I'm selling a HeadAmp Pico Slim portable headphone amplifier. Top condition. This is an extremely well-made amplifier, suitable for high-end portable headphones. Great sound, totally silent background. Selling because I don't really listen to music via IEMs anymore. Details...

  I agree with this. I have the HDVA600 (using a Bifrost Uber DAC; I avoided the HDVD800 because I know I'll want to upgrade the DAC at some point). If anything, I'm more surprised by how good the HD600 sounds with this amp than the HD800. Using HD600 with a balanced cable, it sounds almost as...

  Yes, just moving the head can cause all sorts of weird noises – both microphonics, and the sound from the ear cups moving. Drove me insane.   HD600 and HD800 from a decent amp are even better – it's the same "neutral" Sennheiser sound, though obviously not portable. I've read that Vision...

I use the HDVA 600 (I didn't want the internal DAC, which I heard wasn't very good). It's great. No treble peak on the HD800, pristine sound.

I enjoy listening on headphones, but I view them as a rather artificial, even "analytic", way of appreciating music. People talk about how having a wide soundstage is so important for classical music, but listening with HD800s is miles away from listening in a concert hall – it's so wide, it's...

The long sequence towards the end of Death in Venice where you get pretty much the whole Mahler Adagietto as Aschenbach wanders around in dodgy make-up.  

And Szeryng's Bach partitas/sonatas. Though especially the earlier mono recording on Columbia. (The later DG release is great, too, but the mono one is even better!)

I suppose I should be grateful to the IE800 for getting me interested in higher-end headphones. I found a second-hand pair for a good price and was curious enough to try them. They're extremely detailed and also have very impressive bass – not boomy, very articulate. Also quite a wide...

  I certainly find them really bassy. In fact, I try to turn it down, but then I listen mainly to classical music, and I think it can sound rather muddy there.

Unlike the HD6x0, the stock cable for the HD800 seems really solid and well-made. I feel like there was some improvement when switching to the XLR, and tried both the Sennheiser cable (CH800S) and a custom one – but couldn't really tell them apart, sonically.

  This is a really great performance. Thanks for sharing. I've recently been enjoying this old recording by Feinberg of the same sonata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbAkHB5j5iM   I suppose I have different favourite interpretations of the various sonatas. For 110 I really like both...

Also, Sviatoslav Richter's Symphonic Études is ridiculously good - he makes the variations that Schumann excised compelling. And most of Barbirolli's Mahler, but especially the songs CD with Janet Baker.

Karl Richter's 1959 recording of the St Matthew Passion is up there. I love the austerity of Klemperer, but I think the early Richter version comes out ahead. He takes certain passages in the recitative/narrative episodes and makes them hugely expressive. The choir singing "Wahrlich ist er der...

I'm rather fond of spectralism and spectral-influenced composers. Grisey's Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil is a masterpiece, and Partiels is fantastic. Saariaho is really worth listening to, though perhaps more so the earlier stuff. I think Haas is continually interesting – the best thing I...

Beethoven's fourth piano concerto, when the orchestra enters in a different key from the soloist, is quite magical. Mahler 9. Stravinsky's Nightingale suite…