Heh, well after a long hiatus, I'm visiting Head-Fi regularly once again. The impetus has been a coming divorce and a new pair of ESW9s.
I joined way back in 2001 with a new pair of Sennheiser HD-580s. They were great, but they definitely needed more power than I could get out of my discmans. That led me through a long journey in audiophilia and the following equipment: Headroom Airhead, Grado RS-1, Etymotic Er4p (and resistor cable), Headroom Cosmic, ATH-W100, Earmax Pro, ATH-W1000, Sony MDR-F1, and a variety of earbuds/IEMs: e888, Westone 3, ATH-CK7, ATH-CK5m.
As of now I have the Earmax Pro, W100, F1, Etys, CK7, and ESW9. Took a break for a while because I felt that I had obtained the best of every phone for every category that mattered to me: Home (W100), work (F1), portable (Er4p or CK7). And I will be straight up: I love that honey-sweet midrange from woody Audio-Technicas. I've heard more than my share of more neutral or "uncolored" headphones, but I always come back to that ridiculously mellifluous midrange from ATs, especially out of a tube amp.
So that brings me to the ESW9s. Been going through a divorce and bought these as a matter of retail therapy. They're awesome, kind of like a mini-W100. Yeah, the bass is a *bit* slow, but everything else shines. Super sweet midrange, extended highs, impactful bass, and great soundstage. BTW, smartphones are getting very good in terms of SQ. I'm using a Samsung Vibrant as my portable source; it has a Wolfson 8994 chip, which sounds damn amazing, especially with the available software tweaks available (128x oversampling and hardware anti-jitter).
In any case, I'm back here. Any advice for sub $200 portable amps with tubelike sound? I really like that sweet midrange and tight (not necessarily huge) bass.
