State of the art performance achieved. The addition of the Audeze LCD 3 headphones in replacing the Senn. HD600 has tremendously elevated my system in terms of resolution, realism, and naturalism. I know my CD player is state of the art as is the Audeze LCD3 but believe the Bada PH12 ($500 USD...

The best Fantastique in terms of emotional communication is the live recording on Philips with Gergiev conducting the Wiener Phil.

Check out the one on Hyperion with The King's Consort from Robert King   My favorite so far.

Not my cup of tea since I like the hybrid (tube pre-amp plus solid state amp) headphone amp design.   Any one have any experience with this one? Could be a bargain at $2200 USD shipped internationally.  ...

yes, a fine one - I have it   However, you really should consider this one  (can download on the right torrent site)   2014 release by Anima Eterna Brugge

The Raptor was cold and clinical - a solid state sound - and no tube rolling could solve the lean tone body problem.   Plus it had a subtle mildly irritating quality after listening to it for 30 minutes or more.   I can make the Bada PH12 sound like the Raptor by using three Chinese Shugang...

2014 release by Anima Eterna Brugge   fantastic performance

Be careful of buying a used Audeze. They made improvement last November so make sure it is made since then.   All tube amps suck - rich musical sound but inaccurate. They sound nice in low budget systems where low resolution amps mask the defects in the system.   All solid state amps suck -...

There is no a priori way to predict sonic outcome from design.   A amp designing engineer has no way of knowing if his original design will work as well as hoped - some do and are used and other designs don't work and are abandoned.   As far as your emphasis on form instead of function...

    I have never owned or heard any Bada CD player and can't understand your reference to it here. What relevance does that have to the Bada PH12 headphone amp?   I have owned over a dozen headphone amps over the years. I had a Ray Samuels Raptor that was tube amp that sounded like a solid...

All tube amps suck - rich musical sound but inaccurate. They sound nice in low budget systems where low resolution amps mask the defects in the system.   All solid state amps suck - detailed, high resolution and accurate, sound but with a lean tone body and when the amp designer tries to add...

The headphone is most important. You can save on the amp if you get the Bada PH12 (about $600 from cattylink.com shipped worldwide) which competes with any amp under $2000.   I would take the Bada PH12 over any all-tube amp at any cost. A hybrid is the way to go in amps, as shown in the recent...

WOW

Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmoniker - Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique EMI 2013     is my nomination     previously loved the way Argenta conducted this work     Thoughts?

  No, haven't heard it. Looking at its design and parts I don't think it would be as good as the Bada PH12.   I owned the top Woo of 6 years ago, and the Ray Samuels Raptor, as well as other amps, and none were as good as the less expensive Bada PH12.   I plan to try the $4000 Audeze King...

Different sound.   I love the room-filling volume (not loudness) of speakers which adds drama to the music but I love the detail and accuracy of headphones in concentrated listening.   Interaural distortion is when the sound from the left speaker is immediate to the left ear and then delayed...

  Bada PH12 is not a portable amp. It is for a home system and costs around $600 USD (at cattylink.com). It now comes with Electro Harmonix (Russian) tubes but ask if you can get Shugang (Chinese) tubes instead. The Shugang is highly resolving, accurate, detailed, but lean, so use two in back...

Depends on your system. Some systems match better with the HD650 than with the HD600. As Vulpe5 noted above, tube amps users may prefer the HD600 since tube amps often give more richness to the tone body (which you can vary with your tube choice) to compensate for the lean tone body of the...

HD600 are very accurate and have high resolution, good focused imaging, nice tone edge detail, but have a lean tone body.   HD650 are less accurate and have less resolution, richer tone body, less focused imaging (sounds mesh together so inner detail and instrument separation suffers), and...

Bada PH12 hybrid amp - plenty of power and high resolution - I use with one Sylvania WGT Jan. 6SN7 (military WW II and later) tube and two Shugang Chinese 6SN7 tubes - from cattylink.com   Audeze LCD-3 planar headphone   need a good clean and high resolution source

I have all the evidence in my experience of comparative listening.   I have compared two silver ICs - an expensive one and less expensive one - both pure silver and both sound great.- the CT Reference and the CT Reference II. Both used in my CD to my pre-amp connection. I used a CD where a...

See this Bada thread   http://www.head-fi.org/t/134242/bada-ph12-vis-a-vis-meixing-mc66ae-and-lehmann-bc   Do not take a tube out of it until it has been turned off for at least 12 hours (I wait 20 or more hours). Mosfets get shorted out if you remove a tube before power capacitors drain...

New tube set up - may be especially good for planar headphones:     Two Shugang 6SN7 tubes in the rear   One Ming Da 6SN7 globe shaped tube up front.     The Chinese Shugang is an excellent tube that is very accurate with excellent detail but does have a lean tone body and cn be harsh in...

I have a high resolution system so my remarks apply to such a system and my not apply to your system   I found the HD650 to have a richer tone body than the HD600 but not as accurate and as highly resolving as the HD600.   The HD600 is more detailed than the HD650, but with the Sennheiser...

An amp's rating of 2 watts is useless info.   Is this peak power sustained only in a few milliseconds or is it continuous (RMS) power over the 20 Hz to 20 KHz  frequency response as sustained indefinitely..   Then at what impedance is the RMS rating, 4, 8, 16 or 32 ohms (or higher)?   A HP...