Experiences with Cary 300 SEI headphone amp.,

You might want to pick your headphones first-that could affect you decision on amps (or at least look at everything from both sides). Stax come with their own amps so the Cary is useless. And some headphones are just easier to drive than others, so you could get equal/better results with other less expensive headphone amps (Grado's are a much easier load than electrostatic phones). In fact, a good state-of-the-art preamp would be a better splurge with that money if you have a 2ch system that could use some upgrading, plus get the nice headphone amp you want (Melos and Audio Research have had some nice ones). Because the Cary sure isn't much for driving speakers-you'd be paying alot for just a headphone amp. Granted headphones aren't as brutal/difficult to drive, but the Cary stuff performance wise for the money is a piece of junk (at least with speakers and I still don't know if I could justify it for phones). headphone.com and headwize.com have plenty of other tube and SS amps. Headphone.com has alot of really nice stuff-at more sane prices. Now I believe Koss builds a nice pair of phones that need a full 7 watts to get going-one point in favor of the Cary a good preamp couldn't do-if those are the phones you want.

hello almodevar I have used many hi end phones with many diferent amps and I still havent come accross anything in the 3000.00 range that can hold a candle to the yamaha cr-1000 this amp is so smooth with is dual gate mosfeets and so under control of the bottom end you feel the power beeing deliverd so smoothley it is addictive the FM tuner is a knock out only the first production cr-1000 was good enough for a stricley FM only tuner all the rest where water down AM fm I curently use sennheiser hd 600s and they are simply stunning on the cr-1000 magical sounds since your the current hi bidder so far you will get all the bonuses if you win including free shipping you should have a very good shot at winning this auction in the 400.00 range a real bargin considering the over 800.00 I payed in 1974 good god that was a small fortune back in the golden age darn near 4000.00 in todays market I bet good luck to ya thanks stutrex

I heard the 300 SEI with HD 580 phones and equinox cable and the sound coming out of it was absolutely divine! The only thing giving a run for the money to this system is the Sennheiser Orpheus, which would run in the $14k range. Aside from the Orpheus (I haven't heard Stax), the Cary blows every other headphone amp away including the blockhead and the max (headroom amps). Compared to Cary, these very high priced headphone amps sound harsh and unmusical. If you have this kind of money to spend on a headphone amp, the 300SEI is the best choice out there.