Headphone Amp. for Sennheiser HD 580 headphones...

I auditioned the Antique Sound Labs MG Head DT with my HD600's, but bought the Musical Fidelity X-Cans v.2. The ASL was too "tubey"-colored sounding, the MF was flatter with stronger bass and dynamics. Then again, my budget wasn't as high as yours. (I haven't heard the new ASL OTL mentioned above.)

FYI - Last time I looked there was also an EarMax amp on Ebay. Don't know if the auction's over yet, though.

I just bought an Antique Sound Labs OTL Head to power my Senn 600s and it sounds wonderful - far better than the X-Cans I used to have. Costs about $325 and I spent another $50 upgrading the tubes.

Ken

The Cary is considered the best....
Get a new Earmax for $ 595

or Try a H.H. Scott 200D Tube Int. Amp, it has a superb Headphone jack

Also X Cans2
Creek

I have a Headroom Supreme that sounds great with Senn. 600 headphones. The Supreme is a compact model made for travel, but it works well at home too. $400.- $500. new. Cheers. Craig

I use the my Sennheiser 600s with Musical Fidelity xCansV2 (about $280 for the amp from audioadvisor.com). I also switched the 2 6922 Sovtek tubes in the amp for upgraded Valvos, with a bit of an improvement. If your budget is that big for the headphone amp, you may get better results upgrading to Sennheiser 600 - just a thought. Good luck.
John.

I prefer tubed amps with headphones because the sound is softer and less fatiguing directly at ear level. I have and like the Cary cad-300 sei, which is probably out of your price range, but their are a number of tubed units that get good reviews. See the attached link below. I've had several Headroom amps and don't find any significant difference between their crossfeed signal processing ('music in the middle of the head') and normal tube amp sound.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&992329746&read&keyw&zzantique=sound=labs

I am using the Senn 600s with Headroom Max. I like the processing circuit which removes some of the "music in the middle of the head" feeling headphones are sometimes prone to. Should be just a little under your limit used.