Try vintage electrostatic for an extraordinary headphone experience

[Grayson Dere]

Over the winter holiday I was introduced to a vintage pair of circa 1986 Stax SR-Lambda Pro electrostatic headphones. I read some reviews prior to my listening session so I was expecting a little less than stellar sound quality...some said the bass wasn't really there or the highs were a bit shrill/metallic.

Listening to some vinyl recordings of Miles Davis and classical pieces by Jacqueline Du Pre I was absolutely floored at the resolution and dynamic range of these vintage headphones. In fact, the bass response was some of the best deep bass
I've ever listened to from headphones including the top of class Sennheiser HE1. This surprised me since many electrostatic floorstanding speakers definitely benefit from a subwoofer for the lower registers. The mid-range was dreamy smooth and the highs weren't shrill at all. For the headphones being so old I did notice the stator protective covering in the ear cup was a little tarnished like an oxidized metal floor grate. Perhaps the dirty ear cup was acting as a filter of sorts?
The music also had fantastic handling through tougher dynamic range transients due to the electrostatic drivers. A+ headphones if there ever was one : D

Does anyone else have comments regarding the Stax SR-Lambda Pros?


Here's a fun and short review from Stereophile Magazine:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stax-sr-lambda-pro-headphones

"J. Gordon Holt adds some thoughts: I heard the Pros and I didn't much care for them either.".....are you serious!!?? : )

 

[tesseract]

I'd very much like to hear those. I might have heard new Stax at one of the shows, but don't recall for sure.

 

[Nakdoc]

Harmonic and IM distortion are something stupid like 0.1% too, which reveals great details in the music. Electrostats can go as deep as you can hear, but won't play that bass loud. We used to listen to the heartbeat on DSOM through KLH 9s...stunning.

 

[Mike-48]

I listened to the newer version of these, or at any rate a Stax model that looks like them, at a recent headphone event. I'm usually not much of a headphone fan. The Stax phones were the only pair I came away wanting. I thought they were stupendous.

JGH was a pioneer, but I haven't always agreed with his evaluations. I still remember my first CD player, a model he liked & that gave me the worst buyer's remorse ever.

 

[Grayson Dere]

I'm curious to try out the newer version. Before the Stax I came from Grado headphones which I still really really enjoy. But, the Stax sounded more like live music to me.

I understand where you're coming from when you mentioned not agreeing with some reviewer evaluations. The Sony Playstation 1 (SCPH 1001) is touted as Class-C or low Class-B (forget the reviewer) from Stereophile. I have a version of the model they evaluated and it sounds absolutely muddy in my opinion : P