Your Favorite Headphone amp and Why ?

[Davewhityetagain]

What's Your Favorite Headphone amp and Why ?

ta in advance

 

[Alex A]

Do you not have a choice to offer Dave?

My X-A2 seems to work pretty well

Other than that I'm still considering options myself - may go for a pre with a good headphone circuit if i can next.

 

[Hawk]

If Solid State it would have to be the Graham Slee Solo. As an ex owner you'd know why Dave.

The winner overall for me would be the Stax valve energiser/Earspeaker combo. It has bags more clarity and openess that the slee, although it does sacrafice a little bass extension.

 

[Davewhityetagain]

Alex_A wrote:

Do you not have a choice to offer Dave?My X-A2 seems to work pretty well

Other than that I'm still considering options myself - may go for a pre with a good headphone circuit if i can next.

Solid its Graham Slee but seen more valve ones around these days, like valve amps but never bothered much with valve headphone amps

The Graham Slee amp is well built and good value for money

 

[Gilman]

stax 007ta. Reason - tonal quality and sound stage. Takes balanced or RCA cables.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Best i've heard is Hawk's Stax, sounds wonderful.

The GSP Solo with psu is also very good indeed.

 

[meninblack]

The Stax is fantastic, for conventional headphones the Sugden Headmaster is pretty dammned good...

 

[ob1]

MF X-can V2, funky to look at and sound sweet as a nut.

 

[Geordie]

ANT Amber for me. By far the longest surviving headphone amp I've had. Looks DIY, but has a really punchy, detailed and lively sound and really seems to add "space" to your headphone listening. It is designed by Alex Nitikin formerly of Creek Audio, so I imagine it has much of the Creek house sound...

I have not felt the need for anything better.

But they dont get made any more. Pity really. Nowadays I'd be looking at the Heed Audio stuff.

An honourable mentioned should go to the Headsave Classic which is the best cheap headphone amp I've heard by some margin.

 

[Sand Dancing Donkey Walke]

Hi Dave

Stax get my vote, but the Ray Samuels gear sounds excellent well worth checking out. Sells both Valve and SS head amps.

http://raysamuelsaudio.com/

Regards

Andy - SDDW

 

[Coliam]

Hi Dave,

Having just bought a Stax package, I have to agree with all the people voting for Stax.

Colin

 

[early]

Well I'm really pleased with my earmax ( thanks Madders ) , I've not owned

many headphone amps so I can't say how it competes with others , but now headphone listening is a pleasure .

 

[doctorjuggles]

Of the amps I've heard or own, I'd say the Ray Samuels "The Raptor" and the maxxed out balanced Singlepower Supra are the two best.

Other honourable mentions go to the A.N.T. Amber and the Meier Audio Corda HA-2 MkII SE.

 

[major-tom]

World Designs HD 83. Superb, sweet sounding Andy Grove valve design. The output transformer secondaries can be wired to best match the impedance of your headphones. If you're handy with a soldering iron, it's brilliant value too.

 

[Leonard Smalls]

I wouldn't dream of paying money for a headphone amp...

I simply moved somewhere with very distant neighbours, hence there's no need.

 

[felix]

I've had, and loved Stax. It's about the best I've heard, in 15years of serious headphone geekery (A dem of the Senn Orpheus left me cold...)

That said - because I no longer use cans much - about the best commercial amp I've heard (or bought) is the old McCormack Micro Integrated Drive.It's basically a small power amp, good for 2-3W into 8ohms. It also takes hold of Sennheiser cans firmly and gets rid of their one downside - the bloaty, lazy bottom end.

The only other thing that got this good for dynamic headphones was a modified Quad 405/2 (!)

 

[nsherin]

I don't run a dedicated headphone amp in y system, but have found the NAD C320BEE's built-in amp sounds damn good to my ears.