Stax and Mac?

[daveathall]

Good evening gentlemen and ladies my name is Dave, first post and also what will probably be a rather silly question, but here goes.
 
About 10 or 12 years ago I had a very decent Hi Fi system, I purchased a Stax earphone system (It was the entry level, cant remember the designation, consisted of earphones and black power amp) was absolutely blown away with the quality, circumstances (not financial) meant that I sold my Hi Fi system and earphones.
 
I now live in a very small but wonderful nearly 300 year old cottage in the north of England, I absolutely love it, only 4 rooms, 2 up 2 down, but too small for a Hi Fi system, I still love music and have a Marantz DB 502 CD receiver in the bedroom and a sonos sound system that takes the music into my living room via the 1 box S5 speaker system, and it works very well.
 
Here is the rub, I still yearn for that hi end sound that I can recall from years ago with my system and earphones from Stax, the S5 speaker system works very well in the living room, but I want more, I want to have another Stax earphone system, but cant work out if I would be able to use it in conjunction with my Mac Book Pro and extensive iTunes lossless library, is there any way I can achieve this please?
 
If I cant achieve it this way I am thinking of a Musical Fidelity M1 headphone USB compatable amp with Sennheiser HD650 headphones, but would prefer Stax.

 

[n3rdling]

There's no reason you can't.  You probably had one of the Stax Lambda headphones, the new variations of those are the Stax 307/407/507.  There are also plenty of vintage Stax headphones that go up for sale here and on ebay/audiogon.  All you need is a DAC and electrostatic amp.  You can often get the Stax headphone/amp as a package.

 

[daveathall]

Thank you, I was looking at buying new, a Stax system that comes with the amp, my worry is to how I could get a USB connection to the Mac.

 

[El_Doug]

that depends on your budget  
 
Quote:

Thank you, I was looking at buying new, a Stax system that comes with the amp, my worry is to how I could get a USB connection to the Mac.

 

 

[daveathall]

Quote:

that depends on your budget  
 
I was looking at the lower end of Stax but would pay up to £750 give or take. This may seem daft, but would I need a DAC?
 
Something like this:
 
http://www.lintone.co.uk/headphones/stax-srs-2050-basic-system-694-119-437.php


 

 

 

[El_Doug]

the 2050 system isn't bad at all   you should be able to throw in a DACMagic or some similar usb DAC within your budget

 

[jaycalgary]

I am not sure of price but my best guess as far as bang for buck would be Srm-323s and Sr-407 and there are lots of soundcards out there that will connect usb or firewire to computer.
 

 

[Uncle Erik]

Why USB? I think your MacBook has an optical out in the headphone jack. Use a mini Toslink to regular Toslink cable out of the headphone jack to connect to the DAC of your choice. Connect the DAC to your amp and you'll be good to go.

Also, any photos of your cottage? I have a soft spot for old buildings - I'd love to see yours.

 

[Pabro]

Welcome!
 
MacBook can do digital output via toslink. For example, just plug this:
 
http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-27016-Velocity-Toslink-/dp/B0002JFN1A
 
into your headphone jack and your MacBook will shoot laser. If you already have an optical cable, this:
 
http://www.amazon.com/Toslink-To-Optical-Mini-Adapter/dp/B0002MQGRM
 
will help you.
 
I have the 323S + SR-407 combo, and all I can say is I love it. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you want to know more about this combo.

 

[daveathall]

Thank you very much for the reply's, has certainly given me some options.
 
I haven't got any photos of the outside. I tried to post some from the inside from my photobucket account but for some reason it said that the image was unavailable or had been moved when I previewed my post, strange.

 

[crumpler]

I'm using STAX with my Mac and basically wanted a balanced output into the XLRs of my stat amp so i purchased a HRT Streamer Pro. Seen here! It is just basically a no-frill DAC that asynchronously converts USB digital input to mini-XLR balanced outs. Or you could use the Streamer II+ to output to RCA outs if your future STAX amp only accepts RCA inputs.
 
Astonishing sound that doesn't break the bank.

 

[daveathall]

That is some great information, thank you very much.

 

[Ckaz]

You will definitely need a DAC, though whether you choose to go with USB or optical is up to you.
Basically, a DAC converts the digital signal from your computer into an analogue signal for your headphones. A digital signal is not something you can hear, its mostly binary code (0's and 1's) that contain the data from which your music is made up of. As it is converted, it turns into something you can actually hear, that being sound waves. As I'm sure you know, those sound waves are called an analogue signal.
 
All digital media players have mini-DAC chips inside of them, but due to size and cost restraints an external DAC is always preferable. But, what that means is that you are fully equipped to run headphones from your computer right now (your computer has a DAC chip already), providing you have an electrostatic amp for the stax. Of course, it really won't sound great and will likely bottleneck your system, but I just thought I'd let you know because some people feel pressured to buy their whole system at once when really there's no need. You can build your system  piece by piece, eliminating the need to skimp on some components due to budget constraints.
You don't have as much freedom with the Stax because they do need an electrostatic amplifier and as such can't be plugged into any old headphone-out jack. 
 
Hope that helps! I can give some recommendations if you're interested.

 

[daveathall]

Again, thank you very much for the information, I am still waiting to hear back from the Hi Fi shop in regards to the 2050 system I have pointed out in a previous post. As for a DAC, the HRT Streamer, V DAC or DAC Magic are looking really good, I would be able to audition the V DAC and for a bit more money (Not bank breaking in relative terms though) the Musical Fidelity M1 DAC or the Arcam rDAC at the same outlet. Having looked around at the prices and the fact that the 2050 system is not available from that outlet on line I am of the opinion that it may be an old listing, but I wont be able to phone to confirm until tomorrow. The Stax system I had years ago I purchased from a Hi Fi dealer in York, I see that they are still a Stax dealer, I will give them a call on Tuesday (For some reason they don't open on a Monday)
 
Thank you all once again, I am really grateful for the great recommendations and information, has truly given me different options that I would not have known or thought about. 

 

[Ridleyguy]

Another option, if you wanted to use your Marantz receiver with Stax headphones and avoid buying an electrostatic amp., would be to just purchase a converter, such as the Woo Audio 'Wee' or a Stax converter such as the SRD-7.  You can probably buy an SRD-7 quite cheaply (under $200) through Head-Fi or on eBay.