www.headwize.com seems to be down.

Yep, those Grado lines of headphone used to be extremely uncomfortable for me to wear longer than 30 min for me until I modified headband to fit on top of my head better. But for comfort, I still prefer HD580 any day over Grado lines. BTW, www.headwize.com website is working now. I believe the moderator over there is Chu Moy, the guy who popularized portable headphone amp with his cmoy design few years back. I think 990's Dolby headphone processing is designed with regular headphone in mind not any specially designed one. Comparing to old Sennheiser Cinema Pro? headphone processor, 990's processing does farely good job with it for headphone listening. It is nice feature to watch movies without disturbing others.

I'm a Grado guy now (rs-2s), though I've had some Senns (580s, 590s, 650s), and have some Ety ER4Ps.. for movies, I think I'd take Senns any day, for their comfort and great sound. I prefer the Grados for 2 channel, but they really do suck as far as comfort is concerned, and the cable is kind of cheesy too. Senn HD580s are awesome, and cheap ($120-150), but they are hard to drive - I really doubt the 990s headphone out would drive them worth a darn. HD595s are supposed to be much easier to drive, and sound better, tho they are closer to $200. Personally, I tried the headphone out on the 990 with my ER4Ps (extremely easy to drive), and I disappointed, so I would factor a headphone amp in regardless, and probably grab the HD580s if cost is a factor (but only if you get a headphone amp!). head-fi.org is a great site to find out more about phones, and pick up good deals in the classified section.

Regards

Rob

I spent some time with the 990's headphone jack over this weekend. Grado SR80, Senn HD580, and Ety ER4S were headphones that I tried. First of all, over the two channel music materials, it sounded fairly decent but nothing like having an headphone amp to drive the headphones. The highs were rather soft and little muddy sound. Mid range and bass seemed like all bunched up together without clear distinction among instruments. However, out of three headphones, I prefer HD580 to be most pleasing over others. The sound coming off Ety ER4S was harsh and very thin sounding. I guess I am used to listen to my headphones using quality separate headphone amp for musics. If you have never had a chance to use separate headphone amp, 990's headphone jack is par with other receivers, pre/pros that I used before. Although nature of Dolby processing gave little more wide sound stage, I still prefered to listen in two channel unprocessed sound of headphone. However, Headroom amp's (www.headphone.com) internal crossfeed circuit can be wonderful sounding on various music sources if you like those kinds of music processing. It is not same as cheap gimmicky sound of DSP (likes of jazz room, stadium, concert halls, etc....).

However, when I put the DVD movies for listen with the headphone, it simulated very decent movie soundstages with real sense of surround effects and directionality. True that I prefer watching movies with external speakers setup but if it is between listening at very lower volume externally vs. headphone at decent volume, I will take this Dolby headphone anytime. I used to use Sennheiser DSP Pro headphone processor for my late movie watching which I still do in my other two channel system but with the inclusion of Dolby headphone processing in 990, I tend to use its feature at late night viewing in my main HT system more often. If I am listening to two channel music only, I prefer to use my separate headphone amp portable rig. But if you don't own separate headphone amp, 990's inclusion of Dolby headphone processing will be welcome feature. BTW, separate headphone amp will bring out the full potential of many quality headphones out there but with not-so "good" quality cheap headphones will benefit very little sound improvement. So in my 990 system, the only time that I use its Dolby headphone feature is watching movies at late night. Again, this inclusion of Dolby headphone processing feature in 990 wasn't the deal breaker for me but it shows what an incredible bargain 990 really is. Outlaw design/research team really did a nice job bringing us one of the best full featured pre/pro out there.

I have the 580s and have had them for years. They are very good when you have a good contact but the cord connections to the phones themselves are very bad.

You constantly have to fiddle with them to get a good contact. This has been fixed in the 650 headphone design, but not the 600.