[Blasyrkh]

It was quite some time that i was thinking on purchasing a headphone tube amp, and after some advices and auditions i ended up buying the MG HEAD.

my luck was that after 80km of travel, to listen to the mg head, i discovered that this shop had the x-can v3 too, so i was able to try both!
mg head was 385€, x-can 350€

the amps where attached to a Rega APOLLO cd player (about 1000€ i think) and i used my hd595 and grado sr60 (with 414pad hole mod).
i listened to Dream Theater and some classical.

impressions with MG HEAD:
with hd595 and transformer output I wasn't quite impressed with DT, but with classical it was a real pleasure, good basses and highs, liquid midrange...still the details where much more than expected, and syroupy sound less than expected. with OTL, bass was too lousy and punchy, not a good thing at all.
with grado, the sound was much more warmer than the hd595, with more bass, even in transformer mode (the difference with OTL mode was less emphasized than with the hd595), but it was not as sluggish
as with hd 595/OTL. very pleasant indeed.

impressions with X-can:
substancially the differences between xcan and mg head are summarized in 4 words: less warmer, more detailed. i prefered the mg head only for the sound, it was too pleasant not to buy it. but x-can was at the same quality level (remember that i didn't used the transformer in the bundle, but a better one) of the mghead, only less pleasant.


impressions at home:
(used with a good pc sound card, and a portable cd player, they are not the REGA

)
the first thing that i noticed when i tried the amp with hd595 was the (very) thin sound in the lower end of the spectrum in transformer mode. i remembered the bass more punchy.
i don't think it was a source problem, beacause in otl mode, and with the sr60 the sound signature was the same i auditioned at the shop...but it's still quite strange


Final considerations:
after many tries, i ended up with the following considerations:
hd595 is not the right can for this amp, too thin sound with transformer, too sluggish with OTL. still with some kind of music (acoustic) , the transf. mode is quite impressive with great detail, but less warmth.

with sr60 and transformer the sound is fabolous, very warm and pleasant, maybe slightly muddy in the lower end, but i think it's due to the source.
sr60s bring the tube sound signature out of this amp really well.

i hope i've been clear and apprehensible with my english, and useful for someone who wants to buy this amp.

 

[Rob N]

Did you encounter any hum or hiss with the MG Head?

 

[Blasyrkh]

none whatsoever! the sound is crisp and clear

 

[Finch&Music]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blasyrkh none whatsoever! the sound is crisp and clear

Well, with all the respect to your evaluation of (only your personally) listening expierience with the ASL MG Head OTL MkIII I want to make some comment.

I observed, that you only used headphones, that have rather low impedance caractaristics. Correct me if I am wrong. F.e. your Senn 595 has a nominal impedance of 50 ohm as far as my knowledge goes. I do also not know what
'music' you used to evaluate. That can make a significant difference to the findings.

This use of low impedance phones makes it rather predictable, that the OTL drive has problems with lower frequency reproduction.

With a standard electrolityc output-cap of 100 mf and given a connected low impedance headphone, the lowest frequency, that passes through, will be in another level than using a high impedance headphone.

Higher impedance phones will - by principle - function better in this case, because they need a lower output cap value to behave properly at lower frequencies. As far as I am informed the MG Head OTL mkIII is in some way 'voiced' to using a Senn 600/650.

That is - in my view - the primary reason why the OTL drive with this amp in combination with higher impedance cans are of synergetic acoustical benifit.

Lower impedance phones will suffer with such a OTL design/outputcap value by principle and disign purpose.

The - F3 point come in rather high when using a low impedance phone. That makes it in my view quite predictable, that the outputtransformer function gives you better results, when using lower impedance phones! In that function you not have such corner point for low frequency. On the other side a output transformer have its own bandwith. I do not know the bandwith of the output transformer of the current MG Head OTL MKIII. So I can not comment on that point.

With my own Senn 650 it sounds - to my ears - very respectable whith classic, jazz and popular rock. The 'amp' can do somewhat better in my view, but than I have to modd the amp.

The more technical head-fiers can better explain all this stuff, so do a search on this topic, or may be some of those headfiers can reply.

My advise is, that you also use your 'beautiful' MG Head OTL MKIII with some higher impedance phones, like Senn 600 or 650 or Beyer DT880. You may be embarressed (or not, in both cases I am interested in your findings).

For my ears, my MG Head MKIII with my Senn 650 sounds very good with the respect to price/performance relation.

You are on your own to look after your own price/performance relationship.

 

[Blasyrkh]

first of all, i bought this amp only beacuse i'm gonna buy the hd650 or 600 or dt 880 really soon

, i wrote it in another post i made.

for the other things, i wrote the review quite fastly, so i missed some points:
i listened to Dream theater, and mostly classical music and some jazz and wrote only about the cans i own beacuse i knew them well. in the shop i tried other high impndence cans with the otl and without it. i missed to talk about the soundstage too

what i wanted to underline with my impression with those two cans, was their totally different behaviour even if they are both low impendence cans...i know otl must be used with high impendence cans (it's written on the manual too

), but what is totally wierd for me is the difference between the hd595 and sr60 that i think is NOT so obvious.

hd595 in transf. mode lost most of the bass, while the sr60 didn't, with otl instead the 595 soundend terribly slugghish in the bass region, while with the sr60 the difference was much more less noticeable (exept for the volume level)

hope i've been clear in what i wanted to say