[cifani090]

Looking for an amp such as a Burson HA-160 to be able to power many kinds of headphones including my pair of Denon AH-5000's, and others like Sennheiser HD800/650, T1's, etc.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

What price range ? SS or tube ?
 
Peete.

 

[cifani090]

$450 to 700. SS

 

[Choronzon]

I'd love to piggyback this question - lowering the range to include $300-$450, and without really "caring" SS or tube; if a tube is versatile enough... though I don't particularly want a real space-heater of an amp. That is, if anyone has input, too.  Currently using a Benchmark DAC1PRE, but that gets not respect around here (also of course, how much would have to BE spent to get a noticeable improvement? With the versatility to drive various impedances still a concern).

 

[Uncle Erik]

Lots of solid state desktop amps will power headphones well, with the notable exception of the K-1000. The K-1000 was designed to be driven by a power amp for speakers, so most headphone-only amps struggle with. I'd look for a power output of 300mW or better. 500mW is better and something like a Dynalo will give you a full Watt, which is terrific. Look for full class A power and without a huge amount of negative feedback. A little doesn't hurt, but I don't like a lot of it. Tubes are a different matter. If you want to power low impedance headphones, you'll want an amp with output transformers. OTLs (no matter the sales copy) struggle with low impedance or employ damaging tricks (like lots of negative feedback) to get power to low impedance headphones. The catch is that good output transformers are not cheap. The Zana Deux is an exception because of the 6C33C's low output impedance, but it's not an inexpensive amp.

 

[loopfreak]

If you dont mind looks lake people g100 is pretty versatile amp.