Can the Sennheiser HD650 do BIG SCALE classical???

That's true Goatwuss. I would rule out Grado simply for the lack of soundstage as well. By no means was I recommending them over the Senns for symphony recordings. You can use the amp you have now if you are willing to swap out the connections on your amplifier for your speakers assuming you have one, get an adapter, or as you mentioned buy a relatively innexpensive low powered amp 7watts or more is enough.

Goatboy- As you may remember, I've got the K1Ks here is you want to try those as well. I think you will be spoiled, but I will also say that since they are very resolving, I would not recommend goind with a "relatively inexpensive low powered amp" 7 watts is more than enough, but they should be good watts and a good source. My experience has been that very resolving transducers in your system (be they cartridge, speaker, DAC) will really bring out all the crap that is upstream.

Swamp - I read your post again and now see that mention of the K1K - I must have missed it... heh interesting

So You wouldn't recommend a relatively inexpensive low power amp? Maybe something like a Lamm ML2? Audio Note Ongaku?

Ha! I think starting with a relatively modest low powered EL34 or other amp would be ok. The problems at least wouldn't be brightness/harshness/dryness. Granted, the whole point of the pursuit is for macro-dynamic control, so I wouldn't want to be throwing that off the boat... but if relative to the Senn650 the K1K with a modest amp is in another league (sorry about the A-phile cliche), then I would be quite happy. I'm sure there are plenty of sub $1000 amps that wouldn't butcher the job too badly. I'd either be using my supratek or my EE Minimax as a pre, and both of those are quite transparent and good sounding, so all I'd need is the power-amp section. I'd be interested to hear what they'd sound like with my plinius 102 in class A... Would it damage them to hook them up to serious 100WPC+ amps just for the fun of it?

Anyway - Your entourage of gear sounds very compelling for a potential drop-by. Do you have the merlins set up too? If so, do you have a photo of the room/setup?

Goatwuss,

I agree with swampwalker about the fact that they reveal what is in your system warts and all, but I did see some discussion about people having success with budget amps at headfi.

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147291&highlight=k1000

Do you have a decent amp for your speakers now? If so, that's what I use.

I burned my K1K's in with a 200wpc amp, so as long as you keep the volume at a reasonable level (unless you want to lose your hearing), then it should be ok.

By the way if you buy new like I did they take close to 500 hours to burn in from what I was told and can confirm that to be true.

If you have funds though a decent tube amp would be best, but I know you have a budget that doesn't allow much left over for the amp. I hope you get a chance to listen with Swampwalker also, that will give you an idea if it's the right route to go for you.

I have the Merlins set up and would love to have you come down sometime. I will have my new TT set up in a week or 2; right now source is an Exemplar 3910 or an Audio Aero Prima.

As far as the amp goes, it depends on what you call modest. I believe you said inexpensive: that's what I would be concerned about; a cheap amp. Using your Supra or EE with a decent quality 10-15 wpc amp would be fine; an EL-34 might be just the ticket. I don't think you would damage them running a Plinius 100 wpc per se, but I would be concerned about the lack of fine volume control. My Supratek did NOT have the gain switch; a high gain pre-amp like that with a big amp would be a problem. Easy to damage your ears and the phones. Of course an Ongaku would be perfect ;~) or a Lamm would be great. You could probably also get great sound with an older Pass design Class A if you want ss, or any 300b SET amp like the Cary integrated that I use now.