Planar Perfection at a Purse-Friendly Price

Audio brand, Edifier, is perhaps most well-known to you thanks to its excellent range of affordable hi-fi speakers. However, the brand also manufactures a wide selection of wired and wireless headphones in both over and in-ear form factors.

The latest addition to its repertoire is the $399 Stax Spirit S3; over-ear wireless headphones produced in conjunction with the Edifier-owned brand Stax, and with planar drivers from none other than premium audiophile brand, Audeze.

Want to know how these cans fare in use? Let’s dive in.

In the Box…

Inside the attractive premium packaging, nestled amidst protective foam, you’ll find:

• Stax Spirit S3 headphones
• 3.5mm headphone cable
• USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable
• Protective case
• Spare ear cup pads
• Ear cup pad removal tool
• Device literature

All you need to do now is add the source and the music, and you’ll be bopping away in mere seconds.

Form Factor

As mentioned, the Stax Spirit S3 headphones are an over-ear design. They come in black with gold-colored accents and are predominantly plastic, save for the carbon fiber plates on the outside of each ear cup and metal headband extenders hidden inside the headband itself. The headband and the ear cups have memory foam pads covered in PU leather (which has a very soft hand feel).

Some might think the plastic build could hamper the experience and cheapen the feel of the Stax Spirit 3. However, one must remember that you’ve got a magnetic array in each ear cup, which will drastically increase the weight. Therefore, at a mere 329 grams (11.6oz), you’ll feel the weight difference compared to other planar headphones on the market.

Taking a tour around these cans, the left ear cup houses the Type-C USB port for charging and the small LED for pairing and power indication. As mentioned, a carbon fiber plate covers the ear cup’s outer face, with a gold Edifier logo inlay. On top of the ear cup is an additional mic covered with a perforated grille to aid when taking and making calls wearing the headphones.

The right ear cup carries the microphone for taking calls, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and the control buttons. The controls feature + and – buttons for increasing or decreasing volume, while a central multifunction button deals with power, pairing, and some call functions.

Both ear cups are attached to the headband by a pivoting gimbal, which allows movement around the vertical and horizontal axis, meaning that they’ll adjust to fit comfortably when you put them on your head. The headband extends approximately an inch at full extension on both sides.

The headphones fold away neatly to fit inside the black clamshell case, which is rigid enough to give me confidence in carrying the headphones around in my backpack without damaging them. The case has a pocket inside to keep your spare ear pads, the spudger tool, and your headphone cable for wired connections.

Sonorous Specs

Moving onto the Stax Spirit S3 specifications (wow, that’s a mouthful), you’ve got a set of headphones with plenty of gumption on paper.

As mentioned, these headphones pack Audeze’s awesome planar magnetic technology, bringing some 87 x 70 mm drivers to the table. I admit to being pleasantly surprised by this Audeze collab when I first heard about the Stax Spirit S3, making me even more eager to check them out. I’m a massive fan of Audeze’s premium wares, with their flagship LCD-5 being a recent review, so to discover the same tech in headphones at 1/10th of the price piqued my interest.

To briefly explain planar magnetic drivers in straightforward terms, you have a metal membrane suspended between two high-powered magnet arrays in each ear cup. This means the driver’s movement is incredibly accurate and less prone to warping in areas thanks to the magnet arrays on either side. Once the headphone has processed the signal, this produces a highly detailed, accurately represented sound.

In effect, it screams quality.

I would also like to point out that planar magnetic technology is somewhat of a rarity in the wireless headphone space. HIFIMAN does the Ananda-BT wireless cans, which house similar driver tech, but those are $799 (although granted, they are not predominantly plastic in construction like the S3).

In terms of impedance, we’re looking at 24 ohms, making them a relatively easy set of headphones to drive, and frequency response sits between 20-40 kHz. These are the only sound-related specs Edifier has published, so we don’t know precisely what sampling rate and bit depth these headphones support. However, the Hi Res Audio certification means they must support at least 96 kHz and 24 bit sound.

The headphones also carry the Stax moniker, which may seem confusing to those familiar with the Stax brand. For the uninitiated, Stax (owned by Edifier since 2012) is a brand that specializes in electrostatic headphones, not planar magnetic. The only reference to Stax I could find was the curious EQ preset on the Edifier Connect app, presumably an attempt to make your planar magnetic headphones sound more like electrostatics.

For connectivity, Stax Spirit S3 uses the BluetoothV5.2 codec, which gives you a published range of 10m, or a wired connection. Note that the wired connection still requires the headphones to be switched on. They don’t work passively at all, always requiring wired or wireless power.

Other supported codecs are Qualcomm aptX Adaptive, Qualcomm aptX HD, Qualcomm aptX, and SBC. Plus, if you have a compatible device (I don’t boo hoo), you can use the S3’s Snapdragon Sound integration, presumably making these headphones sound even better.

Battery-wise, the S3 boasts a 1500 mAh capacity tank. This leads to a battery life of—get this—80 hours. Yes, that is an eight and a zero. More on that later.

One spec notable by its absence is ANC. These headphones don’t have ANC, meaning external sound has the potential to bleed into whatever you’re listening to. Read on to determine whether that is the case in the performance section. They also don’t have an IP rating, so don’t get them wet…

OK, so we’ve got the specs out of the way, but what about in practical terms? Let’s look at operation.

A Breeze to Control

The Stax Spirit S3 headphones are very easy to control. This is thanks partly to the operational buttons on the right ear cup. You can do everything you need with these toggles, so you don’t need to whip your source device out if you want to increase the volume, for instance. Plus, they’re physical buttons, so they’re less prone to accidental activation than capacitive controls.

The Edifier Connect app (available via Google Play and Apple App Store) could also do with a little more functionality. My main gripe is that there are only three EQ presets (Classic, Hi-Fi, and Stax) and no option to customize the EQ. You can get around this by using a player that allows you to tinker with the EQ, but it feels like a bit of an oversight that this function isn’t available in the Edifier app. I generally only used Classic EQ, as I didn’t like the resultant sound from the other two.

However, connecting to headphones and other Edifier devices, using the Edifier Connect app, is a cinch. Then, when a device is connected and in use, the app will automatically recognize such and go straight to that device’s various settings, which is a nice touch. You can use the app’s home page to view battery percentage and switch between sound settings for the PU leather and the mesh “Ice Cool” ear pads.

The app also has a notification menu widget in your notifications dropdown on Android (I can’t speak for where you’ll find it on iOS). This allows you to control the EQ settings, choosing from the three presets. Given I wasn’t constantly switching between EQ settings, I admittedly found this to be more of an annoyance than anything.

Superb Sound Performance on a Budget

I have to say, I was (again) pleasantly surprised when I came to put the Stax Spirit S3 on my head and play sound into my ears. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, given the planar magnetic tech delivering the sound. But I was, nonetheless.

Initial impressions left me feeling that sub-bass was a little shy, although the upper bass range carried some weight. Mids seemed prominent, again more toward the upper midrange, and as a result, lower treble also seemed a little forward. I also noticed some sibilance on the treble due.

However, continuous use has led to a more balanced bass sound, with sub-bass coming through in whomping great waves during a playthrough of Run the Jewels’ 2022 album, RTJ4 (which I played via Tidal’s Master service). The sibilance on the treble also phased out, and I’m fairly sensitive to high-pitched sound, so this was a blessing.

The response is great. I was tapping my feet to Venetian Snares’ 2003 album, Chocolate Wheelchair. I haven’t listened to this album for a while. The genre is breakcore, so a LOT is happening in the mix. However, I don’t think I have ever heard this album sound so good through a pair of headphones, thanks to the super tight response those drivers afford. It was all super tight, despite the music’s hyper-frenetic nature.

Sound, in general, is crisp and detailed, as we might expect with planar magnetics. However, I find the soundstage is a little narrow. This isn’t the end of the world, though, and the fact you’re getting great headphone technology at a relatively low price certainly allows for some slight imperfections. Overall, the S3 headphones are a joy to listen to.

Battery life is, as suggested earlier, tremendous. I got around 75 hours of use out of them before the battery started complaining. This was pushing full volume and using a wireless connection only. When wired, I noted that the battery depleted at a slower rate.

Thanks to Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, the range is excellent. Although I suspect every room in my house is lined with lead, I could walk away from my source device (in this test case, my smartphone) in my office, upstairs at the back of the house, and enjoy uninterrupted sound downstairs at the front of the house. This is no mean feat considering my Wi-Fi struggles to reach this far with some devices.

On to the minor elephant in the room: no ANC. Well, if I’m going to be completely honest, I didn’t feel I needed it. Perhaps my hearing has just deteriorated after years of sonic abuse, but with the volume turned up, I felt the headphones did enough to passively drown out external sound, and the closed-back design helps here, too. Using them outside, I could not hear cars passing me in the street, for example. I agree it might be a deal breaker for some, though.

I’d also like to note the lack of wear or use detection. This would be a delightful addition to the headphones; it would be handy to take them off and for music to stop playing, or to fold them up and they switch off entirely. Not necessarily something that would put me off buying them, though, again citing the price and the excellent sound quality afforded by the Audeze drivers.

Overall, I think these are an excellent set of headphones, given the price point. If you’re looking to enter the audiophile realm for the first time, but you have a limited budget, then the Edifier Stax Spirit S3 represents a fantastic starting point.

Would I Recommend the Edifier Stax Spirit S3 Headphones?

Damn right, I would. At this price point, you’re getting an almost unrivaled product. The collaboration with Audeze is a resounding success, and these cans produce sound with fantastic clarity and shining detail, and listening to music through them is a beautiful experience.

Anyone looking to start their audiophile journey won’t go wrong discovering the delightful intricacies of planar magnetic sound with the Stax Spirit S3.