Unusual but great Tube amp and Headphone pairings

Sennheiser and Beyerdynamics are well known for their pairing well with tube amps, due to their high impedance among other characteristics.

I came across an article in Stereophile

( https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-31-feliks-audio-focal-grado-jps-page-2 )

that claimed that the Feliks-Audio Euforia II tube amp paired fantastically well with the low impedance Focal Clears and the Grado GS3000se’s as well as, surprisingly, but a little less fantastically, the hard to drive Hifiman Susvaras. The author suggested that Grado always power their headphones with the Euforia II at CamJam and similar events.

I think it would be interesting to put out lists of unlikely but good Tube and Headphone pairings, as well as the usual suspects, and, wherever possible, to add a note or to as to what aspect or aspects of the sound were made richer by the pairing.

Aeon 2s, Hifiman Edition x v2, Drop Focal Elex on the Liquid platinum? Warm head shaking sound.!

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Add the Beyer T1.2 to that list as well. Fully agree on this pairing!

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Akg712, ndh 20

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I almost went for the T1 v2 when I saw it on Amazon for €300 used “Like new”. They had 10 items available. But then I clicked on the seller’s storefront and they also had Audeze LCD 2 “Like new”, 10 items, and similar stuff, always 10 used like new items, so I figured it was some kind of fraud. Sure enough a few hours later the seller and all the products, which numbered in the thousands, had disappeared.

Anyway, so still looking to pair something with a Feliks-Audio Espressivo Mk I, since the planar Sundaras don’t make a good pairing.

I found that the Focal Clear and Sendy Aiva sounded great on the Hagerman Tuba with the stock tubes. With my other tubes—not so much.

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Poor man’s Class A + tube pre. :grin:

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