Hi bozeb., thanks 4 asking, makes me feel welcome, just like u did at the hotel. And as riceboy says, this is going to hurt the wallet.
Electrostatic for classical: Stax solid state amp 727II with 007 MK2 open backs (and maybe a 4070 closed back too, since the amp supports two phones, me and a bud, tho' worried about sensitivity difference, but 2 open backs might not make sense).
Dynamic for rock: Senn 600 (not 650) with balanced cable (Equinox or Cardas or Silver Dragon v2 -- any advice?, I couldn't hear any difference) with a balanced headphone amp - here's the problem, choosing between Headroom Max Balanced and Ray Samuels Apache. I think the nod goes to Ray Samuels, not sure how to refine this decision. Singlepower had a solid state balanced amp in the room, but it is not on their web site which scares me -- a custom one-off, etc. As a second dynamic phone, Grado GS 1000 ? Dunno ... Ultrasone and AKG hurt my head, Beyer 880 felt and sounded great, but have been warned against long-term listening with them, still might be OK for the occasional visitor (who cannot touch my Senns). 2nd phone would have to be modded for balanced op, since cable can't be switched like on the Senns. That tilts to Grado, since the factory does the mod (with Equinox I believe, thru TTVJ ??).
This still leaves me with the USB DAC problem, and if I go Benchmark I get yet another headphone AMP, especially when modded by Steve Nugent at Empirical Audio. Too many decisions to make! I am paralyzed. And I need the PC-based music server, looking at Hush from Germany, dead silent, no fans. [Jude said he hadn't heard of these; I would have thought audiophiles would have flocked to them].
Worse still -- do you think Smyth will force you to buy Stax phones and amp as part of the package later this year? And the low-end ones to boot? They've got to let you upgrade to the better Stax? But I wanted to give the Stax order to TTVJ for being so nice!
[My ground rules are all digital source, all solid state electronics ... I know you disagree with both of these!]. TTFN, when is the next NY meet?
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