Stax ear phone pad

I doubt that is an issue, Mark. The foam is just there to protect the electrostatic element, and looks to be sonically transparent (at least on my older Lambda Pros). Also, a few years ago the foam on my Lambda Pros partially disintegrated (after about two decades), and I didn't notice any sonic difference as that occurred.

Eventually I replaced the pads and the foam together, with a replacement kit purchased from Audio Cubes II. In case it becomes relevant in the future, I believe (although I'm not totally certain) that the replacement pads they offer for your newly acquired SR-404 come with replacements for the foam as well, and both are installed simultaneously.

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Mark,

No, there are several issues which would make that approach a non-starter.

First, the in-1 and out-1 connections on the Stax are not like a tape loop. They are hard-wired directly together, and as I indicated in your other recent thread out-1 is provided simply as a convenient means of routing the signals provided to in-1 to an additional destination.

So if you were to connect one of the tape decks to in-1 and out-1 on the Stax, you would be connecting the record input and the playback output of that deck directly together, which of course won't work. And most likely the input select function of the Stax is designed such that in-1 and in-2 cannot be connected together regardless of how the input select buttons are pushed, so the input and output of that deck, while connected together, would not receive any signals.

Also, driving the Stax with an output of the preamp would introduce a lot of unnecessary preamp circuitry, including its volume control, into the signal path for headphone listening. And you would be forced to turn your power amp off (or into standby, if it has that mode) when listening via headphones, as opposed to being able to leave it on while muting its inputs with the preamp's mute button (if it has one) or its volume control.

With the possibly substantial downside of introducing that unnecessary preamp circuitry into the signal path for headphone listening, however, it might be somewhat within reason to connect a preamp output to in-1 on the Stax, and to connect out-1 to the record input on one of the tape decks. But in addition to probably compromising the quality of the sound you would hear with the headphones, you would also lose the ability to play back from that deck (via speakers, that is; you could listen to it via headphones by connecting its output to in-2 on the Stax).

Best regards,
-- Al