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Author Topic: STAX Defects  (Read 4989 times)

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shipsupt

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STAX Defects
« on: July 12, 2013, 08:05:54 PM »
These shipping issues never cease to get me fired up! 

As long as we OT while we wait for the LL2 to land...  Hopefully Anax won't b_tch slap me.

I sent my 009's back to PriceJapan so that they could send them to STAX for warranty repair of a channel imbalance.  I sent them on 1 July.  I carefully watched the on-line tracking and eventually they stopped at a "delivery depot" on 4 July.  I "patiently" waited until today to contact them. 

The kind woman on the phone told me that they were in a delivery depot in CHINA!   :-0  I calmly explained to her that Tokyo is in Japan, and that it is very different place and they were not very close to each other.  She said she'd need to put me through to an international specialist.  I guess that person would know where Japan was? 

Two phone calls later, two specialist later and they confirmed that they were actually not in China and in fact had been delivered some 5 days ago.  Apparently their tracking software is a little "slow" to update sometimes.   *:p

I have to admit I was getting a little worried that my 009's were in the wind.  Interesting not that they did in fact make a stop in China on the way to Japan, some sort of shipping hub for them.



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AnakChan

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2013, 03:37:12 PM »
I sent my friend's 009 back for a channel imbalance and it took Stax about a month to replace the drivers. The funny thing is that the first time he sent it back (in Feb), Stax didn't find any problems. Admittedly the channel imbalance wasn't as bad then however a clear description of the issue was needed to be stressed before they they paid special attention.

The issue would crop up about after 20 mins of use and I think Stax may have had just done a quick 5 minute test back in Feb and signed it off as ok.
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Marvey

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2013, 04:52:01 PM »
Someone needs to slap Grandpa STAX and publicly shame him to Arnaud's horror. It's funny how the mystique and brand-worship behind STAX allows them to get away with crap that other headphone companies would never be able to get away with for $2600/$5000 headphones. (My own SR009 failed after I sold them. It was a pain-in-the-ass for the guy to get them serviced by Yamas/STAX.)

Based on anecdotal evidence, the rates of failure or defect seem even greater for STAX than Audeze. And the repair costs horrendous: I was quoted > $2000 out-the-door cost for a SR007mk2 driver repair. And STAX can certainly learn something from Audeze's first class service - like a one day turnaround. STAX has "go fuck yourself" service.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2013, 05:06:53 PM by purrin »
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SoupRKnowva

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2013, 08:30:52 PM »
Quote from: purrin on July 13, 2013, 04:52:01 PM
Someone needs to slap Grandpa STAX and publicly shame him to Arnaud's horror. It's funny how the mystique and brand-worship behind STAX allows them to get away with crap that other headphone companies would never be able to get away with for $2600/$5000 headphones. (My own SR009 failed after I sold them. It was a pain-in-the-ass for the guy to get them serviced by Yamas/STAX.)

Based on anecdotal evidence, the rates of failure or defect seem even greater for STAX than Audeze. And the repair costs horrendous: I was quoted > $2000 out-the-door cost for a SR007mk2 driver repair. And STAX can certainly learn something from Audeze's first class service - like a one day turnaround. STAX has "go fuck yourself" service.

Is the failure rate really that high? I thought that people were only having problems with them back in the day when they were having those imbalance issues. I only ask cause I'm looking at ordering a pair from Price Japan in the next couple weeks. I thought the issues were behind us.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2013, 08:36:02 PM by SoupRKnowva »
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shipsupt

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2013, 09:23:51 PM »
Apparently not.  I know that they guy who got the next in line serial number to mine is sending his back to.  I hadn't heard about any issues in a while, so not sure how often this is happening.

What I can say is that PriceJapan is doing an awesome job with the warranty, so other than a longer (very long right now) wait I wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of the huge savings vs. US prices if you are considering the 009.
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Elysian

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2013, 09:56:45 PM »
Quote from: purrin on July 13, 2013, 04:52:01 PM
Someone needs to slap Grandpa STAX and publicly shame him to Arnaud's horror. It's funny how the mystique and brand-worship behind STAX allows them to get away with crap that other headphone companies would never be able to get away with for $2600/$5000 headphones. (My own SR009 failed after I sold them. It was a pain-in-the-ass for the guy to get them serviced by Yamas/STAX.)

Based on anecdotal evidence, the rates of failure or defect seem even greater for STAX than Audeze. And the repair costs horrendous: I was quoted > $2000 out-the-door cost for a SR007mk2 driver repair. And STAX can certainly learn something from Audeze's first class service - like a one day turnaround. STAX has "go fuck yourself" service.

I was wondering why Stax doesn't get called out for this more often.  We're long past the launch of the 009 and many people seem to think it's okay that even brand new 009s are still exhibiting the same problems at release.

I'm looking for something 'new' to listen to (shortlist is 009, K1000, LCD3, etc.) and these continued issues with new production 009s are pretty unbelievable, much less the lack of public criticism.  It seems like Audeze and Hifiman are held to higher standards.  I can only imagine what people would say if Sennheiser had these driver failure issues.
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grokit

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2013, 11:43:16 PM »
Yamas treated me okay for an unrelated issue, and my 2nd-hand 009's have never had any driver issues (knocks on wood).

As far as this LL2 shipment goes, Fedex says that they gave it to the post office and (my) post office says that they haven't seen it.

Everyone's been notified so we'll see what happens. As much as I want to hear this amp, what I am rooting for at this point is a substantial financial penalty for Fedex.

 :boom:
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n3rdling

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2013, 12:06:47 AM »
Quote from: Elysian on July 13, 2013, 09:56:45 PM
Quote from: purrin on July 13, 2013, 04:52:01 PM
Someone needs to slap Grandpa STAX and publicly shame him to Arnaud's horror. It's funny how the mystique and brand-worship behind STAX allows them to get away with crap that other headphone companies would never be able to get away with for $2600/$5000 headphones. (My own SR009 failed after I sold them. It was a pain-in-the-ass for the guy to get them serviced by Yamas/STAX.)

Based on anecdotal evidence, the rates of failure or defect seem even greater for STAX than Audeze. And the repair costs horrendous: I was quoted > $2000 out-the-door cost for a SR007mk2 driver repair. And STAX can certainly learn something from Audeze's first class service - like a one day turnaround. STAX has "go fuck yourself" service.

I was wondering why Stax doesn't get called out for this more often.  We're long past the launch of the 009 and many people seem to think it's okay that even brand new 009s are still exhibiting the same problems at release.

I'm looking for something 'new' to listen to (shortlist is 009, K1000, LCD3, etc.) and these continued issues with new production 009s are pretty unbelievable, much less the lack of public criticism.  It seems like Audeze and Hifiman are held to higher standards.  I can only imagine what people would say if Sennheiser had these driver failure issues.

I think the big difference is that Stax doesn't have a presence on HF.  People will complain there about Audeze, etc because those companies are active on HF and use HF as their main advertizing resource.  Somebody could complain about Stax and it wouldn't change anything because Stax doesn't seem to be that concerned with HF.

Regarding the 009s, it seems like the issues are coming from certain batches.  IIRC, the earliest 009s had issues and Stax stopped selling them for a while but the next batch (the US group buy was part of this batch) didn't have many issues at all. 
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hiyu64

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2013, 01:43:59 AM »
Quote from: purrin on July 13, 2013, 04:52:01 PM
Someone needs to slap Grandpa STAX and publicly shame him to Arnaud's horror. It's funny how the mystique and brand-worship behind STAX allows them to get away with crap that other headphone companies would never be able to get away with for $2600/$5000 headphones. (My own SR009 failed after I sold them. It was a pain-in-the-ass for the guy to get them serviced by Yamas/STAX.)

Based on anecdotal evidence, the rates of failure or defect seem even greater for STAX than Audeze. And the repair costs horrendous: I was quoted > $2000 out-the-door cost for a SR007mk2 driver repair. And STAX can certainly learn something from Audeze's first class service - like a one day turnaround. STAX has "go fuck yourself" service.

I agree with you on Audeze's service.  I bought my LCD2.2s new from an authorized dealer and the rosewood cracked within 1 month.  I used it fairly frequently but still babied it.  When it cracked, I contacted Audeze and got an RMA number and sent my pair in.  Took about 1 - 2 days after my pair arrived for them to have fixed it and shipped it.  Very fast turn around time considering the volume of headphones Audeze sells with the ortho resurgence.  I still don't agree with how heavy the damn phones are, their clamp force, and how they engineered their fragile wood hinges.  They should have added some kind of metal piece to further stablize the huge holes drilled for the hinges.  Nevertheless, their customer service is top notch.     

Also, the number one reason I'm not grabbing Tari's 007Mk1s if I had the money is that I've heard a number of people talk about driver failures and how hard it was to get STAX to repair them.  I mean I can understand not having the man power to give a fast turn around since the STAX factory is actually very small and employs a very small amount of workers, but to have problems even for STAX to accept to repair a product? come on now.  Also, I remember reading about STAX getting bought out by some giant chinese company.  Theoretically, they should have more than enough man power now, but then you think Chinese company....awww fuck.  It would be pretty funny to get your repaired 007s or 009s back and they break within a week...o wait it's not funny
« Last Edit: July 14, 2013, 01:58:55 AM by hiyu64 »
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shipsupt

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Re: STAX Defects
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2013, 09:11:29 AM »
007's are pretty reliable.  Apples and oranges to compare to the 009 failures.

Just because a Chinese company has an interest in a Japanese company doesn't mean that they are going to change the business model and start providing manpower or moving production locations.  That's exactly the kind of speculation that has created a lot of concern. 

I think you misunderstood, it's not that they won't accept a product for repair, it's about supporting a warranty for a product that has been sold to someone else. 

There is no doubt that STAX is not meeting the US consumers expectations, so let the free market sort it out.
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