Headphone amp for Sennheiser HD600

I use the Earmax Pro with the HD600's and can't be happier. Try rolling the 6922's to suit your taste. I also auditioned various headroom amps (nice but boring), MG Head (nice but a little noisy - ralatively), Sugden Headmaster (very nice great detail but I am a tube guy. I also used the Sonic Frontiers Line 3 for a number of months which has a fairly good headphone circuit based on the Headroom circuit. After hearing the Earmax I felt the SF was a bit sterile. I haven't heard it but a lot of my friends tell me the Berning Micro ZOTL is in the same league as the Earmax Pro. Use a Pioneer DVD into a Bel Canto DAC 1.1 as a source. To sum up the Earmax sound - great midrange (no surprise) and the best LF I have heard in any tube amp and most SS amps.

I have been using a CReek OBH-11 with the updated power supply with very satisfactory results. The Sennheisers are
going "at market price" of around $350 new so a "package deal" with amplifier maybe your best solution.

Another option is to find a good tube amp or integrated that has a headphone jack. ( CARY - AES, ANTHEM etc.)

The HD580 headphphones are almost as good and if you can find them they are going for around $200.

I got it confused! I was thinking of the Sennheiser tube amp that I saw at HeadRoom's website for $12,000!

Thanks to everyone for excellent advices. Although the Wheatfield is a nice amp, at over $10K, I think my wife would hang me before I finish listening to my first album. EarMax, MG Head, and X-Can v2 all seemed to be good contenders with MG and X-Can at roughly the same price.

I am leaning towards the X-Can as I have a huge collection of 6DJ8 NOS tubes available already.

I got both the X-Cans & Creek SE amps from AA for a couple weeks. The X-Cans worked a little better w/ these cans. However, REPLACE STOCK TUBES ASAP W/ AMPEREX NOS and now it is no contest. Either Bugle Boys or A-Frames softened the Tizzy sound on some mainstream recordings while letting great extension come through. Incredible difference in the bass w/ the NOS tubes. Much deeper and tighter bass. These cans are very easily tweaked w/ interconnects too. I either use the Harm Tech Pro Silway MKII or Cardas Golden Hexlink 5C w/ them & again it takes it to another level.

In my most humble opinion there is only one amp for the Sennheiser HD 600 headphone, and that amp would be the Wheatfield HA-2 tube amp, I am a lover of that glowing bottle. Have been using one in my system for well over a year. One must sample this amp to truly understand what it can do to headphones. I will say there is no substitute for the main system, but, when the requirements are that my house be quiet, I do use it with great success and infact look forward to the session. The Headroom people are the sole sellling agent of this amp. Good luck.......

I have a set of HD600 connected to a Headroom Max amp. It is a bit expensive, but it sounds fantastic to me. I use an Anthem CD1 as the source for this setup, it is what I listen to in the office.

Gundam91: I'll be doing an extensive test of Grado RA-1 headphone amp with the Grado RS-1s vs Sen 600, which I have on order from Germany.

I also have just purchased a Placette active line stage preamp, which contains a class A headphone amp. In a preliminary 2 hour A/B against the RA-1 (which in itself is a very, very good headphone amp) the Placette totaly smoked the Grado. Most pronounced, was "less jumbling" of complicated treble pieces -- the Vishay resistors really add nothing to the source and there is absoultely no distortion on the high end. To be fair to the Grado which costs about $325, the Placette retails for $4000.

The Placette is especially gradifying with SACD, XRCD and other high end recordings where there is little/no digital edge to contend with, as I do not have a DAC (source is an SCD-1). As I spend 50% of my time listening to headphones, I take this stuff very seriously, and my current setup is very close to some of the better STAX setups I have heard, including an older Omega I system. --Lorne

Grado amp with the Senn 600's, terrific match

x cans II is great, Vintage HH Scott 299 C or D

Yes, check out Audioadvisor.com I got a sweet deal on a pair of HD600's and a Musical Fidelity "X CAN" tube amp as a package deal. I cant remember what I paid, I think it was around 500.00 for the set. Call to get the deal.