STAX DMA-X2. At last, an owner speaks candidly – Part 1 of 3

From our archives

I received this today from Mr. Thomas Lerche. Am I envious? Damn right I am. Anyway, this is part 1 of a 2-part story.

Dear Howard:

You are the first I want to tell, that I finally got a hold on a pair of the Stax DMA-X2.

I have been looking for more than 15 years for these amazing amps. although on and off during this period.

First of all I hope you remember who I am. I am the crazy Dane, that bought a SRS-4040 set from you around April/May this year.

I am very pleased with them, but I never seemed to be able to forget the listening experience I had with the wonderful DMA-X2, which I heard in a Hi-Fi chain called Denmarks Hi-Fi Club(Now simply called Hi-Fi-Klubben in all of Scandinavia).

I want to tell you and everybody reading at Simply Stax' webpage, about this experience.

I was at the Denmarks Hi-Fi Club one day in early 1990's.

I went up on the first floor and this is where I first saw them. In their physical appearance alone they were some of the most desirable amps. I had ever laid my eyes upon and so I think I fell in love with them, even before I listened to them(which probably makes for a biased experience. Hmmm!!! – although the listening experience is what I remember the most.

First the speakers I even remember today, were the English made mounted Epos ES-14 which were priced at 3500 Danish Kroner each which you roughly have to divide by 10 to get the amount in pounds and so therefore about 350 pounds each.

These were as I said small mounted speakers of a pretty good quality. First these speakers were hooked up to a couple of mono amps. from Denon called POA 6600 or 6600A (I am not sure). Everything sounded ok, but for me at least very messy and porridge-like, with everything just seemingly put into a great huge pot and then stirred around, if you catch my drift.

There was no particular bass and you could not differentiate at all between the different instruments and vocals.

Then they switched to the Stax and OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOOD!!!

I have never heard anything that divine. The very first thing you noticed, were how the soundstage simply opened up and expanded several meters in each direction. The next thing you noticed was the curtain that was lifted and how you could look inside the music stage.

The next thing you noticed was how every instrument and vocal was like nailed to the floor and were completely crystal clear.

It is to this day, still the biggest Hi-Fi experience, I have ever had and since then I have been an amplifier man and not a speaker man.

These good quality English speakers, sounded like a million dollars with the DMA-X2 and since then I have been convinced, that people, with their dreams of having huge loudspeakers and their willingness to spend huge amounts on speakers and then just a couple of hundred pounds, to stay in the English money, on an amplifier are hugely mistaken, if they think, that they have served their hi-fi justice.

Only with a good or even an outstanding amplifier, can you serve the rest of your gear justice.

With the DMA-X2, I can make inexpensive loudspeakers at maybe say £300, earn their very best and come to live again and make them sound much better than any £600 amplifier (to be truthful I say £ 600 pounds of amp. to two speakers of each £300!!!) can make a couple of speakers sound, at the same cost of the DMA-X2.

Later I will tell you how I found these amps.

Sincerely

Thomas Lerche.

thomaslerche@hotmail.com

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