Glad to see G&W T2.6F being talked about here, as I am a user of it.
. I bought an MF X-Can V3 in UK for GBP250 1.5 years ago. I updated the Phillips 6922 tubs to Siemens ECC88 and was quite happy with the combo of V3 & HD650.
When I came back to China after my study in UK earlier this year, I spent quite some time listening to a few Chinese commercial & DIY amps and decided to go for T2.6F and now I am going to sell my V3 (in China you can have a brand new V3 for RMB2300/GBP150 --- I am not joking, go to Guangzhou Haiyin Electronic Market and you can see this price from MF's dealer
) I got my T2.6F for RMB2800/GBP180 from an internet seller(in shops it's priced at RMB3200).
Both V3 and T2.6F are tube/solid hybrid amps, but T2.6F is no doubt way better than V3: soundstage is hugh and convincible --- depth & wideth & layout are what V3 is lack for, in short, less airy & open; mids & highs are extremely crisp and transparent, never aggressive but fully detailed --- V3 is too warm/colourful in mids & highs, making it sound congested; the V3/HD650 combo is not very good at controling the bass: they "bangs" me a little to hard and heavily, and make me feel nervous rather than excited. I got tired quite often and had to stop listening. The bass-control ability of T2.6F is almost perfect: I can feel the impact but with no tension as the bass sounds so relaxing and eased --- V3 is alwasy too eager to show off itself but T2.6F is vintage wine: the more you listen to it, the more you will enjoy yourself.
In China, the best amps agreed by most headfiers are 8P series by Ye Li, a very famous master of DIY. But what makes many headfiers disappointed is that Mr. Ye never wants to commercialise his products and he only makes the amps for his friends who he appreciates. Wu Gang, designer of G&W T2.6F, is the second famous person in this field. T2.6F is said to be the best commercial head-amp in China --- of course, some other headfiers don't agree, they say Feel HP200 is the one for it's better dynamic impact. It's been a long-term arguement on
www.erji.net and
www.headphoneclub.com, the 2 most famous headphone forums in China.
I tried T2.6F with Grado RS-1 and God, I love it! I thought to myself for more than once that HD650 was good enough for myself and didn't expect to go for another pair --- I compared HD650 with some combos like G&W J1 + SR325, Bada PH-1 + SR325, Cayin Spark HA-1A + RS-1: J1 + SR325 too bright, but with HD650 is really not bad, the highs are impressive and the sound is very neutral, refreshing (but I like tubelike sound), I didn't feel any dry or thin out of them, but with SR325, yes, a little bit; Bada PH-1, an excellent headamp with so many expensive components but at such an unbelievable price --- military grade tubes are used --- I really don't expect more from it at its price. It amps RS325 quite well, full of musicality and not aggressive. But with HD650, the sound to a little too dark but alright in general. It's strange and interesting enough, J1 matches Sennheiser quite well but Grado, whilst PH-1 goes well with Grado but Sennheiser
. Aha, here comes the all-rounder Cayin Spark Ha-1A
--- it has different outputs for headphones of 6Ω-32Ω/33Ω-64Ω/65Ω-120Ω/121Ω-300Ω and you can use it to drive a pair of speakers with its 2.2W×2（8Ω）output. Being an all-rounder leads to its higher price than J1 and PH-1 but the performance is not necessarily much better than the two.
Above are some of my comments/opinions on/to T2.6F and other amps, and I hope they can be of help to those friends who are considering buying Chinese amps.
Cheers!
Eric
