I've had my LD MKIII for about 2 years or so now, and am loving every exquisite minute of listening to this gem! A while back, I rolled a pair of CBS Hytron JHY-6AK5 tubes into my MKIII (found on Ebay), and I never looked back! The sonic signature and synergy of my system is exactly what I was looking for! I primarily use the MKIII as a preamplifier, driving a McIntosh MC162 looking into Magnepan MG12/QR's, and a Velodyne sub. I use 2 into 1 connectors at the pre-out jacks, so I can accomodate an interconnect run to the amp, and another run to my subwoofer. My source is strictly SACD/CD (Onkyo CDP). This system has literally brought tears to my eyes! I have several vids on YouTube under the name 'AudiophileTubes'.
I am only recently getting into headphones, and own the Senn HD-595's, which sound nice with the MKIII. However, they are not high end enough for me, and I am thinking of going for the orthodynamic HE-400's by HiFiMan. From what I understand, they have much faster transients, and better timbral accuracy since they have the sound signature of planar speakers like my 'Maggies'.
BTW, does anyone here use their MKIII as a preamp, and what gain settings are you using? I cannot seem to figure out whether the MKIII sounds best at position 3 (default from factory), 4, 5, or 10! The only variable I noticed here was how much play I have with my volume knob in getting the desired volume out of my speakers. In position 3 I have to turn my volume control way up to get desired volume output.
Thanks for listening (pun intended).
