[PanamaRed]

If you are that sold on the WA6SE, i'd suggest getting it. I have only good things about it.  Woo Audio makes first-class products and they stand by whatever they make.
 
Ultimately, you are dealing with amps that are of the same caliber. You are not going to necessarily get a better or worse one. Just different.
 
 

 

[Aynjell]

That's the general impression I'm getting; the price point I'm at is from what I understand where diminishing returns start drastically increasing. And I'm also under the impression that anything of this price point will generally be reflected by it's price in it's quality; ie: if you buy anything about 1200$ or so it's all going to be similar levels of quality, just different flavors.

 

[Aynjell]

Yep that's generally the impression I'm getting.

 

[wwillia2]

Quote:

Budget?
A Zana Deux would serve you well, but I don't know how much you want to spend.
If you want to drive Grados and Senns, you need a tube amp with a low output impedance. That ruls out an OTL save for the Zana (its low output impedance is what makes it special). Otherwise, you will need a transformer-coupled amp. The least expensive one is the Bottlehead Smack, but you'll have to supply labor. You can also DIY a transformer-coupled amp for about the same price.
If you can't swing that, go with solid state. It doesn't light up and look cool, but solid state does sound good and has a nice, low output impedance.

 
I agree with Uncle Erik.  Zana Deux is a great tube amp.  I noticed a couple over on Audiogon a few days ago (economy must be bad!)
 
 

 

[Aynjell]

Yeah I'm really shy about buying 2nd hand, and even more shy when it comes to this much money and otherwise the zana deux is outside of my budget.

 

[333jeffery]

The Schiit Lyr would be great for you, except that it has no attenuator. Mine works great with Senn hd600's, and the tubes can be used to tailor the sound. Not bad looking, either.

 

[Aynjell]

Quote:

The Schiit Lyr would be great for you, except that it has no attenuator. Mine works great with Senn hd600's, and the tubes can be used to tailor the sound. Not bad looking, either.

The schiit lyr is one of the worst possible options for me. One of the requirements is that it will sound good with grados. The lyr is not a good amp for grados.
 
Lyr is a extremely high-output headphone amplifier with a new Dynamically Adaptive output stage that provides high voltage output into virtually any headphone—up to 6 watts into 32 ohms—while maintaining excellent overall efficiency.
 
6W is an extremely bad idea for grados.

 

[Aynjell]

Since a lot of folks suggested I go solid state, I bought a C-2C off the FS section and will be giving that the college try. If it's still not enough I can upgrade to something else in the future, seeing as how it cost me beans. In fact, I was looking for an EAR+ when I stumbled across the C-2C. If the c-2c isn't a solution I'll try and EAR+.
 
The GF is tightening my budget a bit.

 

[calipilot227]

Little dot MKIV+?

 

[Aynjell]

Quote:

Little dot MKIV+?

I'm thinking I need a SET amp, OTL heavily leans towards 300+ ohm and not a good fit for other cans I want to try. I want an amp I can plug anything into and get reasonably decent sound performance for my money.
 
How much are the Mad EAR+ HD's anyway? Used it looks like average is 350-450. If the C2C doesn't absolutely thrill me I'm probably going to go with an EAR+, then if it's cheap enough. I think I like the way this one looks (as in, it's actually PRETTY to me).