STAX SRM-T8000 Electrostatic Headphone Amplifier

Description:

Key features

• Electrostatic headphone amplifier
• High sound quality
• Coupling capacitor-free configuration from input to output
• Frequency response：1～115kHz per channel
• High-quality parts
• Fully balanced from input to output

What is it?

Every Stax ‘earspeaker’ is an electrostatic design. Every electrostatic needs
a specialist, dedicated high-voltage amplifier (Stax calls it an ‘energiser’).
Stax makes more top-end earspeakers than it does energisers, so there’s call
for a really top-notch energiser from the brand to match the SR-009 and the
new SR-009s. The SRM-T8000 is that energiser.

Two years in the making, the hybrid SRM-T8000 is the first of what Stax
classes as a new ‘T’ series energiser. Instead of relying on a combination of
FET input stage running in Class A and valve output stage using 6FQ7 valves,
the T8000 features a pair of 6922 double-triodes in the input stage and a
solid-state output stage. This form of hybrid amplifier circuit is commonplace
in traditional two-channel amplifiers, but has been harder to utilise in Stax
energisers because of the high impedance of an electrostatic transducer.

SRM-T8000 is Stax’s latest flagship electrostatic headphone amplifier
utilizing hybrid technology. It employs two 6922 in the input stage, driving a
Class-A solid-state output stage. The vacuum tubes isolated in a separate
section made of vibration-proof damper and shield cover to eliminate vibration
and noise. The high-capacity large toroidal transformers and selected high-
quality parts allow the highest refinement in sound.

The big ‘first’ for the SRM-T8000 – which goes some way to explain the reason
why this energiser is roughly twice the width of its counterparts – is its use
of a large-capacity toroidal transformer, mounted on a non-magnetic aluminium
chassis. It has both balance