Stax SR-X MkIII

[donunus]

A very interesting pair of cans. They have an awesomely transparent tonality for such an old headphone. The leather headband is still intact. I haven't researched about them yet but I thought I'd post some pics. The amp looking thing is just an adapter so that you can connect the stax directly to your speaker amp. Too bad though because something has to be fixed here.  The left driver goes on and off and I can smell something burning in the box when I crank it up a little to get the left channel to start playing. Boy, If only someone here knew how to fix these. I loved the tonality I heard when both channels played together wow! Fast, immediate, articulate yet smooth and non fatiguing.





By the way, we should have a stax child forum This is the first time I'm getting interested in the stax sound. My 202s were veiled compared to these.

[donunus]

Heres a link I found about them http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/164294/stax-sr-x-mark-iii-impressions

Anyone here know about stax bias, amp matching, etc? maybe this could be the only simple problem here? dunno

[Ishcabible]

What's that energizer? Leson? That burning smell doesn't sound good... Try to find a legit Stax one. That's a normal bias headphone, and that energizer seems to also be normal bias, but the fact that it isn't Stax makes me curious. Is it an SRD6 clone?

[donunus]

its not an energizer, just a converter.

[Boymasskara]

maybe you can send them here to one of our resident DIY Masters?

[dalethorn]

I had the SRX-MKIII with the SRD-7 for several years.  Of all the 1970's headphones I had, the Stax was the only one that would sound good against today's better headphones.  A genuine Stax amp probably won't be cheap.  I haven't researched these either, but I got the impression that today's Stax headphones do their amping differently than in the 1970's, when we had to connect the SRD-7 box to the speaker terminals of a power amp.

The Stax SRX headphone (and maybe other Stax headphones too...) was the first headphone I bought that contained a freq. response curve that wasn't flat or nearly so, intentionally.  The Koss ESP-9 and all of the Senn's from the 414 to 424 and up came with response curves that looked exactly like the headphone sounded, but the Stax high freq. curve was very choppy, and Stax's literature had some incomprehensible verbiage that "explained" why.  And to top that off, the reviewers at that time had the opinion that the SRX-MKIII was a little on the bright side.

[marcusd]

We do have a stax child board Don moving this thread

[marcusd]

Don I wonder if the headphone is compatible with the srm-313 stax amp I have

[donunus]

I really have no clue if it is compatible or not but this converter is just like how dalethorn explained. It connects to my speaker terminals and converts the signal for stax cans sort of like these here...

http://www.wooaudio.com/products/wee.html

[donunus]

maybe you can send them here to one of our resident DIY Masters?

Thats what i'm wishing would happen. anyone here want to take the challenge in fixing these?

[Ishcabible]

its not an energizer, just a converter.

Energizer is a fancy name for converter haha. The WEE is a modern energizer, but an SRD-7 would be good enough.

It would be pretty hard to fix, because they likely need to be remylared. You could try to take it to someone who knows how to fix electrostatic speakers. Best case would be a cable issue though. Then you could buy an extension cable and recable.

And I'm not too sure if they'd work on the SRM-313. It says pro under the jacks right? But one has 6 pins like the normal bias...

[marcusd]

Energizer is a fancy name for converter haha. The WEE is a modern energizer, but an SRD-7 would be good enough.

It would be pretty hard to fix, because they likely need to be remylared. You could try to take it to someone who knows how to fix electrostatic speakers. Best case would be a cable issue though. Then you could buy an extension cable and recable.

And I'm not too sure if they'd work on the SRM-313. It says pro under the jacks right? But one has 6 pins like the normal bias...

I have both 5 and 6 pin - normal (for old ones) and pro for new ones - but does that mean my stax amp can handle any stax headphone you chuck at it?

[Ishcabible]

I have both 5 and 6 pin - normal (for old ones) and pro for new ones - but does that mean my stax amp can handle any stax headphone you chuck at it?

I *think* so. Don't quote me on it though because being unsure about things like this can break headphones.

[marcusd]

I *think* so. Don't quote me on it though because being unsure about things like this can break headphones.

Will it come down to the voltage of the amp?

[Ishcabible]

Will it come down to the voltage of the amp?

The output, yes.

And it seems like you're in the clear if it has both jacks. I did some more reading about the SRM 313.