Best Amps for Sennheiser HD800

Stratus is uncommon because they're built to order by one guy, in his spare time- you won't see new ones on shelves, and used ones will be super-rare. I get the feeling that a lot of people who commission one and wait the twelve months or so tend to keep them.

 

From personal experience I would recommend staying away from a Sabre / HD800 combo and gravitating towards a tube amp. Everyone has different ears and different preferences but in general HD800 + Sabre = bad and HD800 + tube = good. Although of course i am making massive generalisations here.

After Christmas if I have not spent all my money showering my wife with presents I may consider my Feliks Audio money going towards importing one instead.

The Icon Audio amp looks nice. This was not even on my radar and is just in my price range.

Crimson... A very nice amp. Congrats.

The Schiit EU importer seems very reasonably priced. Schiit UK (Electromod) is really good but I do not think he ships stuff to the EU.

 

Only option to buy Carbon for cheaper price is the used market. The v1 might cost somewhere around 500€ while the Pathos is around 700€ used.
Unfortunately I've never heard the Aurium.

True. It's one of the rarest things, after such long wait I don't think anyone wants to sell it at a loss.

Thanks. I do think Cavalli amps are good matches with HD800, albeit overpriced IMO.

We have schiit-europe.com and schiit.eu.com so Schiit stuffs are covered for us in the EU

 

Ah, mainland Europeans can get theirs at:

http://www.schiit-europe.com/

I know it's confusing- we have two small distributors calling themselves "Schiit Europe", but this .nl-ish one is the one who ships to the EU. They charge € 849,00 for Mjolnir 2, stock expected about nowish.

 

I wonder if the UK distributor will change his web address if and when Brexit kicks in?

 

I have been listening to hd800 trough nad1050 for 3 days now and they are great hp i was afraid for so long to order them bc of many negative/mixed reviews. Every time i listen to more complex part of the song with 650 or lcd2 usually on some ost music or modern classical music with loads of instruments they will get congested and than i just skip the song but these are resolving and as detailed as great set of floorstanders. Now i just need to find good amp for them

 

Shit happened, I'll probably need to downgrade from my Crimson to something else.
So what's the best offering for 1000€ new/used? Was thinking Mjolnir 2 or Auralic Taurus MK2 but still have my doubts since I'm afraid they might sound boring (or transparent for the Taurus).

 

My .02$ is to look into a torpedo 3 (which you can buy assembled from beezar.com) for a tube/hybrid, or a black widow if you want solid state though they don't pop up too often used. Don't know if I'd take anything else in the 1k category. Mjo2 with some NOS tubes would be good too!

 

Being in EU sucks for both options. Especially the BW. Really wanted that but of course no one in EU wants to sell theirs.

Am looking at some Questyle offerings too like CMA600i or dual CMA800R (monoblocks look cool yo) too but only if I see a good deal on them.

Do LISST tubes on the Mjo 2 sound harsh? I heard the original Mjolnir was too harsh for HD800.
I want that nice low impact that Cavalli amps give.

 

my sense is the mjo2 will have really really good impact. @philipmorgan can attest to that. i'm biased wrt tubes vs lsst, since i'd favor finding some nice tubes for it. you should be able to find some pretty easily in the EU though, maybe some sweet holland tubes. philip can tell you which tubes he uses.

 

In terms of treble harshness and HD800, I actually find the LISST to be smoother and less fatiguing than most tubes, and the tubes that are similarly less harsh are because they are so laid back (such as orange globes). Just my two cents. I haven't heard many of the amps mentioned, but Mjo2 provides a lot of low end slam and fullness with HD800 that I couldn't live without. Much more than Valhalla 2, GOV2+, cheaper SS stuff...etc

 

Hmmmm, been reading some of the Mjolnir 2 thread. Seems like this one is totally different from the original Mjolnir. Thanks for the answers, though I'll have to wait several days until I reach my decision after seeing how things turn out. I really like my Crimson and don't really want to let it go tbh but at the same time sometimes I think it's kinda overpriced.

 

@Rozenberg I have a Mjo2 and have spent some time with that amp and some treble-peak-ey headphones (Utopia & TH-X00) and they get along well IMO. Never tried the Mjo2 with HD-800s.

RE: tubes, I'm head over heels in love with the WE396A because of how it narrows and deepens the soundstage. A wide, shallow stage is one of the known shortcomings of the Mjol2. @jexby sez that the JAN 5670W tubes do staging even better then the 396A's. I have a pair of those 5670W's sitting on my desk but haven't had a chance to try them. To a slightly lesser extent the Reflektor 6N3P-E's help with stage as well. The WE396A and 6N3P-E have great bass. I have a pair of RTC Herleen E188CC's that came with the amp. They're fantastic tubes but have that wide+shallow stage so I prefer the other tubes I mentioned.

The one drawback of the WE396As is noise and microphonics, but that's not a problem with the Mjo2 on low gain and w/less sensitive headphones.

This has more info as well --> http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/the-mjolnir-2-thread.208/page-7#post-83359

 

Do many of these translate nicely to the HD800 S? I didn't see much discussion of it when I scanned the thread. I've been tilting toward the HDVD800 and Raggy judging off what I've read. I was also curious about DAC performance on the Senn. amp, if it's within the scope of the thread? I couldn't find anything on it when I searched.

 

HD800 and HD800S are more similar than not. 6K peak aside, the 800S is still a very bright sounding headphone, so any amp that complements the 800 will also complement the 800S.

The consensus is that HDVD800 synergizes well but is otherwise not the best performer for the price. That said, given the pickiness of the HD800/S, the simplicity of having a viable option available from Sennheiser is appealing too.

 

Good to know, thanks. At full price I wouldn't be too interested in the HDVD (can't really justify any amp for $2k+). Used at a significant discount it seems like a nice enough choice if other options in the general price range don't drastically outperform it.

EC BW seems like a solid choice, judging off everything I've read, not considering availability .

 

What's your budget?

 

Preferably no more than $1.5k (give or take a bit); I'm in the process of setting money aside now. I suppose I could go over that but, it'd be even longer before I could get something and I'd rather not.

 

I would look into the Torpedo III with that budget