whirlwind
Headphoneus Supremus
It wouldn’t be my first, second, third, fourth or fifth choice.
The Glenn basic OTL build at $750 was the best suggestion of all the amps, by far.
Also, regarding the portable solution, the iFi iDSD Black Label is the best choice. Pretty noticeable improvement from the Mojo. I spent about 2 hours comparing them head-to-head one day a few months ago.
The basic Glenn OTL amp is an incredible deal, especially when you see how much most pure tube amps cost.
The thing is that it is very hard to order just the basic model, lol.
You want to add this upgrade, and that upgrade....so say that you get the amp to the $1250-$1500 range..then the EL3N amp comes into play as it cost just a tad bit more, but there is no need to roll tubes other than rectifier tubes if you wish to.
Some may find this a better option and others not so much as you can't roll many tubes.
Some of the best tubes for the OTL are pretty expensive these days, but there are always other tubes that do not break the bank and being that Glenns amps can use so many of them, you can still get a great sound for not too much money.
The GOTL will sound great no matter what tubes as it is very transparent to tube rolling.
If one has a strict budget and they can stick to the basic design...they can still roll rectifier, power and driver tubes.
The bang for the buck here is totally off the hook...the only downside is the wait time...so must have an amp that you can use while you wait for your amp to be built....many people can not stand to wait and I understand that as patience is not
a lot of peoples thing, it is very much worth the wait though.