Edifier Stax Spirit S3 headset review: Bringing back the legend?

A couple of lines of history

Stax - a name not everyone knows, but once asked the audio players, it will definitely be 'smooth'. They are smooth not because their products are used by many people, quite the opposite!

Stax's pairs of headphones are priced quite high, at least tens of millions, as expensive as the threshold of 105 million dong like its flagship product, the SR-009S pair. This company seems to have become a 'legend', with a long history of development (since 1938) and a collection of high-end products that everyone wants to experience once.

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The market changes, those who want convenience have switched to wireless In-ear headphones, and those who have more conditions and want the best sound quality gradually switch to playing speakers. Sound brands that change themselves in time like Sennheiser, Sony have the strength to stay, and names that are slow to adapt disappear or are acquired.

In 2012, Stax was acquired by another audio company, Edifier. Although it will continue to launch traditional wired products, sooner or later Stax under Edifier will also experiment with the wireless headset market.

The Stax Brand Returns In The Modern World

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Fast-forward to 10 years and this has become a reality with the Edifier S3 pair. Although launched under the Edifier brand (usually producing low- and mid-range headphones), the S3 is a product in the high-end segment aiming for high sound quality, and is nicknamed 'Stax Spirit'. - carries the soul of Stax.

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In the box, the company advertises transmission technologies including Hi-res and Snapdragon Sound. The Snapdragon Sound standard allows 24-bit 96kHz music transmission over Bluetooth thanks to CODEC aptX HD.

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The words 'Stax Spirit' are used by the company as a decoration for the box!

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Opening the product box, we see a zipper box made of hard plastic and 2 cloth bags.

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Cloth bag for 2 replacement earpads. This type of ear cushion called 'Ice Feeling' is made of a band that is more breathable than leather, used in hot seasons to wick away perspiration.

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The kit in the box includes a Type-C charging cord, a 3.5mm music cord, a 6.3mm adapter and a plastic piece to remove the ear cushions, replacing it with the 'Ice Feeling' type mentioned above.

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The external design of the pair of headphones can be described in a single word as 'serious'. The entire body of the ear is made of matte black plastic, with the outer part of the ear cup having a crisscrossed carbon pattern and the yellow Stax Spirit line-specific logo.

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The frame can be folded to help us store the headset in the zippered case.

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The ear cushions are thickened plus the cavity inside the ear is also quite deep, so wearing it on our ears does not touch the components inside.

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In the right cup are 3 control buttons including the power button to receive calls, play / stop music and 2 buttons to adjust the volume and switch songs when pressed; along with a 3.5mm jack.

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The right side has a Type-C charging port. In a full charge Edifier S3 can be used for 80 hours, along with a quick charge of 10 minutes to continue using for 11 hours. Edifier is still famous for products with very long service life, Edifier S3 has many new transmission technologies but still has no negative impact.

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However, one of the reasons for the headphones to have such a long time of use is because they do not have to 'burden' the modern but very energy-consuming feature of active noise cancellation ANC. Headphones will depend entirely on the passive noise cancellation of the ear cushions, not using software to suppress noise like products like Sony WH-1000XM5 or Apple AirPods Max.

Sound quality worthy of the name?

Before talking about the sound, we will download the smartphone headset control software for Edifier S3 called Edifier Connect. There are not many auxiliary features, so most of the things we can adjust on the software for Edifier S3 include audio customizations: adjust the sound depending on the type of accompaniment used, between 3 music modes are ' Classic', 'Hi-fi' and 'Stax', game modes to reduce latency and adjust the function of physical buttons.

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You can place a quick control bar on the toolbar or widget outside the home screen to adjust the most frequently accessed functions as well as continuously update the battery life to proactively charge when it's about to run out.

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The point that makes products from Stax so expensive lies in the fact that the pair of this company's headphones use an electrostatic diaphragm (Electrostatic) with a faster response speed than the common Dynamic type, thereby reproducing the sound. bar more precisely. But this type of diaphragm requires a large voltage, which entails the use of dedicated Amp sets, so it is not suitable for wireless headphones.

Edifier therefore moved to another high-end type of diaphragm that is also popular today, a planar magnetic diaphragm - Planar. The advertising agency that is used inside the S3 is a brand new type called EqualMass developed with the famous brand of flat magnetic diaphragm, Audeze.

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Talking a bit about technology, but in the end, how do these headphones sound? Edifier S3 is fine-tuned in a 'traditional' direction, like previous pairs of wired headphones often pursue - ie creating a clean sound background, each sound band does not interfere with each other and focuses heavily on authenticity. and detail rather than vibrancy.

If you are listening to pairs of V-shape, bass-head headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM4, WH-1000XM5, you will feel the sound quality of these headphones is a bit 'strange', because the bass part of the Edifier S3 does not have much on quantity. Instead, this range creates a switch and very fast response speed - a characteristic advantage of the flat magnetic diaphragm in this pair of headphones.

This type of bass certainly will not help Edifier S3 stand out from other pairs of headphones in the 'shaky' music genre such as Dance, Trap, Hip-Hop, but will be the strength in songs with 'real' drums. like Let's Start From Here by Joanna Wang. The drum beats are played in the right position, creating good bounce and breaking at the right time to give the "ground" to the more important part, the singer's voice.

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What Edifier wants to direct the listener's attention to is the mid and high range. The singer's voice through the performance of Edifier S3 is a bit natural, without adding thickness or color. Like bass, this type of mid-tone tuning will not be able to impress at first listen, it takes some time to contemplate to see its beauty: realism, high detail.

The high-mid range and the treble range are also pushed up a bit higher than usual, also have their own advantages and disadvantages. In terms of advantages, this segment contains many string instruments such as violin and guitar, so they are displayed prominently, songs like Ottmar Liebert's Carousel played through Edifier S3 are really impressive. In contrast, headphones may experience slight glare (sibilance) for some songs, of course not to the point of discomfort but also something worth paying attention to.

The point I feel most impressed with the Edifier S3 is not in each sound range, but in the way this pair of headphones shows the soundstage and arranges the components of the song. Thanks to a spacious soundstage (with a pair of closed-back headphones) and a clean background, the S3 has separate spaces for drums, instruments, and vocalists so they don't overlap, creating clarity. .

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In particular, the sound modes that can be adjusted on the Edifier S3's smartphone, the default selected mode is 'Hi-fi' and in my opinion is also the most optimal mode. 'Classic' brings the sound quality closer to the listener to create closeness, thus reducing the width of the sound (soundstage).

The 'Stax' mode is made to simulate the sound pattern of the Japanese audio company's headphones, which is somewhat thin and has a soundstage that is more vertical than horizontal. This type of sound is also worth trying, but still not as optimal as 'Hi-fi'.

Does traditional sound still have a place in today's time?

Perhaps in short and easy to understand, Edifier Stax Spirit S3 is a pair of headphones that are tuned in the 'traditional' direction next to modern features such as Bluetooth, aptX HD, Hi-res. This type of sound goes against the current general trend of V-shape, more bass to make music more 'shabby' than Sennheiser, Sony, Apple and Samsung, what people still call 'sound quality' market'.

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I still believe that the market still has a place for pairs of headphones like Edifier S3, when there is no shortage of you guys looking for a clean, balanced sound quality but are too 'bored' with having to set-up Amp/ DAC messed up. The price of 9 million VND is not cheap, but it is not high for the sound reproduction ability that it brings.

The disadvantage of the Edifier Stax Spirit S3 is certainly still the fact that it does not have active noise cancellation, which is still a strength of a large technology manufacturer compared to an audio company like Edifier. This will be a pair of headphones used to enjoy music in one place rather than for those of you who often have to 'shift'.

Kareem Winters

Update 15 June 2022