DAC Amp Suggestions

Gosh, @MartinTransporter

I had the Hagerman Tuba amp in house for several days and loved it! For the price its built like a tank, and it is not an OTL amp, but a parafeed amp with glorious output tranformers…I have the BH Crack and BH Mainline, and it compares well with both, better IMO than the Crack and as good in some ways to the Mainline.

Hagerman Audio Labs “Tuba” Parafeed Headphone Amp - Review

Building lots of DIY stuff, this amp impressed the heck out of me as far as just plain built very well and well designed. Unlike the OTL amps, it can drive most anything low to high impedance stuff…IMO thats an important comsideration especially if you only have 300 + ohm cans now and buy some 32 or in that area impedance cans…then the Crack etc becomes not as a good a choice IMO.

The Mainline kit is $1299 or so…it goes on sale everyonce in awhile, I got the kit for $999 and its fun to build.

I have pretty much the same cans u have, Clears instead of Elegia’s and have gone thru several sets of Beyers.

All the best in your hunt!
Alex

Note: Example I mention in my review of the Tuba, the sockets are solid ceramic, soldered into a thick PCB. On the BH products the sockets are not as well “strong or solid”…when you insert or wiggle out a tube the pins and the componets soldered to the pins move and flex, and their are some LEDS that are wired in these sockets and they have from this movement mechanically broken or cracked causing loss channel issis, loud pops, while you will never see this with Tom’s Tuba. That said if you install these LEDS with some “sag” in the leads to these pins this issue becomes less problematic.

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