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Editor's Note: This article was nearly complete when I read of Steve Jobs's death last night. I think the conclusions herein are telling of his passion for making "insanely great" products ... right down to the last detail. Rest in peace, Steve.

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Guttenberg wrote an article on his Audiophiliac blog entitled, "The Worst-Sounding Audio Product." In it he "aimed [his] sights on the worst sounding product regularly used by millions of people:" the stock Apple iPod ear-bud headphones. There may be some…

I'm making ready to head off to RMAF, but I certainly didn't want to shirk my duties measuring Stax headphones, and getting them back to their rightful owners.

Unfortunately, I just did a quick listen on each and didn't have time for listening tests, so other than a couple of notes here and there, I'll let the measurements speak for themselves.

We'll start with the round ear-piece; the rectangular ear-piece Stax will be on the next page.

Stax SR-009 New Out of Box (# SZ9-1278)
This is a brand new headphone of…

All of these were VERY critical to position and seal properly.

Stax SR-507 (# SE1-1049)

Stax SR-404 Limited Edition (# SSL-0670)

Stax SR-404 (# S-2742)

Stax SR-003 (# SA-1993)
I've always thought these Stax in-…

Soul by Ludacris SL150 ($199)
Smack dab in the middle of Soul's line-up between the full-size, noise cancelling SL300, and the on-ear SL100, is the SL150. This is a fairly large headphone, but I have a hard time considering it a circumaural (around the ear) headphone as the ear pads are fairly small for its size, and they do rest on your ears.

Built almost entirely out of various plastic materials, the build quality appears to be fairly good. The SL150 is available in gloss white or black on the outside with logo badges on…

Raw frequency response shows these headphones as fairly positionally sensitive with widely varying low frequency response as the headphones are moved to different positions for the various measurements. On my head, however, I found the seal relatively easy to achieve and I think actual performance heard will be somewhat better than that measured. From 500Hz and up, compensated frequency response shows a strong warm tilt, but a very even response otherwise. I think this indicated the fairly coherent, though…

Soul by Ludacris SL100 ($149)
The SL100 is a sealed, on-ear headphone. Generally, the advantage of a headphone of this type is its small, convenient size. The SL100 is one of the larger headphones of this type and I wonder if that's really a good idea. It seems to me Ludacris would have been better off producing a significantly smaller headphone to differentiate it more strongly from its only slightly larger big brother, the SL150 --- which I found quite satisfying.

The SL100 is gloss black on the outside with either a gloss…

Raw frequency response measurements (lower traces) indicate some troubles with a good seal, but for a headphone this size I would say these provide a better than average seal on the ear.

Compensated frequency response (upper traces) shows pretty good response from 500Hz and lower, with only moderate roll-off in the bass. This is pretty good bass extension for a headphone of this size. Coupled with the good seal and lack of low frequency distortion seen in the THD plots, these actually measure quite…

House of Marley Exodus ($149)
The unbelievable number of new headphone brands on the market is the bane of my existence. There are just too many and there is just no way I can listen to them all. But there is something great about having all these new makers: they all want to differentiate themselves from each other, and as a consequence we get to see all sorts of cool ideas about what a headphone is.

The House of Marley Exodus is an intriguing headphone with a very different vibe, indeed. It is a strong and well…

Sound Quality
Wow! These were a huge surprise. The sound quality is shockingly good. I'd say right up with best of $150 sealed on-ear headphones --- especially when viewed from the perspective of the intended audience. I auditioned them comparing with the V-Moda V-80, Skullcandy Roc Nation Aviators, Quincy Jones Q460, and Beats Solo. To my ears they fairly easily bested all but the V-Moda, and there it was surprisingly close.

The bass is well extended, punchy and powerful, but not overly exaggerated. It does have a little bloom in the mid-bass, but not to the point of being…

AKG Quincy Jones Q460 (~$129 Street)
Unlike the brand-spanking new headphones produced for their celebrated endorsers by the likes of Skullcandy (Jay-Z, Mix-Master Mike), Signeo (Ludacris), and Monster (Dr. Dre), AKG chose a path of less resistance and simply rebadged some of its existing headphones for Quincy Jones. The Q701 was previously the highly regarded K701 (a good choice, I thought), the AKG K340 in-ear became the Q350 (meh), and the K450 became the Q460. Ugh, never did like that headphone. I thought there was a much better…