Headphone Amplification

I'm just wondering how big the worldwide market for portable headphone amps is. In october I bought my first - a Tomahawk, and it's serial # 697. With reading the various hifi websites, I'd guess that the Tomahawk has at least 30-40% of the market, or it did until the Pico / Predator came out. I live in London and have never seen anyone else with a portable amp, despite the fact that millions of commuters use portable audio. I've actually seen more Ultimate Ears 10-pros (1) than headphone amps! Of course this is hardly empirical; I've never met anyone else with Etymotic phones and I know they are relatively popular. By that very rough estimate, there would be 2000 - 30…

Greetings all! a newbee here I have an econo phono/valve amp that I picked up years ago second-hand and have no clue where it was purchased or manufactured. It appears to have Chinese writing on it and it also does have "GUANGHENG TM300 - TM400AB" on the transformer cover. The transformer is fried and I'm not sure if it's worth repairing but I would do so if I can find one and it's a reasonable cost. Here's a couple of pics and thanks for your time.

Well I have an AT W10LTD, W10VTG (soon), and AKG K280 on the way, and I'm gonna need a more versatile amp to drive them. I was thinking of something like a PPX3, but I'd like to see what all you old AT (and AKG) fans have to say.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/Romanee/small%20tube%20amps/audiokitsLunchboxLaconic_01.jpg

hi everyone, i m torn between building an ehha and an aikido and the lack of info about them(especially aikido) has led me to ask for a comparison between the two. i d be using the ehha with a sigma22 and the aikido would be broskie latest octal lsa/hpa all-in-one(because i have a couple of sylvania and rca 6sn7 doing nothing in my wardrobe). comments on any aikido amp would be welcome as well. i m opened to other tube amps but those two seemed the best to me as far as i looked. if it can help i have a beta22 and a dual darkvoice 336i that you can compare with. any input would be appreciated

here an interesting review : edit: no it wasn't

Hi, I'm new. I'm looking into incrementally putting together an affordable setup and was hoping to get some advice from you guys on what I should get and in what order. Background: I listen to mostly indie rock and jazz off of a macbook (external hard drive). I just recently got a pair of sr225s and i'd like to put them to a little better use. My next purchase will be in the $300-$400 range and then it'll be about month or so between purchases, so I'd like to buy things in an order that will make the most difference. I know it's not a lot of money (and i don't have the greatest cans in the world) but you gotta start somewhere. Thanks in advance for the help...

Don't get excited, this is not an in-depth comparison but I'm on my second day with my new SMv6 with the AD8620 and switches and thought I'd post some thoughts. Well my thoughts are pretty flat lined right now... I'm asking myself what I paid for The amp is a vast improvement over the previous SM3v3 and once again sounds great and drives my DT770-250 without a problem. It's slightly dry but still airy and detailed. I've yet to roll any of the included opamps and this is only about 25 hours of burn-in. One of my main reasons for replacing it was the Hornet seemed rather poor at driving my DT770-250 (songs with heavy bass had low end distortion at high volumes). I…

Just showed up today: stepped attenuator, four inputs, high/low gain switch First impressions: this thing is HUGE, and pretty heavy (18 lbs maybe). Usually when I see something online, it ends up being smaller in person. I honestly expected the Dynahi to be about the size of a PPX3 chassis, and its actually as wide as the Melos and a bit taller! I had a brief scare when I was trying to hook it up. The labels on the source selection knob on the front don't match up to the plugs on the back, so for a while I wasn't getting any sound. Now I have the ICs running into the DAC inputs, but my source selection knob is on tuner. Actually, the inputs on the back are l…

Hi all, New guy here, just like to introduce myself. More of a speaker guy myself, but have recently discovered the virtues of a good headphone. Anyway, was wondering if anyone around here has had experience with the 6H30 tube, using a pair of sov's atm but im not liking the reliability of them (might be bad batch dunno). So was eyeing the electro-harmonix gold pin version, however some sources suggest they have a different pin config. I'm sus of this, anyone know weither this is true or not?

I got a quickie HF-style poll for y'all. Got me some HF2s and AD2000s, and I'm looking for a cheap, temporary amp about $200ish. I'm probably gonna have a chance to buy one of these soon. I don't care for amp coloration; I just want my source and phones to do their thing. The amp just provides the power and keeps the signal clean. Other suggestions welcome, preferably used and available right now. Edit: Oh yeah, and impressions/comparisons are very welcome. Thanks.

Hello all! I'm looking for a decent but cheapish DAC/Amp that has significant negative gain, and was wondering if anyone knew of anything? I'm using it to connect to my digital piano software, with which I use a pair of Etymotic 4XRs. At standard levels and 0dB gain I usually need to attenuate by at least 24dB before I can even get close to half volume with most pots. I'll add that I'm also using it at relatively low output levels because of my messed up ears, so it really would be nice to have some meaningful volume range without having to use massive digital attenuation. Also, using that kind of digital attenuation still leaves the amp itself at a much higher outpu…

Anyone have any feelings they'd like to share about this conflict? http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=233352 Basically Headphonia completely ripped off Dr. Meier's design for the Porta Corda III. I don't get any joy out of portable amplification but it was an interesting thread to read through.

Not a bad deal at all. Seller wants a local pickup. If I was in the Bay Area I would probably pick it up. Any Bay Areas interested? It is on sale on the other site. Seller is located in Sacramento. FS: SinglePower Extreme - Local preferred - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

I guess dCS decided that headphone-based systems are now worthy of their time: https://shop.dcsaudio.com/products/lina-system Figured most people would be interested in the amplifier so I put it in this section: DAC includes crossfeed EQ (didn't look into whether it was software/hardware), compute module on the side for either Roon or whatever dCS decides to do in-house. Looks like a scaled down version of their ubiquitous Ring DAC External clock lets you use the DAC with OCXO's instead: Full system cost seems to total 29,150 USD. Price aside I think the casework is pretty cool, I saw esoteric do similar things with some of their new …

My M22 will not power up. I worked fine earlier in the day yesterday. I shut it down for an hour and it would not power up again. I took off the bottom and the fuse seems to be intact. Did not see any issue with the power cord connection inside. Any suggestions on where to send for repair? Thanks.

So our Rotel 1068 processor is starting to give up the ghost. I need to buy another processor or receiver. I have external amplification I am happy with so a processor is preferred. Since these things seem to change daily I am looking for recommendations. Does not have to be latest gen but at this point I do want HDMI switching. Looking at $1500 approx. although less is always nice.

So who's going to be the first to try this with their K1000's? Looks...flat. Looks like a stomp box, actually, but is said to run cool, so no need for heatsinks and such. New-ish technology -- "magnetic flux fluctuation" -- no tubes or transisters, but does have one opamp. Homely page

Was doing some research on the available dac/amp combos to use on a desk. Noticed the Sony TA-ZH1ES. Anyone know anything about this? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1295894-REG/sony_tazh1es_premium_headphone_amplifier_with.html https://www.sony.com/electronics/audio-components/ta-zh1es

Does anyone know what’s the best amp and dac for the utopia excluding the cavallis?

Info about an upcoming electrostatic amp from Bottlehead. https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=12157.0

You guys are mean. You should also mention weather conditions. Yes, there was weather. No, I don't remember what it was. Here it is, for those of you even lazier than I.

Hi tube gurus... so I'm www surfing for various "preamp" tubes and running into the usual trendy-hot flavors telefunken, mullard, brimar, amperex...etc. Some as much as $100-160 each from various NOS and used sellers. And then I see EVERYWHERE, an underlying seemingly abundant surplus of GE tubes going for a fraction of that, like $6-7 each. In general, then just how bad are GE tubes?... are they really "that" bad that people are literally giving them away? What have been your experiences with them and what amp, source or preamp are/were you using them in? thanks!!

http://www.erzetich-audio.com/deimos_prestige_headphone_amplifier http://www.monoandstereo.com/2014/09/erzetich-deimos-prestige-headphone.html?spref=tw&m=1 "We wanted to go beyond and make something that really stands out from the point of electronics, sound, design and prestige. This project has been developed under the name POS."

Does anyone have an idea what's under the hood of the fabled AT amp? I'm giving thought to taking a stab at the amp. Any help would be appreciated.