both most speakers and most headphones is toward a brighter in the highs, leaner in the bass sound. This is not good, to my ears, especially since the trend in remastering old recordings is in the same direction.

People who don't listen to live unamplified acoustic music much if at all tend to lose their way when it comes to natural sounding reproduction. Last night I was at a Mexican restaurant and was treated to an unamplified male duet of singers both playing acoustic guitars. Even though I was at most five feet away from this duo, the sound was not bright at all. I was again struck by how much low end even guitars generate, not to mention the richness of the male voices. You would never know this truth from most recordings played back through most modern speakers and electronics.

Sure, one can use electronic equalization to correct the overall response any way you like and I do use such with my Sanders 10e speakers via the dbx VENU360 loudspeaker management unit which is a necessary part of that speaker system. EQ can also be used with headphones, but I think it still helps to start off with transducers which are as natural sounding as possible before electronic equalization.

The Stax SR-007 Mk 1, being a model which has been around for about 25 years is not a product of this thinner-and-brighter sound trend. Stax expert Spritzer says the set I bought is from 1999 or 2000 and thinks this was the "golden age" of that particular model's production run--late enough that early glitches had been ironed out and early enough that later production/sonic tweaking problems had not yet occurred.

I'm actually somewhat embarrassed that it took me this long to buy these since at this point they are often referred to as "legendary" among the Stax cognoscenti and since I've purchased two later model Stax phones, the SR-009S and SR-X9000. Birgir/Spritzer has been talking about these SR-007 Mk1's for a long time. The now-557 page Stax thread on one forum I've been looking at lately, Head Case, goes back to at least 2006 and Spritzer has been a major contributor there all that time.

Sometimes all you need is a little push, this time, it was from Birgir.
EQ can help, but I agree it won't replace a proper tuning (or the one you like). I see many people advocating for using EQ, but I think it's better to start with gear that you like from the get-go.

 

[tmallin]

I totally agree that it's better to start with gear you like from the get-go, especially in terms of high-frequency balance. However, the speakers i've used lately (Dutch & Dutch 8c and now Sanders 10e hybrid electrostatics) have built-in equalization so the inherent frequency balance of the speakers is somewhat ambiguous. You can largely tune the balance of such speakers to taste.

As noted in post #59 above, I recently sold my Stax SR-X9000 headphones because I ended up agreeing that these were just inherently too bright. I have used the proceeds from that sale to acquire from Birgir/Spritzer a pair of Stax SR-007A Mk2.9 headphones. He described these as:

"This is a set of Stax SR-007A Mk2.9’s in very good condition, very close to mint. These are a few years old and I prefer them to the brand new sets made today, especially after I performed the port mod on them. Truly one of the best headphones in the world and far better than the other models Stax makes these days, 009, 009S or the misguided X9000.
This set comes with the original box and flight case and really looks close to new."

Comparing them to the SR-007 Mk 1, Birgir/Spritzer said:

"The Mk2.9’s are a bit more open in the top end and more lively than the Mk1’s. They are also more robust as Stax finally made the cable entry make sense. I do like the Mk2.9’s a lot, they are a nice step up from those who think the Mk1’s are a bit closed in sounding and a bit dark."

I find Birgir/Spritzer's comments to be very accurate. Yes, these SR-007A Mk2.9's are a bit livelier than the SR-007 Mk1. But they are both well within the range of very natural sound. I do not find the Mk1 to be "a bit closed in sounding and a bit dark" Thus, to me, both of these are far more natural sounding than the current Stax flagship, SR-X9000.