Dusty Chalk

Yeah, I used to own that exact combo. I thought they were great. They struck me as fairly straightforward, though, not overblown in the bass at all -- perhaps the speakers were overblown? Or maybe the speakers were fine, and the source was overblown? I have to admit to liking the power amp more than the pre, but only by a small margin. I currently own harder-to-drive speakers (Dynaudio Special 25), and got a A308CR to drive them. I have to admit, I mostly used the combo on Spendor S3/5's (extremely limited LF) (with a Sunfire Jr. sub between the pre and the power), but I did try them on other -- full-range -- speakers. My overall impression of them was that, although not perfect, they came as close to driving most speakers effortlessly, so as to make them sound like what they were, whatever that was. With just a touch of warmth. Easily the most listenable solid-state amp I've ever heard.

No, I'm pretty positive punters have to have paypal to pay through paypal, pal. How would one pay through paypal without paypal and just a cc?

Unfortunately, he didn't technically break the rules by saying he wasn't going to pay, he put the ball in your court instead. I would give him a deadline -- a reminder that (you're right) bidding on eBay is a contract to pay, and that he has 7 days to do so, if he hasn't paid by the end of the seventh day, you will leave non-paying feedback on his ass, and only then offer a second-chance to the other bidder.

Tyll, you're a good writer when you really go all out. And a great person. Eep Op Ork Ah Ah.

More like hemi.

Gallos are win. And ha-ha to all you Martin-Logan haters.

If you can get a Musical Fidelity with Choke Regulation in your price range, do it. (A3, a3.2, I think most of the others are going to be too far up there, your best chance is with the a3)

"They Call Me Dr Wood" -- best personal title evar!!!1!

PS How did you know?

Great. Maybe I should just take tomorrow off.

Absolutely. To wit: DEW ET!

There's certainly room for improvement -- I for one would welcome a new top-of-the-line entry from Sennheiser with EXTREME curiosity.

Candy.

Did I read that correctly, that none of them are going to start shipping until January, including the first set? FTFY

Well, being that the Creek OBH-11SE was my first love, headphone-amp-wise, I am definitely the target market for that. But I just don't feel like buying another amp right now. Does it come in "moar black"?

Sounds almost perfect.

Don't expect them to work well. I don't care if god himself suggested it. Here's my suggestion: accumulate as much newspaper as you can stack from floor to ceiling in four piles. Put them in the boxes. Notice I left out the crumpling part, so yes, I mean stacking newspapers in their original delivered format. The boxes are there to keep the newspaper stacks from falling over. The other nice thing is, if you only have enough to stack to halfway up, you can start with that, and as you accumulate more newspaper, you can keep going. Feel free to run this idea by him. Also, feel free to look up "ethan winer". He's got a whole forum dedicated to cheap, DIY room treatments, despite the fact of being in the business of selling them himself. Makes him a cool cat in my book.

Magnatune? CDBaby? The times have changed, dude. You don't need a record company, you don't even technically need a distribution deal -- you just need distribution.

And now it's even cheaper (same link as above).

I'll just register my (ongoing) skepticism and shut up, then. See if these things "scale like a bastard", then the reverse is also true, neh? Chacranajxy -- what 'scaling' means is that the better upstream components -- amp, source, music, cables, etc. -- you put in front of the headphone, the better it sounds. I don't know if the HD650 scales like a bastard, but I've heard it does.

Say whut?

I'll just tell you right now that people should assume you meant "...for your setup", because some actually will come back with HD650, but that wouldn't be a good idea out of a receiver jack. I have a feelling that the answer the "idiots" were giving you were taking that into consideration. I already told you what I would do -- start smaller. Sony's. Blow the rest on dames, liquor and music.

Do want!

Let's start with...where are you? As in, what headphones do you currently have? How's it working out of your Pioneer? How good's your hearing? EDIT: That was written before you posted what you have. If you don't have anything less than freebie earbuds, you might want to start smaller, like Sony MDR-7506/-V6, and take it from there. The reason I pick those is that they're already pretty sensitive, so should be driven well by your Pioneer, have plenty good bass, and are decently comfortable (more so than Grados, anyway). They can sound a little bright (not sibilance bright, but if there's any sibilance anywhere else in your chain, it'll be enhanced...more like just a lot of emphasized upper frequencies bright -- it'll also force you to listen at more reasonable volumes), but you can get used to that -- even addicted. And if you're older and deafer, it might even compensate for those frequencies being attenuated. EDIT: The above recommendation remains. I don't think HD650 would work well out of a receiver.

Yeah, I probably have a couple Model M's lying around -- so you're saying I should just get a couple USB->PS2 adapters, then? Have one at work and one at home, and then I don't even need to "tote" them, except on special occasions (being at a friend's house, having car worked on, etc.). Yeah, that might actually be a good idea.