Looking for a great tube headphone amp

Before you buy a tube headphone amp consider the GRACE 901.This is the amp used by the best engineers extant and what they final master what you wind up listening to yourself.At 1300 retail, not cheap but when I am listening to my HD 600'S sourced through the audio aero mk1 with the GRACE I feel graced.

With the Antique Sound Labs, it's important to get the newer OTL version of the MG Head. While I haven't heard the DT, I assume that it sounds similar to the OTL model in "transformer mode," and I find its performance in OTL mode to be much better than with the transformers in the signal path, either with or without feedback.

Also, the tubes are critical -- the stock tubes are NOT good, and do the amp no justice at all. I pitched the stock tubes, went to eBay, and picked up a pair of NOS Sylvania black-plate EL84s and a barely used Telefunken 12AX7 for about $75, and the Head sounds like a different (and much better!) amp.

You might also want to check out the forums at headfi.org. There is a lot of good feedback on them.

Greg

I have been 'Head FI-ing' for a couple of years now.
I currently own ASL MG HEAD w/Electro Harmonic Russian TUBES.I use both Senn. HD 600's w/ Cardas cable upgrade & Grado 225's.The best thing is this Amp is wired for both.
Both phones have there characteristics, thats why I own
both.
I just sold my MF X-Can V2.It was great, but not much in the way of looks.Hard to tweak too!No complaints on the sound.But the ASL is a cool looking Amp w/ great sound!!!
I like that fat tubey sound anyways. The EL84's have a sound
that the 6922's don't.But it's all in your Ear & Head anyway.Everybody's different, thats why you have to addition
the choices and hear the differences yourself.

Gilbaino, it sounds as if we basically agree on what we heard, and just have different preferences. In another thread a while back, someone posted that the current-production MG Head DT now eschews the use of an output transformer, like the X-Cans (but I can't see any differences on ASL's website). If this is true, it might well be that factor, and not the tube type, that was responsible for the ASL's more rounded sound - anyone with knowlege of this alleged development? As for the X-Cans themselves, I have to add that I've been very disappointed with the quality of their unusual, sealed output jack design - I've gone through two of them so far, and still can't get a reliable connection with any of my 'phones.