Headphones and amp questions


I am contemplating getting a set of headphones and headphone amp, again.

In the past when I considered this, the Senn 600's and the Grado RS-2's seem to be the leaders in my research, as well as some AKG's.

First question, the Senn's are open back and can be easily heard by others from what I have read, is this true? Are the Grado's quieter than the Senn's in this respect?

I don't know anything about headphome amps, I was thinking about the Musical Fidelity X-can, is this a good choice?

Will it hinder the music much if I get a long extension for the headphones? I would like to sit, comfortably, a good 14ish feet away.

Any and all opinions will be appreciated.
brianmgrarcom
Both the Grados and the Sennheisers are open back designs that will leak a little sound. The RS-2 and the HD-600 are both among the best headphones available. They do sound different (I've tried both), but neither is absolutely better than the other. Headphones are very personal choice and you have to try them on for comfort and listen how they sound with your source material. If you're interested in the X-cans, I would try and get the "version 2" edition. For headphone extension cords, I use both a Grado and a Tara Labs extension cable and they both work fine-no signal loss. The Tara is a tiny bit sweeter, but I am not sure it is still made. I got it from Audio Advisor.
You might like to check out the Berning Micro Z for a good headphone amp. Its dynamics and musicality are both superb. It uses a couple 6sn7's for output tubes, which are some of my favorite tubes just by virtue of sonics.

Good luck,
Chris
You will get a variety of opinions about the Grado vs. Sennheiser HD600 headphones, but I will quickly crawl out on a limb here and state that the HD600's are the best headphones I've heard except for the Stax Lambda, which cost a LOT more money. I've owned a number of headphones over the years, including several Koss models, Stax SR-80 electrets, a Grado, and 3 models of Sennheiser. I think that Stereophile picked the HD600 as one of the components of the year in 1998 or so, and I think they were a deserving choice.
You should search some of the comments on www.head-fi.org. I am using a Headroom MOHR, Theta Cobalt, CD-3400, Etymotic ER-4S or HD-600 (best of both). I used to use Grado 325's, but now choose the 600's with the Red Jaspis cable. BTW that system for around $1500 invested is a great value, good luck.
Like Sd above, the Senn. 600s are the best 'phones I've heard too.

In my above post, I should have mentioned that the Headroom Supreme amp makes an excellent headphone amp for home use too-- as well as for travel. Great versatility, and it's small. Good Luck. Craig