Tír Na HiFi

Fran is very right it is really down to personal choice/taste and the big thing budget. If you go for 'normal' headphones you have a big choice of amp from Little Dot, Graham Slee, Cayin, Schiit up to really high end stuff. Paddy had a fantastic headphone amp and used Audeze headphones (as per Hudo) . They were the ones I was thinking about. From memory they are sort of between Stax and Senn.

tony wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 9:37 pm Fran is very right it is really down to personal choice/taste and the big thing budget. If you go for 'normal' headphones you have a big choice of amp from Little Dot, Graham Slee, Cayin, Schiit up to really high end stuff. Paddy had a fantastic headphone amp and used Audeze headphones (as per Hudo) . They were the ones I was thinking about. From memory they are sort of between Stax and Senn.

You're spot on regarding personal choice, if it were not a factor then I suppose there would be one "perfect" device for each budget point.
Still very good to hear the input of more experienced audiophiles.

I had not even considered a separate amp - I am initially going to use my PS Audio sprout and a Chord Mojo-Poly combo.
I guess the Stax connects directly to the source via it's energiser-amp?

Mark.

markof wrote: ↑Wed May 20, 2020 11:07 am I guess the Stax connects directly to the source via it's energiser-amp?

Correct. Some of the lower-end energiser amps can take either XLR or singled ended. However you can only use one connection at any one time, they cannot be both connected simultaneously.

For an energiser with selectable input sources you have to go up the chain a bit.