Headphone Amps and Portable/Personal Stereo???

You should decide wether you want a portable system or not. The MF is not portable. I think you can get substantially better performance if you don't require portability. Personally, I would look for a used Stax SRM-1 with Lambda Pro combo in the $500 range. Add a good and inexpensive cdp, and you will have amazing headphone listening.

Good luck.

I would not recommend mp3 files but if you get a big enough digital player and use a lossless codec you should be fine. If you do some research at head-fi.com, you will get tons of info on headphones.

Get a Benchamrk DAC1 - it has an excellent headphone amp and you can feed it any old digital and it should clean up the jitter pretty good. If you like precision, clarity and dynamic sound then the Benchmark is great value - just no bragging rights as it is pretty much a standard for many people who prefer value.

Keep it coming folks. Your advise is helping me!

I don't know about portability yet. I would not want to sacrifice too much in sound. I'd settle for semi-portable so I could share with some friends or listen WITH my wife (2 sets of phones simultaneously...maybe). I don't need walk-man like portabiltiy (or else I'd get a Walkman).

The battery powered has appeal because you don't have to worry about AC grunge but it wouldn't be portable with a standard CD player so it's seems portability might be a mute point if I go for quality.

Is there a mini-cd player or an excellent portable? How about a portable with a DAC? What lossless codec and what mp3 player? What software for cd transfer?

The main thing I'm looking for is world class sound at a bargin$$$...sitting in my lazyboy. That's why I spent as much as I did on the Grado phones. I really don't want to spend another $1000 though.

I just bought an Audio-Gd C-2C headphone amp following research though the Head-Fi site. Price was $335 plus delivery (from China). I'm utterly stunned by the sound quality through a pair of AKG 702s - significantly better than the Benchmark DAC which I tested for a fortnight. Audio-Gd have another model, the Compass, which has been designed in conjunction with 18 Head-Fiers who received test units. The Compass is a DAC, a headphone amp plus a pre-amp, so extremely versatile - has received rave reviews and could be another very good option at a promotion price of $258 plus delivery.