Edifier Stax Spirit S5 reviewed: made for listening

A pair of headphones focused on audio quality as opposed to noise cancellation, the Edifier Stax Spirit S5 are a surprising entrant, delivering great sound, even if you miss out on ANC.

No two pairs of headphones are the same, but there sure are a lot out there. From the assortment of noise cancelling headphones to all the truly wireless options, it’s clear that everyone has choice, and some are better than others.

These days, many are built to compete with similar features: great sound, exquisite comfort, and the ability to isolate yourself from the world with noise cancellation. That’s the norm for headphones today, but it doesn’t have to mean every pair is doing it.

With Edifier’s latest, there’s actually no noise cancellation. You’ll still get a pair of wire-free headphones, but the focus isn’t on cancelling the world, but rather improving the sound you’re used to, thanks to a special driver not normally seen on wireless headphones.

Is the Edifier Stax Spirit S5 a pair of headphones a set you can fall in love with, despite their lack of noise cancellation?

Design and features

A little old school and a little new, the Edifier Stax Spirit S5 aren’t going to try to impress you with fancy looks. They’re headphones in one colour (or shade) — black — with a leather exterior and two sets of pats, made for people who want a pair of headphones for music and sound.

They’re fairly simple looking for headphones, but feature a driver design unlike most other pairs. These are definitely different.

While most pairs of headphones you’ll see rely on a diaphragm attached to a coil of wire — a dynamic driver — the Edifier Stax S5 uses a planar magnetic driver, a style that uses a flat diaphragm with a wire set up in a pattern across the whole thing stretched across, with magnets on either side to create a magnetic field.

It’s a more complex style of headphone, and because of the complexities in design and build, you only see planar magnetic headphones on more slightly higher priced headphones focused on the audiophile world.

That’s what Edifier is using on the Edifier S5, with a 2 micrometre film and a second-gen variation of Edifier’s “EqualMass” wiring which borrows from one of the main innovators in the planar magnetic space: Audeze. Its “Fluxor” magnetic structure is used here alongside Edifier’s own approaches, resulting in what could be the best of both worlds: a driver made using techniques by two companies.

Wired and wireless, the Spirit S5 headphones work over Bluetooth, USB-C, and a standard 3.5mm connection, arriving with two types of earphone pads, a little key to remove those earpads, and a case.

In-use

Designed as a pair of headphones, the controls are one area where Edifier hasn’t spent an enormous amount of time refining things. There’s an app and there are rubberised controls, and neither is particularly amazing.

There are actually two Edifier apps — you want “Edifier Connex” — but even there, the amount of controls is a little limited. You can change the profile of the headphones, switch on multipoint Bluetooth, and even change the type of ear pads you’re using, though as to whether that does much remains to be seen.

Then there are the controls, which are basically just rubber bits all concentrated on the right headphones: a volume rocker with a main button in the middle acting as power and pause, and a Bluetooth button just below it.

If anything, these could probably have been separated for one on each headphone can, largely because it’s all too easy to press the Bluetooth button instead of the main button, and even that pause and playback control gets stuck between accidentally raising and lowering the volume.

Controls are not the main focus of Edifier’s design team.

Performance

The audio is. And to give that a good test, we’re running things primarily over wireless with the Pickr Sound Test, several tracks you can test for yourself with your own headphones.

As usual, that starts with electronic and the sound of Tycho’s “Glider”, delivering a wide soundstage with lovely clear mids and lows. The bass is deep and the drop in the song almost able to be felt, echoed with Daft Punk’s “Contact”, which delivers a great sense of balance where the oomph is definitely there on the mids and lows.

It’s a great intro to these speaker-sounding cans, and one that continues into the the punchy sound of Carly Rae Jepsen, Ariana Grande, and Mark Ronson. Each offers a solid punch, with a nicely balanced sound where each part of each song stands out. Mids, lows, and highs, it all sounds good here.

Old school music from the likes of Marvin Gaye and David Bowie feels rounded and clear, while modern music offers more punch, with a comfortable drive that doesn’t hit too hard.

The Stax Spirit S5 are just a great sounding headphone, offering the sort of sound of a nice balanced speaker with plenty of detail to go around.

In terms of where you’ll listen to them, home and the office are probably your best bet, as isolation is hardly offered here.

Walking with them by the street, you’ll hear traffic as it drives by, and pretty much any other sound. Noise just gets in, with the only isolation being passive from the lamb leather pads, or the lighter weight pads you can switch them with.

Battery

While you won’t get active noise cancellation, you will get a stunning battery life, supporting as much as 80 hours of use. Yikes!

That’s a pair of wireless headphones that’s pretty much ready to go when you need them. Just grab them, turn them on, and they’re linked up.

And if you need to go wired, you can do that, too. Grab the USB-C cable and plug directly in, or opt for the 3.5mm cable if you still have a device that likes that.

Edifier didn’t quite state the USB-C audio maximums, but plugging them into a Mac revealed they’ll handle 24-bit 48kHz and the more useful 96kHz.

Granted, it’s not as high res as the 192kHz recordings we have sitting around, but 96kHz is a little more useful than the 48kHz we normally see on USB-C headphones. It’s that little more useful for audiophiles.

Value

The price is also excellent for what you’re getting.

Available in Australia for $699, Edifier is setting a solid benchmark for high-end audio at a price below what we’d expect to pay.

Granted, you have to sacrifice something in order to get a decent sound and excellent battery life for that $699 price, and for some, that might be too hard an ask.

It’s a relatively inexpensive pair of planar magnetic headphones, especially for given the technology isn’t always wireless, but not having noise cancellation means they’re also a touch pricey for what they are, as well.

What needs work?

The omission of active noise cancellation is a bit of a surprise, especially given it’s there on pretty much everything these days. The Edifier Stax Spirit S5 are the first headphones in a long time we’re reviewing without noise cancellation.

As for why there’s no ANC, Edifier told Pickr two reasons, citing technical limitations with planar drivers and an expectation that had noise cancellation been added, the structure and design of the headphones would have caused the ANC not to meet expectations.

“The decision was made to prioritise audio fidelity,” a spokesperson for Edifier told Pickr.

It’s difficult to argue with that logic; essentially, Edifier chose audio quality over needing noise cancellation. We get it, but it does limit the use of the headphones somewhat.

Use the S5 on an aircraft, and you’ll be fighting the background noise. Use it in public transport, and the same applies. But at home and in the office, the Edifier Stax S5 Spirit are perfectly fine.

Which may be one of the features we love.

What we love

Audiophile-grade headphones are typically made for where you’re going to be comfortable listening. It’s why they can afford to have a little crazier designs than the rest, because if you caught yourself wearing them in the street, you’d probably look at yourself weirdly.

The Stax S5 doesn’t adopt a crazy design at all, even if it is made for home and the office. You could walk around in these, and most wouldn’t give you a second glance.

But those who knew would smile with a sinister grin, jealous of the balance and detail these headphones afford.

The sound from these cans is excellent. Just beautifully clear and spacious. If you can live without noise cancellation, you can live inside Edifier’s Stax Spirit S5.

And when you decide to replace the pads, you can even look straight at the planar magnetic driver on the inside, or at least some of it. That alone makes for a neat situation.

Edifier Stax S5 vs the competition

Not everyone will be able to go without the noise quelling technologies, though, and for those people, the Stax Spirit S5 won’t make a lot of sense.

Competitors offering similarly high-end audio with active noise cancellation will likely be where they’ll want to be, which means the likes of Sony’s WH-1000XM6, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 headphones, or even if they feel like spending more money, the Focal Bathys. All of these are exceptional, and are all worth a look in by comparison, particularly if you’re after great sound and have to cancel out background noise.

One of the critical points is these planar magnetic drivers: they just don’t exist in a lot of headphones, so while the aforementioned headphones are all very, very good, none of them rely on planar magnets. They all sound exception, but may lack that audiophile sense of sound the Stax Spirit S5 pride themselves on.

The problem is if you want both planar magnetic drivers and active noise cancellation, you are largely out of luck. They just don’t seem to exist. At least not yet.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

It’s very much a case of “pick one important feature”, and discard the rest. With the Edifier Stax Spirit S5, you can pick excellent audiophile sound and a comfortable design, but you need to forget about the noise cancellation.

For some people, that’ll be a non-decision. Premium headphones come with ANC just as a matter of course these days because that’s expected. They’re not all created equal — the cancellation on the less expensive Sony XM5 beats the cancellation on the Apple AirPods Max — but the idea is that ANC is an obvious include. Active noise cancellation is there when you spend up big.

Except in one area: audiophile headphones. When it comes to audiophile-grade gear, ANC is almost never there.

So where does this leave the Edifier Stax Spirit S5?

Well, these aren’t your conventional pairs of headphones. They’re not really made for a flight across the world, or even necessarily walking around the city. They’re different, and that’s fine.

They’re made for listening. The Edifier Stax Spirit S5 are made for unencumbered listening, and where the sound is the thing that matters first and foremost. They are utterly lovely and proud of it.

It’s worth noting there’s nothing wrong with a pair of headphones made just for listening. The Sennheiser HD25 are great for that, as are the Rode NTH-100. Both of those are ideal for engineering and listening, and there are other pairs rated for just the act of listening. Headphones don’t necessarily need noise cancellation to be great for listening to music.

These headphones won’t be for everyone or every use. But at home, at work, or just generally listening as it is, if you want a lovely sound, the Stax Spirit S5 are worthy of your ears. Surprisingly recommended.