Headphone amp for Sennheiser HD600

Grado amp with the Senn 600's, terrific match

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

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.

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 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.