Best $300 or less Tube Headphone Amp

Senn 600 are fairly easy to drive. There are many excellent choices. As per Goober's advice, head over to headfi.org and you will find a wealth of information. Depending on the type of music you listen to, there are tons of choices.

Check out some tube headphone amps coming out of China. If you search hard enough, you can find awesome deals. I have been fairly impressed with the ones I have personally listened to. I currently own one (Consonance Cyber 20, SET amp) and am waiting for another one traveling through Pacific Ocean. (Cyber 30, another SET amp). One caveat is that you need to replace those cheap Russian tubes with some decent NOS tubes, figure another $50 to $100 on top.

All I will say is that the US distributor is adding like 200% markup on these nice amps, and they can still compete with other amps at those price ranges. Another great amp to consider is Cayin HP-100A (yet another SET amp). All these amps are excellent with female vocals and small jazz ensembles with traditional SET magic, not too good with orchestral work or rock. I haven't try too many other types of amps yet.

You can see my review on Cyber 20 located at headfi.org. I was using Senn HD600 with Cardas cable for that review. My other headphone amp is a tube hybrid from Italy, Rudistor RP5.1cav (US$1500) which is more balanced sounding. Shelter 901 vs. Koetsu Rosewood or Amperex 7308 vs. Mullard 6922 tubes would be good analogies between the Rudistor and the Cyber 20.

FrankC

Bottlehead S.E.X. Even works as an excellent integrated amp for high
efficiency speakers. And best of all, you will learn some soldering on the way
and get the choice of your own finish :)

Take a look at:
Bottlehead S.E.X.
amp

Good luck on your search.

Another vote for MF Xcans V3 with Senn 600s

I like the Musical Fidelity v3

I have the Channel Islands with my 600's and it is an incredible pairing. Just a hair above your budget, but worth it IMO

Oregon3,

You have some good suggestions and I am partial to tubes myself. However, depending on just how loud you listen, the MG Head may, and I only mean "may" not be quite enough power for you. I had one and enjoyed it and it is very good bang for the buck. BUT, with the Senns, it had some limitations due to their impedance. It can drive Grados no problem. The other posters may better speak to the newer vesion of the MGHead's ability to drive the Senns.

That said, since you are also talking used, you may want to try to score a used Single Power or Rudistor amp (but they might be very hard to find).

You can also look into the Musical Fidelity X-Cans - I have no idea about this unit though.

Finally, if you were to consider any solid state amp, I can unhesitatingly recommend the Meier Corda HA-1 MK-2. I picked one up used for $275 and it works very well with my Senn 600s.

Hope this helps.

ASL's MG Head DT OTL, now in MK III version. (MK II and III have separate power supply.) You should be able to find a used MK III, and certainly a MK II, for under $300.

ASL MGhead. I use it with my senn hd600, and it has good synergy.

Also, the high gain grado RA-1 actually has a little more detail but you lose some of the tube qualities.

Have you checked out www.head-fi.org? They sponsor a set of forums dedicated to headphone users, including a forum on headphone amplifiers. With a little searching you'll probably be able to get some specific recommendations for your particular headphones. Good luck.

Used is fine.