Remarkable sound.

I hope I don't ever have to get the thing serviced.

Lovely sound, colorful, detailed and neutral. Loud is not fatiguing, soft is adequate and complete. The bass portayal is very rich but not overwrought.

The detail is remarkable (to me, anyway) - recordings with which I thought I was thoroughly familiar have things going on I never noticed before. I hear guitar and organ comping under the lead and rhythm in early Steely Dan numbers, and I can almost distinguish different violinists (not just the violins, but the different individuals) in a good Norrington Mozart concerto CD.

I tested a Grado headphone amp that also had fine detail, but all the detail seemed to do was highling the flaws in a recording or in my system. Everything sounded grainy. The X-can is far more forgiving.

The amp also delivers an incredibly broad and detailed soundstage without any phasey-ness. On the jazz soundtrack for "Kansas City," I would swear that the headphones place the instruments front & back in addition to right-center-left. I know that headphones can't do that, but I've run it past a couple of friends who confirm the illusion.

One down-side is that in some rock recordings, different instruments become prominent at high volume, but that may be the headphones (Sennheiser 570s) which are supposedly optimized for classical music.

System:
Dynaco SCA-35
Kit-bashed belt-drive turntable with Grace tonearm and Grado red.
Mass-market CD deck.
Sennheiser 570s.

Similar Products Used:

Stax, for years. Also tried out a Grado headphone amp.

Clean and smooth, good power,very transparent.

Not the strongest bass (w/ basic ps).
Cheap, poorly reinforced volume control.

Used with Sennheiser 600's, this is about as delicious as sound gets-even with a portable player! An open window on the sound, and that's not just a trite phrase here! Buy 'em, and get spoiled.

Once more: Value!

None anymore

I have to make a short addition to my review below after some more experience:

I bought the X-PSU: all hum noise is gone, the amp is dead silent now at any level, if the tubes used are too. Presentation also is even more stable and smooth than before.

I also tried a few NOS ECC88s and decided to use a pair of Siemens from now on (paid U$ 50 for them and have some more left). There is even more transparency, definition, dynamics and sparkling treble now than with the stock JAN Philips. But what definitely is the biggest jump forward is a very rich, full-bodied yet perfectly defined bass, the Siemens tubes offer.

A very relaxed, musical adventure (for ANY kind of music)!

Similar Products Used:

MF X-CANS