RS1/RA1 combo is hard to beat for a solid state option for a reasonable cost. altho, i found rs1 sounds wonderful with tube amps so far. for bed room system, he should investigate a tubed integrated with a phone jack. :-)
Hi Manofaleph, I'm sorry to see that you haven't received any responses yet! It looks like a nice little system that you have started, and it's pretty well matched in terms of quality. My guess is that the weakness in your chain may be the RA-1 amp, and to some extent the Kimber cables. I'll let others with more experience suggest cable upgrades that might even out some of the harshness of the RS-1 cans. As for head amps, I'd suggest taking a look at the Amplification forum over at www.head-fi.org. The RA-1 mates quite well with Grado phones but there are a lot of other options out there to consider. You can find me under the same user name there if you want to talk about 'headphone geek' sorts of things.
