Integrated with good headphone output

Willing to try some DIY?

Check out the CMOY pages. Most of what you'll need is at the RadioShack. The rest? A single order to any one of the electronic vendors. Than you can get into 'opamp rolling'. Buying the tools, for those without tools may be expensive, but you'll never have to buy 'em again.

You can build one for 30$ or 40$. It should drive the Grado phones just fine.

http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/

bmdduck,
My first headphone amp was a Project Head Box II which I used to drive a pair of Grado 325's. I picked up the Project for $100 used and they worked great together. In fact I probably preferred the Project/Grado combo better than using a Creek Destiny 2 which was my amp at the time and had a headphone out. Don't think you have to pay a fortune to get those 60's working.

Thanks for the good ideas.

I've notices that Anthem processors (AVM-20) have headphone outputs. Anyone have any experience with them? I've seen several recently for around $400. Seems like a great deal for a quality piece of equipment.

among headphone lovers, the Japanese built Leben CS-300, which includes a number of variations (CS-300x, CS-300xs and just the plain CS-300), is generally considered to be the best integrated headphone amplifier.

Leben CS-300xs thread on Head-Fi

review of the Leben CS-300x on 6-Moons

thread about comparison of the CS-300xs to a $10k headphone amp

Head-Fi forum, best place for headphone questions

good luck.

The Leben looks nice but it's a little over budget!

I'll probably end up trying a dedicated headphone amp like the Aune, Project or similar.

Anyone have an opinion on the Creek OBH11?

Still wondering about the Anthems...kind of big, but they have good dacs and volume controls. Just don't know about the headphone output.

Thanks