My Stax Journey

[doodoos]

Began about 4 years ago after discovering headphones could offer serious reproduction if you 'get' headphone listening. I started with Audeze lcd 3 's and a Trilogy headphone amp which I thought were great, especially the bass.However after a few months I became dissatisfied with the rolled off high frequencies where detail was lacking.
So along came the Stax 009's which clearly (no pun intended) improved transparency and treble detail and airyness coupled with the totl Stax energiser. All very fine despite a little thinness in mids and bass compared to the Audeze range.
Then I got into the head-fi forum to discover that the Stax energisers were by no means the last word in amplification and that the 009's scale up when using better amps which in the other side of the pond culminated in the Blue Haweii.
Trouble is it aint imported over here and would cost in excess of 6K after import duties etc + no backup either. Bummer. However at that time I got wind of Trilogy working on an energiser and after about 18 months it arrived. I auditioned it, bought one and returned it as the transformer hummed. This was sorted but at the end of a long winded process I decided that it too also had a fairly steep hf rolloff maybe to counter the perceived brightness of the 009's. To me though this robbed the cans of one of the main attributes of electrostatics ie the hf detail. This was becoming a bit of a pisser! Another possibility was Mjolner Audio out of Iceland who also makes well regarded energisers based on a number of circuits designed by Kevin Gilmore in the USA who knows Stax stuff inside out.
Then along came Lady Luck. I found a builder in the UK who had made quite a few amps for electrostatics so asked if he would build me one. Unfortunately he'd packed up building them and just sold the last one but might sell one design he'd built for himself with uprated components. I took my cans to his abode and listened. It was very good so bought it. At the time he has another design about twice the size which had just been built along with one other unit of different circuitry. I said if he were to sell it could I be first in line. A few weeks back he sold it whist retaining the other design and I was lucky enough to get it - a one off. So now I have two. A bit ott. I'll keep the first as a spare as they are labours of love.
Here's a pic. of the latest and I'm finally happy having also upgraded the cans to a newer model.

[struth]

lovely looking amp. im using wireless ones mostly now, although not exclusively ... don't laugh they are rather good