But the Echo could be a Darkvoice challenger?..sexy tube stuff 
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I have heard the elise mkii and mk1 and those are some great amps for sure
I love the design of it looks sexy.
Edit. I wanna listen to santana on it it’s that kind of sexy. 
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For 500 Euro? Something tells me it doesn’t exactly compete on cost.
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I was looking at the Feliks Audio Echo, is there anyone with tube amp experience that could tell me how good of a place this is to start with if I’ve never had a tube amp before? Or are there better options?
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If you don’t want to commit so much 
and just want to try tubes the little dot mk 2 is a cracking little amp with plenty of after market tubes available to roll which is half the fun 
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Feliks audio are nice. You would be getting a quality piece from what I have read about them.
Lots of info for you over at Head-Fi forums, not that I’m saying you should spend more time there than here…LOL Many threads and much info on
them.
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What is your budget? which headphones are you matching this with? Dac model? source?
I purchased 1 OTL, 1 SET, & 1 hybrid style tube amp. All of which are Chi-fi but well known brands. I have had the pleasure of listening to a few high quality ($$$$) tube amps in the past few weeks to see what I am missing out on. In my case, because I do NOT have a well tuned and practiced ear, I am missing out on nothing except the massive expenditure of funds. Everything i tried with every style of headphones sounds great to me. I know I can hear differences in sounds and such, and there are noisy units out there, but damned if I can tell the difference between a $5000 and a $500 tube amp that has properly rolled tubes. I can hear the differences in tubes i don’t like. I have spent over $1000 on tubes for my own amps the past 6 months. THEY make all the difference to me.
SO, in short you will probably like a Feliks amp but you may NOT like the cost of tube rolling. Enjoy!
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I have a Topping D50 for a dac, budget around $500, would use it with an aeolus.
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That’s a good combo, for example right in your price range there is a used Woo audio Wa 3 available here; https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fs-woo-audio-wa3.918087/.
Or you can get the Feliks which many folks like and then save a bit later to tube roll.
Here is an Eddie current Jr. available with upgraded tubes just under your budget which would leave you money for more tube rolling or upgraded cables https://www.head-fi.org/threads/eddie-current-zdt-jr-w-mullard-ecc89-and-mullard-m8100-free-shipping.919035/#post-15312977
And its been worked on to be quiet too!
Personally i like the direction you have taken, do some reading and jump on a purchase. Unless someone can add facts that i am unaware of any of these combos should be satisfying to you and keep you within budget! Congratulations and enjoy.
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I’m curious…is there any particular brand / model of tube amp that stands out as great value?
Little Dot MK2 or for more 
then Darkvoice
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I know those are the go-to’s…but generally I think it’s because their both inexpensive.
Its because they actually give you quality tube sound for the price imo. They are cheaper but are still quality pieces
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Oh so you go down the reassuringly expensive road? lol.
There isn’t really a good reason for Headphone tube amps to be very expensive.
In the speaker world Tube power amps get expensive (and heavy) if they push 100+ watts because in
addition to the more expensive tubes (and just the count of them) they use output transformers, and other very expensive passive components.
Valve speaker amps are also incredibly picky about speaker impedance, my Power amps will blow a fuse if the speakers aren’t connected and if the fuse wasn’t there they’d self destruct.
I assume Headphone pure valve amps have the same issue with impedance (all be it with less catastophic results) which is probably why people don’t recommend them for Planars.
My big issue with pure valve amplifiers is convenience, one of the reasons I rarely use my stereo anymore is because it takes a good 20 minutes of warming up for the amps to sound good. That requires a degree of planning for listening I just can’t do anymore.
I assume Valve headphone amps aren’t as bad but will have some of the same inconvenience.
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Yeah I got a cayin ha300 and while it’s not convenient, it sounds awesome
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I don’t regret what I did when building my Stereo, there was a lot of iteration involved, but if I were building or updating my stereo today, I’d probably go with a valve pre-amp and Solid State Monoblocks.
You still have some warm up time, but you can start listening much faster, and still get much of the value valves add.
The equivalent of Hybrid amplifiers in the Headphone world.
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PS audio does a hybrid really well with their BHK monoblock amps. Tubes in the input stage and solid state on output
That’s a pretty amp.
I run a Melos Valve pre-amp into a pair of Quicksilver M135 Monoblocks on my speaker setup.
No visible valves anywhere…
And enough voltage to kill you if you stick your finger in there with the case open.