Headphone Amplification

Gents, So, I bought into the H2 hype and have a shiny new one lying around. The thing is, it sounds like garbage out of my garbage gear. I am guessing that it's just being honest and revealing, so I will give it a chance with something decent behind it. At the moment, though, I have NO bloody clue as to what that something decent should be. I am also disadvantaged by not having bottomless pockets. So, I figured I'd ask your penultimate wisdom since head-fi hasn't produced anything satisfactory. I need a speaker amp. It has got to put out 10wpc minimum into a 16 ohm load, which is what the transformer box is (I think? Well scratch that, I don't think). It needs to be…

In the past few years I've gone through a few headphones but favor the HD600. I recently sold my Headroom Desktop amp and picked up the HRT microStreamer, which is fine for portable use with my Macbook/Android. Drives the HD600 adequately and is good with my Phillips X1. I am interested in trying out the the LCD-2/3/X sometime soon after the new models launch. I've read the microStreamer can drive the LCDs fine, remains to be seen. If I wanted to reinvest in an amp + USB DAC (all-in-one or separates) that happens to gel particularly well with the HD600 and LCDs, are there any decent recommendations going not much higher than $1.5K that I should look into? Seem…

This morning, I received the GS-1 that I bought from veloaudio and since it's a rainy/cloudy day and I had nothing very important to do this afternoon, I decided to do something that I rarely do (because frankly it's a pain in the ass), an amp comparison. I thought it was an interesting comparison to make because the two amps are different implementations of the classic Dynalo design by Kevin Gilmore, but at very different price points. On one side, HeadAmp 899$ GS-1 that's been a respected amp for a few years and on the other side, the Chinese-made HA-006+ that's a newcomer to the market at a very attractive price of 280$. Features The HA-006+ has an headphone out…

seriously, somebody gotta take a look at this $3.5k amp, grab some pictures from the net, that dac board shouldn't be there, we can not see the whole main board now.

Lets talk about the Moon Audio Luna, a headphone amplifier. All of the pictures, features, available model information, and specifications were taken from the Moon Audio website. The Moon Audio Luna headphone amplifier marries the resolving power of vacuum tubes to the very highest quality audio transformers to bring nuanced, dynamic sound to headphones. The Luna has been designed to minimize audible (as opposed to measured) distortion and allow the subtle details and dynamic contrasts of recorded music to pass unaltered to your headphones. The Moon Audio Luna uses vacuum tubes and Lundahl audio transformers to achieve the goal of giving you all of the m…

Damn! I want to go home early to play with my new toy. I just received my Headroom Desktop Portable with the home module and the DAC. It?s going to serve as my Bedroom amp. It?ll be driven with USB or SPDIF from my computer (All MP3?s at 256K) or my Pioneer DV-563a for all silver discs both analog and possibly SPDIF. I?ll have to listen to determine the exact setup that I?ll end up with. I could go USB from the computer and SPDIF (Custom Siltech RCA to 1/8? digital cable) from the Pioneer for Redbook, and analog (Via Siltech Forbes Lake G6) for SACD and DVD-A. It?ll also see portable use with my Ety ER4S and my Archos AV420 with MP3 (all at 256K) I LOVE getting n…

Folks, anyone know where I can audience some headphone amplifier on these cities (in order of priority). If there are headphones, it would be even better. Also what kind of brand ?? Thank you all....... I know I've ordered my headamp+DAC from Justin so I may not buy anything at all but I wanted to expose myself to as much as possible thus have more experience. OTOH, God know I might ended up with something too :palm:

-=Hey Guys=- I have my 880s and 650s in another room and was wondering if my 701s can be powered by my Woo3, without distortion, if volumes are kept low. I understand the problems the "3" has with low impedance headphones, but I'm wondering if it's a volume issue, where more power is called for, or it just won't perform at any volume level because the volume control is an attenuator? Thanks USG

Well my new SinglePower amp arrived today. It has two gain stages and uses some nice powerful tubes as the output tubes. Here's a bunch of pics:

First, let me point out that I don't know much about amps and electronics. I've been wondering about how Single Power amps use tube adapters. I have an ES-1 and several types of adapters which allow the use of a variety of tubes. The default configuration is 2x 6SN7 per channel in the two gain stages, for a total of four 6SN7, and then 2x EL34 power tubes per channel, for a total of four EL34 tubes in the amp. Four 3D21A adapters allow the use of 3D21A tubes in place of the EL34. Two 2C51 adapters and two 5687 adapters allow the use of the respective tubes in the 6SN7 positions. Two "ECC-1" adapters also allow the use of 12AU7, 12AX7 and 5751 in the 6SN7 positions. …

http://www.6moons.com/news/news.html About a third of the way down the page, an October 7th entry, any notice this or know anything about it? Sure looks puuurty Unfortunately the websites product pages links don't seem to be working http://www.trafomaticaudio.com/products.php

Only US$37,950 at your friendly MSB purveyor of fine products. Roll up, roll up, get yours now. http://www.msbtech.com/products/headphone.php?Page=../index

hi. Okay, here is the low-down, I'm borrowing the F1 from Humanflyz. I connect the F1 to my ZD as a pre and then the K1000. However, I get a hum. where is it coming from? Well, i switch sources... that's not it. I turn the volume all the way up on the ZD and it's still the same (meaning it doesn't originate with the ZD). The only other option is that the F1 is the cause. Since i didn't hear it at Mike's, i'm sure I must have caused it. the issue here is whether the problem is caused at the "power" source (since i'm connecting it to a general 5 outlet power strip) or the PC (since it's just a standard computer Power cord). The other option is that i may be gett…

Todd the Vinyl Junkie just announced a loaner program for this over at HF and I'm happy to be the first on the list. I'm very much looking forward to listening to the first Pass Labs product dedicated to headphones. I've got the Dynalo mk2 and Crack 2 in house to compare with and I'll be bringing the amp with me to the January 30 HF meet in San Jose if anyone else in the Bay Area cares for a listen. Some pics from Tyll:

I see during several of the FET-A reviews the Gilmore Lite/GS-1 were understandably brought up as natural competitors, but as reviewers didn't have the HeadAmps on hand at the time, I wondered in the last few months if anyone has had a chance to A/B (especially with Senns)?

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3213610#post3213610 Congrats Stephen!!

Well, I had to send in the red hat proto to craig to fix. Unfortunately, it is deemed "unfixable" and Craig refunded back my money. So I'm ampless. I will probably end up getting the balance discrete he is coming out with, but he gave me a time frame of late January. Knowing craig it will probably be a couple of months after. So in looking for somewhat affordable options that I can use now and sell later when its time to get the balancing act from EC, i thought of woo audio. Affordable and KG has had nice things to say. The woo audio 6 is a transformer coupled amp that uses the 6DE7 tubes for driver/power and a 5ar4 for tube rectification. The only question would be ho…

Earlier today I came across the pictures from ETF '07. http://www.dhtrob.com/etf/index.php?start=23 This is a picture of a totally out there headphone amplifier using transmitting tubes. Those tubes are around 7" tall, and the plate dissipation is up to 100W. For a pair of headphones. And though it's not a headphone amp, this is just stunning.

I cant wait! Should be here this afternoon when I get back.... Its going to be a long few hours...

My gear is in my sig. I am very happy with it, and should probably just leave it at that. But that's no fun. So I could use some help focusing on what my next amp will be. This purchase likely is well in the future, but I'd like to start the search now. My first thoughts are either a balanced b22 or something real tubey since I don't have much experience with tube amps. I guess the sound sig I am after would be on the warmer side. Budget needs to be south of 2K. Any thoughts?

The impressions will come late tonight or sometime tomorrow after I get around to listening to it in a short while. I'm over at Roam's place and we just finished de-fucking one of my tube amps.

Does anyone know about this? I didn't know Craig was working on one. Is it SS or is there tubes in it? Zana Deux Micro sneak pic! - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

I'm waiting to hear back from Stephen from Rockhopper audio about a possible home B22 trial. While I wait, can anyone comment on comparing tubes to a B22? I have a Woo Audio 6 SE so any direct comparisons would be great. As far as music goes, I listen to almost everything (no country) but right now I'm mostly listening to folk and indie rock. Thanks in advance!

So there are some nice looking Japanese amps that catch my eye. It looks as though the U.S. markup is outrageous ($3.5k higher than the imported amp example below), with the only difference (afaik) being a USA-compensated voltage. In the Luxman example below, Audiocubes2 offers a voltage transformer with the original japan version of the amp, at a much cheaper price than buying it from the U.S. dealers. I wont mention names, but it seems to fetch about $9,500 from U.S.A. based merchants that I've seen. I'm wondering how much (if any) of a hit I'd take in the sound quality department if I went with the Audiocubes version, that comes with the voltage transformer. I've…