Marakanetz, I have no experience with this gear, but I'll take a shot here since no one else has anted up. Considering the quality of most headphone cables compared to a good IC, and also that 3m is not a terribly long run, I would say to go with the extra length in the IC and use the shortest headphone cable you can. Also, you might not want to add too much cable capacitance in the case of electrostatic 'phones. I suppose the exception would be if your preamp doesn't buffer the tape outs (if that's where you're taking the headphone signal from), and it turns out your source can't drive both its own IC's and the headphone's adequately. But that's just a guess, and I can also see how it might not make much of a difference either way in the final analysis. Why not just get in touch with Stax and ask them?
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