Headphone Amplification

Heh. Since this place is ALL about the controversy right now and it's open season on craziness, GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT DOC! I loves my MPX3.

Remanufacture of the Western Electric 300B to start........... https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-return-of-the-legend.870227/

Intro Some here may know I quit reviewing audio gear some time ago, which still holds - there were several reasons I gave that up but there are still a few components here and there that have piqued my curiosity. So when an opportunity to spend some time with the Shanling PH3000 came up recently, I jumped on it, and rather than keep my findings to myself, I thought I'd also write up an informal review since this amp isn't well-known. I want to add here that my listening with the Shanling was accelerated given the short span of time I had with it - only 4 days. Past reviews I've written were done over weeks (in some cases, even months) so this review should be consid…

Raffy is looking for a pair of TS 5998's for his SP and I have a pair that are supposed to be NOS. I would be happy to help him out but I don't know how to test these on my tube tester. I have a B&K 747B. I tried testing them with the 6as7 settings but they both test low this way. Since they are not equivalent to the 6as7's, I am not so surprised (I think this has happened with every pair of 5998's I have tested this way). So can anyone help me/us out? Pretty please.

This probably dives me more insane than anything else about this hobby/obsession. So I finally make the switch and have all my music into a 5g iPod 60gb, I get the awesome Turbodock II for the line out and am using my fully burned in Hornet. The Hornet sounds awesome... nice texture, black background, good weight/depth, etc. So why did I put it on eBay... I miss the crossfeed and bassboost from my SM for some of my music. Damn I hate this! I wish I could keep both but without the parametric EQ some of the music I listen to sounds slightly too dry with this amp, which is frustrating because I'll switch to a different album and it's bliss! So off I go to sell and on…

Hi, I recently bought a used SRM-006T to power my SR-404 headphones. The amplifier seems to be working fine and it has the stock 6CF7 tubes. Sometimes I notice slight distortion when listening to fast paced electro music and Souvenir by OMD. I'm not particularly attracted to the idea of tube rolling but I think I should get the SRM-006T serviced soon and I've been offered the Kimik upgrade for £200. This is a lot of money and I'm starting to consider getting a newer SRM-323S or 323II to replace the 006T. I'm not sure whether to service/upgrade the 006T or get a new and cheaper to run solid state 323. I did try SR-407s with a 323S and noticed that the mid range was…

Hi everybody! Greetings from Barcelona! This is my first post and I want to thank the attention of anyone who responds. I'm interested in buying a tube headphone amplifier, but I have a low budget so it would be interesting to hear some advice from more experienced owners. Looking for through the web I have ended with two interesting candidates: the Little Dot Mk II and the Appj PA1502a. Both have received quite good reviews (not many, but there are some) for the price so I'm undecided. The Little Dot is a class A OTL push-pull amp, while the Appj seems to be a class A transformer output single ended. As for …

I'd like to get a longer USB cable for my Pico so that I can sit on a couch probably about 10 to 15 feet away from where my computer is. I know I could get a headphone extension cable but I like to be able to control the volume and a longer USB cable would minimize the extra connections an extension would add to the mix. So my questions are, is there a maximum length for USB? If a longer cable is possible does anyone know where to get them in such a length because they're not available round these parts?

Has anyone has experience of them?

Well, I've been tossing around the idea lately of getting a new amp and source. I plan on selling my DAC and putting the Millet on preamp duty for my future HT setup. Right now I'm really looking into the Headamp GS-1. I need an amp with 2 inputs and prefer preamp capability (but don't need it), and the GS-1 also has two 1/4th outputs with a line out. As for a source, I'm looking at the Cambridge Azur 650C from Audiocubes. Other than the GS-1, I'd be interested in a SLAM from Mikhail, or maybe something from the DIY garden (Dynamite?). I'll use my 0404 and possibly the 640C as sources, and would like to use the preamp feature to drive a T-Amp and my Paradigm Atoms. …

I haven't really kept up with the headphone amp market much as of late. I started taking a look around to see what tube amps are currently available and there really doesn't seem to be all that many. The Woo Audio stuff has always looked interesting to me as they seem to be very well built and priced pretty well. Does anyone have any thoughts or impressions on the WA2 or the WA6SE?

Possible production of new units. I am working on Craig to do a special "limited" run of the full size Zana Duex like I have. This would be for 10 to maybe 15 "hard in the books" commitment of people. He would point to point wire each and do one at a time with the possibility of some very limited assembly line type of thing going on. This amp has to be done by him personally to be correct. A one man operation. If you are last on the list it could be some time. Price is a guess at this point anywhere from $1500 to $1800. He thought he could do them cheaper but probably can't. Disclaimer: I am not an employee or partner of any kind to Eddie Current. I make nothing on this.…

Hello all, First a little background: I recently switched to cranking my GS-X up to high gain and then a buddy came over with Edt. 9s I heard hiss (even when the volume is set to zero). I checked and I can't hear the hiss with my HD650, D5000s or SA5000s. I tried my Shure SE530s and the hiss was there with them too. I did all these checks after disconnecting it from my DAC3 at the back of the amp. On medium gain the hiss is inaudible with the Edt. 9s and slightly audible with the SE530s. On low gain the hiss is barely audible with the Shures when the amp is cranked. This all makes sense since the gain switch is in the feedback loop on the amp so it should drop gain …

Recently I sent an e-mail to David Berning asking whether he has any intention to build a headphone amp and he offered to build me a 6V6-based amp for around $2K based on one of his low power (7 watts per channel) stereo amps. He would customize the amp to add a volume control, RCA ins, and a headphone jack. He says the final amp would sound better with low impedance headphones than high impedance headphones because it was originally designed to drive speakers. I know Berning is highly regarded for his power amps but don't know if that reputation extends to headphone amps. I know he used to make the his "micro ZOTL" headphone amp but it was discontinued a few yea…

Ha! ... gotta love the Gilmore Raptor

While my K340's sound produces an instant grin even when powered from my mini-dac 1/4" output. I am looking now for an amp so that can let the K340's sing My initial budget is $300-$500 (used or new) I'll be feeding the amp from XLR out's of my apogee mini-dac.

Just read about this in SoundOnSound magazine -- another entry into the portable USB DAC/amp category. Of interest: extremely small USB-powered very simple (USB port on one end, headphone jack on the other, volume knob) company provides technology to the likes of Benchmark, et al targeted at professionals (and probably "prosumers") "seriously low" jitter figure via reclocking (1 picosecond) $400 It's that second-to-last one that caught my attention (no, Colin, I still haven't read that article you linked for me).

All my little boxes of little tubes are starting to drive me crazy. They are all over my desk, all around the house. I've read not to store them in drawers, because the constant opening/closing could shake things up, so I've been keeping them on the top shelf of a dark closet, but they must creep out at night and spread all over my desk. So what do you do with your unused tubes, and do you have any nice, tidy, tube storage solutions?

Sure, there's the original Xana, but realistically, there are no commercially-available, high-end transformer-coupled tube headphone amps, which is a shame, because all the OTL headphone amps I've heard are not especially good at driving low-impedance loads, at least not as well as similarly-priced SS/hybrid amps that I've also heard. Why is this the case? Is it harder to do a good transformer-coupled tube headphone amp right? Do the parts cost more?

Hi, I am not sure if this is right sub section for this and this is my first post a head case My requirement is following: I need to be able to share my music with my gf. So, the main question here is, can I use a y splitter with any amplifier. Lets say with a pico? Or do I need to go only for units with 2 headphone outs. I need a single unit as my UAB DAC/Headphone amp for convenience of moving it around. I am ready to shell out around $1k for the unit apart from headphones. My choices with 2 headphone outs: 1. Meier Audio Opera/ Symphony - Symphony is really costly and for Opera I am getting only the 0,120 ohm versions. Shouldn't I need both h/p outs as 0 ohms 2…

I swore that I would never buy a portable amp, but the Zen Vision M's headphone output just doesn't supply enough current for the D5000s. So guess where my first paycheck on the job went? To an used AE-2 in Virginia. But at least I've heard the AE-2 with the D5000s and the combo sounded very nice, a very groovy type of sound. I'll probably sell the AE-2 once the summer is over though.

Well, I got a summer internship in DC, so I am in need of a simple DAC+amp unit that does the job decently. The only one that I could think of was the GCHA, but I haven't actually heard the unit, but I read some good comments here from Reks in older threads. I will be running off its USB connection, driving RS-1s and HD650s. Any impressions would be fine.

At what point should you start to worry about how hot your amps (and other components) get? For example, my HR Balanced desktop runs hot, as expected, and so does the Desktop Power Supply. Further the DAC1 also runs pretty warm, which is also expected. Regardless of the fact that it is expected, it still concerns me. Should it? At what point do you consider the heat as a sign of a problem, or the imminent cause of one. Er, aside from fire that is.

I knew Alex was getting ready to roll out his new amp and I saw a reference to the new site earlier this evening on HF. I am not going to wax lyrical about the amp as I am not trying to schill the gear for him. To say I like the amp would be an understatement but I do and have been and have been using the initial prototype for several months. Thought some of you who still listen to dynamic headphones would want to know Liquid Fire is finally getting ready to become a reality. ..dB

The following is what I can understand of the theory behind the diffuse field equalisers Stax produced and an assessment of the sound of one of them. Diffuse Field Equalisation vs Free Field Equalisation. Headphone frequency response measurements, conducted with a microphone in front of the headphone driver, much as speaker measurements were conducted, observed that headphones with a measured flat frequency response did not sound as flat as they measured. Comparing the sound of a flat measured speaker with a flat measured headphone revealed extreme tonal differences that started off a whole lot of investigation into why they sounded different and how a headphone’s fre…