Headphone

Gentlemen,

Appreciate all your contribution of opinions regarding "cross-feed". I suppose it's just like anything else, in that one must personally audition this feature (easier said than done), though the mentioned models equipped with this, ARE sellectable. Just so many other fine tube and SS amps without this option.

Anyone with an extra "cross-feed"-equiped amp willing to offer a weekend loaner? (Trustworthy, with clean feedback)

Thanks again,

Frank (Chicago area)

Frank- you might want to post that request on head-fi.org, or check and see if they have any "meets" coming up where manuf. and members bring their amps and cans for testing/comparing. iirc, lots of members in chicago area.

Frank, don't venture over to Head-Fi. You will regret it. I now have 4 pairs of headphones and 4 amplifiers. I had converted my second system into a headphone based system right before my son was born. But he sleeps through anyways when I play music at my normal listening level. So I hardly listen to my headphones anymore.

When you visit head-fi.org, make sure you check for listings of local meets. These are great opportunities for you to audition the various amp offerings before buying one.

FrankC

Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 Headphone amplifiers get class A ratings from Stereophile and they don't cost a fortune.

OTOH, if you want a multipurpose amp, you could get the Benchmark DAC-1 which is also a DAC. The DAC-1 is also highly rated, I don't remember if it was rated an A by Stereophile also, but I think it was. If you get the DAC-1 you could then use any crappy DVD player as a source and digitally output the signal to your DAC-1 (assuming the crappy player doesn't convert 0s to 1s and 1s to 0s), because the DAC-1 reclocks the digital signal before converting it to analog.

The reclocking would be a major decision maker for me, as I would only buy audiophile headphones to listen to music in my bedroom (I have a dedicated listening room for my stereo system) and wouldn't want to buy a new CD player just to listen to music up there, especially when I could just use the DVD player we have up there and digitally output the signal to something like the DAC-1...