made in Europe headamp under 1k€?

Call me an old fart, but I have much more confidence in European manufacturers.
Can you recommend me a headphone amp that can drive 600 ohm headphones, suitable for both 50's acoustic jazz and brutally fast contemporary electronic (e.g. NitGrit) music?
Musical fidelity is important, acoustic instruments need to sound lifelike. I don't like a sterile, lifeless, synthetic sound, nor a veiled, washed-out one. I would avoid tube amps, beacause I listen very fast and complex music too.
1k euros is very top of my budget, much more prefer 500.
I have planars (Quad ERA, soviet Amphiton), dynamics (DT-1770, 880, Spirit Torino, HD600,…) switching based on music.
Thanks!

 

My very limited understanding is that some Violectric amps, like the v281, are good for higher impedance headphones (I like the v281 with 300-ohm ZMF Headphones). The v202 is 900 euros. I don't know if it's good or if it works well with 600-ohm headphones but it might be worth looking into.

Edit: looking for specs, I came across this about the amp: "ideally suited for headphones with low impedances" (source), so please disregard the above. Sorry!

 

Meier isn't spoken about very much these days, but he's one of the "old guard" as it were and makes good stuff. He could also be considered one of the grandfathers of crossfeed.

His Corda Jazz-FF falls right in line with your lower budget,
https://www.meier-audio.com/amplifiers.html

 

Spl has a good reputation and they have a 500€ headphone amp, the Phonitor One. No ideia about how suitable it may be for your requirements though.

 

If you're willing to buy used, you can find a Phonitor E/SE for under 500 EUR as well.

 

Lots of good advice, many thanks!

How about Beyerdynamic A20? I am a big fan of Beyers, my next headphone on my bucketlist is Amiron wired or T1.2.

 

Get a Violectric V222 and don't look back.
German built, powerful, fast, precise, detailed, but sweet (just shy under neutral up top) with a nice tubey, holographic stage.
Sounds fantastic with any Schiit Multibit (the wide stage gets some nice depth with them). Tried it with Yggi A1/GS/A2, Gungnir A2, Bifost 2 OG and 64, great with all of them but kept the Modi Multibit 2 for more space on my desk. Tonally and timbre wise pairs best with MM2, Yggi A2 and Bifrost 2/64 (in that order). The most fun tho are Bifrost 2 OG and Modi+ (PRAT town galore). Heard that high end Soekris DAC's sound good to with it too.

Everything from Mr Speakers or Hifiman or Audeze Planars to all kinds of Sennheisers and ZMF'S sound great with it since it delivers more than enough power over a wide impedance spectrum (3500 mW Pmax into 50 Ohm
- 23,2 V RMS into 600 Ohm). I consider it early endgame since it extract's 85-90% out of every headphone I throw at it (HD600,650,Verite,Atrium,Utopia,HE500, HE6,LCD2,LCD2C,HD800 etc.)

Banging along some deep and dirty bass line on a Berlin Techno set right at this moment with my Verite (Hifiman HE500 and HD6XX before that).

 

Beyer is known for the headphones, but not very much in the amplifier realm. I don't have experience with that amp specifically, but I'd put more faith in some of the others mentioned here.

 

I had a Corda back in about 2008, I think, it was nice enough before I started DIY. But shit, they are still using OPA209 and BUF634 in 2023. That's a really hard sell.

 

I see Lehmann audio headphone amps mentioned a bit. I have no experience with them but I know their phono preamps have a high reputation