You should be able to boot into bios before getting any disk related errors. It's often F2 to access the bios and F10 to just access the boot selection menu.
Given how much you like the Reimyo then a USB transport would be a good idea and the simplest solution. I use a Trends UD10.1 which has a wide range of connectors but something like this would work just fine for testing the technology. A generic 75ohm coax to the APL and that's all there is to it. Foobar streaming files from the server located in the other room.
I'm going to build something like the Sooloos with a touchscreen and a small PC (a cashiers PC would do the trick) and then drop CD's as a whole.
I'd just switch to FLAC (or ALAC if you prefer that) Bob. I used to be a hardcore CD guy but now I do almost all of my listening with the computer feeding a DAC. To supplement the Ayre you could also just buy a USB transport so you can keep using the Reimyo. Some of them even have async.
Yeah, with a gain of 10 it would be possible but with a gain of 2 it would be extremely low level indeed. Running them from the Pro output could work...
Our B22 has a Zobel network which helps the amp deal with inductive loads. It certainly wouldn't hurt when driving the transformers.
Also what we are talking about here is driving the Stax phones directly from the Beta for extremely low level listening.
The ES drivers are a reactive load so the impedance varies wildly with frequency but the B22 should cope with that. Perhaps the best way would be to have two outputs, one direct from the Beta, the other fed through transformers.
There is no way to use this unbalanced, a single ended ES driver will sound like crap with very high THD. It has to be driven by a balanced amp or at least a balanced output stage which has a phase splitter in front of it. The transformers are center tapped so they take care of this plus impedance matching. The transformers are really just tube output transformers used backwards.