Are there speakers after Stax?

Wmcmanus, does the Audiovalve RKV have speaker terminals or just the jacks on the front? I tried the AKG K1000s recently and am smitten (and when I listened to them, I thought they were electrostats too) and am now trying to figure out how to swing it...

Jecklin also makes a similar-looking headphone called "Ergo", the high-end model of which is quite good (still has the same looks though). Like the AKGs, they don't actually touch your ears, but the experience is kind of creepy as the headphones are so large and heavy, and the surface area of the point where they rest on your head so small, that when you tip or turn your head, they are easily displaced.

Not Jurk, Plato, but Jörg and yes, the Jecklin floats are good es headphones indeed, but they cannot touch the Stax. As far as the general question is concerend, I think Duke has said it all. When I stumbled on this thread just now, I also thought that the best solution would be a pair of Soundlabs or the old Quad 63. Cheers,

T_bone, that's a good question, and unfortunately the answer is no. The RKV has 2 headphone jacks on the front and 2 sets of RCA inputs on the back, but no speaker terminals.

The stock cable for the K-1000's is terminated with a male 4 pin XLR connector in case you want to plug in directly to a balanced amp. There is also an extension cable that comes with the K-1000 package that has a female 4 pin XLR on one end and 4 bare wires on the other end for direct hook ups to speaker terminals. This is obviously not the best option, plus the stock AKG extension cable is a real cheapo (relative to the marvelous headphones). This is why most people will either modify or replace the stock cables.

There is a DIY guy over at head-fi who has made a very nice and afforadable cable for a couple of us. It's better looking, better performing and lower priced than the Equinox replacement cables, IMO. Check this thread out:

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31464&highlight=k1000

BTW, you can also buy an Audio Valve "Impedanzer" to go with the RKV, which does have speaker terminals, but the Impadanzer would not be used for low impdedance headphones such as the K-1000's, so that doesn't really help either. The Impedanzer is a great addition to the RKV because it allows you to use the amp to match impedence levels of any set of headphones (it does wonders for the Sennheiser, Grado, and Audio Technica lines).

Of course all of this drives up the cost of your K-1000 setup. Here is a link to Meier Audio's website since they sell both the RKV and the K-1000's. Dr. Jan Meier is a great guy to deal with if you're thinking about putting together a multiple item order.

http://home.t-online.de/home/meier-audio/

The true response is no,not really.

I agree with Plato. Many times when listening to audio stuff, I've thought the designer was a jerk. Especially over priced tweaks.