Mingles, Souterncross, Mapman, thank you very much for the compliments. I really encourage everyone who is serious about audio to DIY. Start with a kit and go from there. Or mod what you have. Try new things and learn why a circuit sounds the way it does. Find what you like.
Lately I have been playing with stereo imaging by canceling the mono signal at the cathodes of a stereo stage. It may be called 'cross-fade' control or 'stereo-wide' but by altering the signal on the anti-phase side of the tube interesting things happen, compared to traditional cross-fade in the direct signal path. After listening to person after person gush about "image depth" it occurred to me that amps with a shared cathode resistor between two channels of a stage always have a huge, wide image. This is just something I thought I would share with you'all... I mean... some people buy whole new systems to get that effect. It may be just as simple as tying the cathodes between left and right channels of an amplification stage with a HQ capacitor. Hint Hint ;)
Also am trying some Sophia Princess 206 tubes and a couple VT-25 (10) tubes right now. Even with low filament voltage (5V instead of 7.5V) the VT25 tubes sound very 'real', and engaging.
Southerncross, I don't know about the Mac driving the Headphone Adapter. You would really have to be careful with the volume control or *poof* there goes the headphone coils. I do know that Terry has a Mac as well and I'm sure he has tested THA with it. He knows his product better than I. He could come up with a custom version just for your amp and headphones.
