Headphone Amps

Hi Dan

For the Sennheisers I have I really like the Grant Fidelity DAC-09 with an upgraded Western Electric tube. I used an RCA to headphone jack adapter on the tube output section of the DAC-09.

Other people I know who have the Sennheiser HD-650 really liked them with a Schiit Asgard headphone amp.

Good luck with the search.

I use the Bada PH12 hybrid SET headphone amp with Sennheiser 600s with RCA and Sylvania 6SN7 NOS tubes, although the original Chinese tubes are quite good. Extremely good sound.

With my Senn 650's I use a Woo WA3 tubed amp w/upgraded power tube and some JJ6922's. Clear and warm tone. W/these tubes it is dead quiet as well. Excellent match with the Senn 650's I think. They also sounded quite nice with the much cheaper Fournier unit but not quite as extended in the highs.

My son uses a Darkvoice 336se and he loves it. Not sure what he's running for tubes. His cans are also Senn HD650's. I plugged my AKG702's into this amp and it was the first time they ever sounded good. Gobs of power and sounds beautiful with jazz.

Custom made Mapltree Audio. Haven't heard much about them lately but he could build pretty much an amp just to your liking.

Burson

Thanks Guys,

You have given me some research to do with the varied choices.

Regards,
Dan

Add this to your list to consider- Heed Canamp.

I am using the 650's balanced with a balanced BUDA headphone amp ....look at Headphone.com. This is the best recorded sound I have ever heard. (I use it with the optional Cardas balanced cable into an all Ayre system. The sound is remarkable

Thanks for all the input guys.... I have been reading the reviews on all the suggestions and they all come up good.

I am going to be connecting the headphone out to a tube pre-amp.

So the question is do I go with a tube or SS headphone amp?

Thanks
Dan

The pre-amps output to the headphone amp will (I assume) come from the pre-amps tape out. If so the signal will bypass the tube amp stage in the pre-amp so there will be no tube redundancy. If you are taking the signal from one of the pre-amps main outputs you will not only have tube redundancy but you will have attenuator redundance which is not optimum by a considerable margin.

If you could afford it you might consider a headphone system with a seperate CDP or a CDP with the signal being split and shared by the headphone amp and the pre-amp. The first is optimum.

Tubes & 650's are a great match.