Solude
Headphoneus Supremus
If money isn't an issue it's a fairly easy choice. The BA has no equal in the DHT market and has the benefit of being a great preamp. It would fairer to ask Stratus or 2A3 or WA5LE.
For the HD800's only, BA vs Stratus...who wins?
and my already high opinion of Donald is now even higher.
++
earlier in this thread about the Stratus, several comments were posted contrasting the sound quality of the HD800 on the Stratus vs the EC BA.
Cante_Ista was quite correct. The consensus was that the HD800 sounds fantastic on the Stratus, deep and wide 3D with realistic timbre and dynamics and detail, but not so much on the BA, and with the PX4 that works so well for the LCD-2 on the BA, some said barely listenable with the HD800.
I'd take these things with a grain of salt. In the Stratus thread the preference will of course be towards the Stratus, and in the BA thread the preference will be towards the BA. Meet impressions, as always, will be all over the place. I can think of at least one aussie with a BA and one with a Stratus, I'd suggest seeing if you could arrange a meet and listen for yourself.
*Of course I am not belittling the Stratus at all, just pointing out that using the term "consensus" is narrow-minded when restricted to a thread dedicated to only one of the products in question.
Is anyone using mid-tier headphones with the Stratus? I would imagine some of these would really scale to really high levels (like DT770/880/990, HD600/650, etc....)