My first thought when I heard about these headphones was that they could be a great match with an NCore amp. Would be great to hear more impressions/comparisons of this combination.
There's no need to rely on an Ebay seller. There are other options such as buying components direct from Hypex:
https://www.diyclassd.com
or buying fully assembled amps:
My first Hypex Ncore amps were DIY kits, the NC400 modules (400wpc) and SMPS600 power supply modules, purchased direct from Hypex at
https://www.diyclassd.com.
Recently I bought a NC500-based Hypex Ncore amp (dual-mono 500wpc) from eBay - this amp works fine & I'm very pleased with the sound quality. It sounds like my NC400 amps -- that is, utterly transparent, totally neutral, with absolutely no sound coloration = no character of its own, or 'personality' (that's IMO -- don't claim to have "golden ears'')
Perhaps regrettably, shortly after purchase, I found that
Nord Acoustics in England offers what could be a better deal.
The
Nord One NC500 'UP' amplifier is also based on the Hypex NCore NC500 with twin SMPS1200A700 PSU’s.
Nord claims that their '
UP' version of the NC500 Ncore amp sounds better, due to it's proprietary Nord Class A Discrete Input Buffer board with discrete Op Amps from Sonic Imagery or Sparkos. ('
UP' amp base price:
1309 pounds + shipping +tax).
Anyway, you can't go wrong with a
Nord Ncore amp - Said to be totally neutral, which suits the character of the SR1a headphone. I recall that Moon's review of SR1a favorably mentioned the
Nord Ncore amps.
I feel that even my stock Hypex amps are great with the SR1a headphones.
Hypex Ncore are the best amps I've ever heard on my loudspeakers that use Raal ribbon tweeters (this was mentioned in my previous posts).