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April 23, 2010 - 3:18pm
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Headphones+DAC/amp for classical music
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Hi jodles, welcome to the board!
Firstly, what's your budget? You've kind of implied it with your proposed selection but it would also be useful to know if you're willing to spend more. If your budget is tight you may like to consider buying second hand. Check out http://www.hifimagasinet.com, HD600s come up for sale there reasonably often and usually go for about half list price. There is a HD600 selling together with a Musical Fidelity X-CAN V3 for SEK 4500 right now and the seller may be prepared to split them.
I haven't heard the Apogee One but I have a friend who has a Duet and he's delighted with it. The sound quality is excellent, design, build quality and fit n' finish all first rate and the integration with the Mac audio environment is extremely slick. I'm afraid I have no idea how the One and the Duet compare sound quality-wise but it certainly seems that Apogee make some really nice products.
The HD600 are really nice cans (I believe Stereophile editor and recording engineer John Atkinson still uses them as his main monitoring/mixing headphones), as are the AKG 701. Both are highly resolving and very musical, although they have slightly different sonic flavours and most people prefer one or the other. I would strongly recommend you try to audition at least these two and possibly others, as comfort and fit are as important with headphones as sound quality.
Finally, I would really recommend you head over to Head-Fi, probably the largest collection of information, reviews, comparisons and opinions on all things headphone in the universe.
Good luck!