Best Amps for Sennheiser HD800

Any particular reason? I'm not questioning the suggestion, just curious. I also don't fancy going through dozens of pages in the Torpedo thread if I can avoid it.

Thanks for all the replies so far .

 

Torpedo III is among the best reviewed amps (at least here) for the HD800 in the $1,200 price range. Normally it would sell more, but they only sell the parts for the amp & you have to build it yourself, thus the lower price.

There is a built one on sale in the classifieds right now. It's a steal, if you can get it.

 

Already sold, but thanks for the heads up. Time to start trudging through dozens of pages of amp threads now that I have a few suggestions to consider .

 

Been reading about it for last few days over net, some people said that it is still bright combo but majority said that it is analog sounding, lively and musical with little mid range forwardness/fullness and good bass, it is not bright but that it is still on a brighter side from many other marantz. It is built like tank but DAC out have cut off filter at 15khz, while hp out goes to 22khz. In next two weeks i will audition it when i go to zagreb they heve it there in shop.

 

I had a very short listen with Marantz right after my query and was not very impressed. Might have been just dull.. Don't remember exactly why but anyways I ended up with Laconic amp and never looked back. Nice synergy with HD800.

 

I want laconic NBM also but he is out of stock, he have only ZDMs i am waiting for some reports from NY meet, thegunner100 said they will test ZDM there...

 

I finally had the chance to demo Questyle amps that I was interested in last weekend.
Fortunately the small event was held in my town so I brought my own HD800 and own music to demo some amps available there.
It's mostly a speakers oriented small event so there weren't much headphones there.




The CMA600i. Isn't as good as I thought it would be. Sounded kinda thin and nothing special.



The CMA800R monoblocks. To be honest I was expecting a lot from this stack since I had huge interest in this one. Turned out to be kinda underwhelming. A bit better than the 600i but not nearing anything I expected. I didn't get a nice low end rumble nor thickness. Soundstage seemed a bit wider and also bit better separation but at the same time sounded thin too.

And lastly



This amp from Eternal Arts was the most unexpected one. It's a tube amp but looks ugly and I despise the form factor. But performance wise, this one was unexpectedly good. It constricted the soundstage by a noticeable amount, but sounded smooth with nice low end. I sat through one orchestral music without taking my HD800 off.
Though IIRC this amp is like 2k€, so there are better offerings out there IMO.

 

Hi, I'm a newcomer in this forum, looking for an OTL tube amp for the Sennheiser HD800s.
HAD Audiolab Maestral TWO & Feliks Audio Espressivo are my candidates so far.
Any other possibility in this budget (600€)?

 

I believe @Marvey said regarding the idsd nano, find the nearest river and see if it will float.

 

I think in this case the nano is used as a usb -> spdif converter rather than as a dac. Imo its usb section is quite good for the money (< $150) and can bring some improvement over the stock usb. Its driver is also easy to install and use, unlike many cheap chi-fi converters these days.

 

I've seen Auralic Taurus and Audio-gd Master 9 mentioned as good solid state pairings with HD800 (someone even said better than Raggy). Were they considered as contenders to the list ? Don't know if people tried it with modded or unmodded HD800.

 

schiit ragnarok or Liquid Gold?