Topic: tube headphone amp recommendations?

[Nick's Picks]

hate to hijack, but had to comment on all you recent Bstock VR2 owners.

You LOVE it!
seriously, they are 90% of the 4jr.  better in some regards even, but not overall.
They can throw you around in the right sized room.  I was amazed at what they could do in my 17'x23' room.  No sub necessary.
As for amps...
any class D that is noted for good bass extension and control will really shine w/these.  Rick Schultz ICEpower amps mate well (thats what I ran) as they have awesome bass control and extention.  and if you can truely feed them that signal, they'll reproduce it.  Maybe one of those new Bel Canto i300 amps or integrated amps (w/USB DAC input) might be a pretty sweet / powerful setup.  I"m sure that would reproduce concert SPLs in a medium sized room with out any strain.
As will a beefy tube setup.  40wpc or higher.  Manley gear is a lovely match w/VSA speakers, and running a stingray in front of VR2s has been a dream setup of mine for quite some time.
so...so ahead and drop the coin on B stock and a used Stingray.  Best $3k system you could ever possibly assemble.  When new, $5550-6k.

[nickgregory]

hate to hijack, but had to comment on all you recent Bstock VR2 owners.

You LOVE it!
seriously, they are 90% of the 4jr.  better in some regards even, but not overall.
They can throw you around in the right sized room.  I was amazed at what they could do in my 17'x23' room.  No sub necessary.
As for amps...
any class D that is noted for good bass extension and control will really shine w/these.  Rick Schultz ICEpower amps mate well (thats what I ran) as they have awesome bass control and extention.  and if you can truely feed them that signal, they'll reproduce it.  Maybe one of those new Bel Canto i300 amps or integrated amps (w/USB DAC input) might be a pretty sweet / powerful setup.  I"m sure that would reproduce concert SPLs in a medium sized room with out any strain.
As will a beefy tube setup.  40wpc or higher.  Manley gear is a lovely match w/VSA speakers, and running a stingray in front of VR2s has been a dream setup of mine for quite some time.
so...so ahead and drop the coin on B stock and a used Stingray.  Best $3k system you could ever possibly assemble.  When new, $5550-6k.

your comments on the VR-2s are dead on with my experience so far...simply amazed at how much they open up the sound that I am used to hearing...and at the price that you can get them for B-Stock...nothing comes close...

I am feeding mine with a Arcam AVR-300, biamped...200w per...and I couldnt be happier with the results...

[SpareRibs]

For about $200, you can get the Little Dot II++ and easy to get. The guy who makes it, David will answer your questions and sells it on Ebay. Easy to google for the find. Really excellent bargain.


Another choice:

The Music Fidelity X-Can V 3 is a very highly raved tube amp and goes for about $400.

http://www.musicdirect.com/products/detail.asp?sku=AMUFIXCANV3

[nickgregory]

just saw this on AGon...not mine and no experience with the unit.  but thought you may be interested...

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1180913688

[Brian Skalinder]

just saw this on AGon...

Thanks for the heads up.    Just dropped the seller a line...hoping I can snag this one.  That's a much more tolerable price for me at the moment than the new MK III.

[nickgregory]

nice, hopefully it works out...one day I will be in the market for a tube headphone amp, but I want to complete the surround part of my playback and I am beginning to seriously consider branching out into vinyl as I have quite a bit from my childhood/teen years, but no way to listen to id

[George]

I had a MG head OTL...it didn't mate well with my K501's.  It made my HD580's sound slushy and it didn't even mate well with my grado's.  I had about 30 tubes to tube roll with and I couldn't get any synergy with that damn amp.

Honestly, the mg head is the bottom of the barrel of tube amps...you should research it on head-fi, there were a lot of problems with QC (ie. build quality) with those units a while back.  A lot of people simply moved away from that brand when newer tube amps started coming around. 

[Brian Skalinder]

I had a MG head OTL...it didn't mate well with my K501's.

What did/does mate well in your experience?

[Nick's Picks]

What did/does mate well in your experience?

yo mama!

[George]

What did/does mate well in your experience?

yo mama!

lol...

Brian Skalinder,

            Not sure...I never did find an amp that worked well with my K501's, I currently own a millet and I personally thought it sounded a bit lackluster.  Your best bet is to try head-fi's search engine and see what comes up as recommendations.  I did drive them with my yamaha receiver's headphone jack and liked what I heard, even though they were still underpowered.   Maybe you should look into solid state amps.  By the way, headphone.com can also be very helpful, they do have a 30 day return policy on their products so maybe you can try out an amp or two and see how it works out.

You can also borrow my millet for a month if your interested.   

edit:  you can always buy used:  http://www.head-fi.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=55

Just check the feedback of the seller and read up on reviews on whatever amp you're interested in.   I know this sounds like a lot of work for an amp, but its always worthwhile to read up on it before settling on anything.