[daveathall]

Thank you very much once again, being a novice so to speak, I did not realise how many options I have.

 

[Electrostax]

I was in the same situation, having owned stax sr-30 electrets since the late eighties I found it was time for an upgrade. Ordered the 507/323s, but have to wait about a month so my dealer was kind enough to let me loan a brand new srs-4170 set while i wait. I thought my old stax sounded great, but yesterday i made a side by side comparison plugged into the same amp, and my G.. have I been missing out on a lot!  The sr-30s that I had loved for so long and still think sound better than most dynamics, sounded flat, shallow, shrill, bassless and entirely undynamic compared to the newer lambda-incarnations. I have listended to the 407 for hundreds of hours now, and have loved every second of it. The enormous difference in sound quality was something I had not expected at all and only became apparent in the side-by-side trial yesterday.
A good DAC is a must though!
I have the Cambridge Dacmagic, very affordable and works absolute wonders with a digital music collection.
The upsampling really blows me away! when I hear lossy mp3´s through this box it gets an almost analogue, old school vinyl sound that is really quite pleasant to listen to!
With the Dacmagic out of the chain the stax mercilessly lets you hear the "digitalness" of lossy formats and even lossless files lose a lot of their sparkle.
-So highly recommeded for low cost high-end sound; good affordable dac + entry level stax system!    

 

[Scottsmrnyc]

I use my many Stax headphones through an Mac Apple Ipad 2.  Just connect it from the audio out mini at the top of the Ipad2 to the back of any Stax System.  It works just fine.

 

[DogMeat]

Just chipping in here about an inexpensive, but VERY nice sounding DAC; give a glimpse to Firestone's ILTW DAC, can be set in asynchronous mode and is gem at a nice little price!
My Stax play with it, when it's not powering my Celestion SL6si's.
And they play nicely together, yes they do.
 
 
cheers!