Headphone Amplification

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.

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'm new here. Just bought a Shure SE530 this week on impulse. Actually I was a little tired of the Etys during my last business trip. They are just a tad too bright and lean for my taste. Anyways, I was trying to plug the SE530 to my various amps at home last night and got a really loud buzz coming out of both sides when the volume was set at 0. Today, I tried it with my portable Headroom Airhead and samething happened again. I plugged the SE530 directly into my iAudio X5 and they sounded great. I checked Shure's website and in the FAQ section it says that it is not necessary, but OK to, plug these into a headphone amp. I did some search here, and others have use headp…

Yes, I've finally took delivery of my Diablo. I just picked it up a few minutes ago, it's charging at the moment, so I don't have too much to report. I'll take some pics and report on it's performance out of the box in a few hours.

I just saw this on Lloyd's website, and he has a newsletter describing the various technical changes that went into the new model: http://hollowstate.netfirms.com/Branches5.pdf

Hi, I'm looking for a portable headphone amp with good imaging, high detail and a very fair reproduction of the source. My budget is roundabout $400. I was considering one of the offerings from Ray Samuel until I read the opinions here. Instead do you have any particular recommendations? I've heard good things about Graham Slee's voyager, would that be a good choice? This is all baring in the that I'm limited to closed phones because I'll be monitoring input sources - perhaps oneday I'll invest in the etymotic H4s's. Cheers

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

I bought a CEC HD53R for exactly 40 000 Yen in Japan (which is around $370 USD), to pair with my Edition 9s. While it does sound nice, I have some lingering after thoughts... Unfortunately I only found one reference to this amp in this forum. I'm hoping somebody with experience with the HD53R can help me. For it's price, did I make the right choice? Are there any other headphones that magically synergizes with this amp?

Can you hear the piano on Bob Dylan's Mondern Times, "Spirit on the Water" and if you can, where is it? my mid range set up: Computer>optical Constantine>Woo3, GS1 Listening with my 880s tonight: (stock foobar 9.5, 32 bit, kernel streaming, album@320kpps mp3~EAC With the Woo3 the piano is subdued, on the right and mixed into the music With the GS1, I can hear the piano as a separate instrument, but barely..... lots of air and space to the cut, but I'm having difficulty picking out the piano with the tube amp and can only do it slightly better with the SS. What are you guys hearing? USG

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…

OK, getting right to the point: My experience has primarily been solid state amps to date, but I am itching to get a tube amp into my portfolio. My headphone stable has been whittled down to: L3000 (my pinnacle...erhh Barry Bonds??!!) w5000 (sold first pair, then reacquired 2nd...yes assinine behavior but I like the w5000...) HD650 (initially unimpressed, but really impressed the longer I use them) RS-1 (my first intro to hi-end headphones, sold off all other Grados including PS-1 and HHF-1, but still attached to RS-1...) few other phones, but they're secondary Of course, there isn't a "one-shot" magic solution, but any suggestions on a complimentary tube amp…

Has anyone used these in any amp? Are they worth the premium price?

I want to connect the output on my soundcard to one of the AMP800's inputs, but I don't know the best way to do this. The output on my soundcard is 3.5mm stereo, the Behringer AMP800 has two 6.3mm inputs for the left and right channels. I've been getting conflicting information, one of my friends suggests this--- 1/8 in. Stereo to Dual 1/4 in. Mono Cable http://www.zzounds.com/item--HOSCMP15 . My other friend says this cable would not work, as it would give two mono signals, not a left channel and a right channel. Thanks for any help on this.

I have some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20989038@N04/sets/72157603216939944/ I ordered at RMAF2007 after a short audition. I currently have an SP MPX3 SE Slam, a MAD HD1, a McAlister Preamp/headphone amp (PL 12, I think). I don't think my hearing is good enough to really distinguish the important differences between the three, and I am also not sure I can put what I hear into words, but I will review the SBH after I get it broken in and used to it both as a headphone amp and a preamp. I have excessive gain with both my MPX3 and PL 12 preamp sections. The SBH will have lo and hi gain operation. It can also be operated as both a preamp and headphone amp…

Hi guys. I've owned to Xin amps (Supermini III and Supermacro LE) and I don't think very highly of them. On Headfi, Xin receives a lot of praise, especially for the Supermicro and the Reference. After my experience with the other two models, I'm not very keen on trying either. Has anyone had experience with Xin? What do you think of his work?

After doing my first recable I find that I would like to see if really running left/right separate make a difference. So now I am looking for a nice easy cheap (!) solution. Ideas anyone?

With my SP K1000 power amp nowhere to be seen, and with a potential need for a budget power amp for my Epos ELS-3 that I have setup for TV/Cable/DVD purpose, I've been reading about some gainclone amps. Most posts/threads about them are favorable and they seem to be great bang-for-buck. With that, anyone here has any idea how well (or not) gainclone amps will work with K1000's? My thinking is if it works well enough, I'll get one and use it to tide me over until SP power amp shows up, after which I'll use it with Epos.

Was pretty interested in what you guys thought the woo audio 4 or 5 would sound with grados??

Hi, Can anyone give me a list of amps with some balanced input (I don't care if it has unbalanced input or not, but if it does, please note it)? I'm thinking about getting one of those....but not necessarily to use balanced headphones with it. Just want to use balanced sources with headphones. Thanks in advance!

So, this is coming out in a week. As I'm busy trying to learn about such things, I'm curious as to why someone would choose to build a Class D portable amp, or if it's such a good idea, why, with the explosion of portables, hasn't it been done more (I think Headroom has a Class D desktop, but I don't know of others)? http://www.i-qube.nl/index.php?id=18 EDIT: I'm thinking mainly in terms of sound.

A number of us have been contacting Hagerman over the past year or so regarding a SET headphone amp design. He said he'll do something about it independently. Oh snap. It's coming. Ultra excited. http://www.hagtech.com/castanet.html

Heh...I JUST found this place. I had a uestion about the predator, and there hasn't been an answer. I'm thinking it won't be answered because my suspicions are right. That and any negativity (even if contructive) towards RSA is frowned upon over there. Apparently not so much here, so I'll ask here, lol. Here's the post I made, and it hasn't gotten a response yet: -------------------------------- I have a question about the gain. You say the gain is set at 11 in high. An iPods line out is 1vRMS, which is 2.8vpp full scale(volts peak to peak, according to Vinnie on various threads). Wouldn't you need ATLEAST 32 volts to have a gain of 11 on an iPod so you don't…

I finally got this guy from fed ex this morning but have only listened to a few CD's on it. So far I like it over my old amp which was an SR-71 [sic] and sick. I'm using this amp with my only piar of reference headphones that I have on me right now which are HD650s. When I get my sr325's back I'll see how this amp pairs with them. I'm using them out of a harman/kardon hd710. This is the most laid back amp I've heard, though it should be noted that I haven't heard a lot. There is a real focus on the midrange and upper midrange. Trebble is present but this amp is by no means forward. This amp produces little bass and what bass there is has little punch. That's the only …

Hi, After scaring the shit out of me (as someone coming from headfi, many of the topics here are very "enlightning"....), you gotta tell me "the truth" about my amps ;-) I have a RSA Hornet, and although i`ve never quite got all the fuzz about it over at headfi, i thought it was ok (i have to add, that i did buy it used for a very good price. The retail price always seemed crazy to me...), some of the comments here about RSA products in general caught my eye: "Safety hazard, errors in the layout, a.s.o". So what?s the truth about the Hornet? What are his faults? Where does it stand performancewise for real? My home amp is the Corda Aria. I always liked it a lot …

If anyone's interested, there's a good deal on Gilmore Lite over at Audiogon. I'm not associated with the seller, and would've bought it myself if I needed another amp. http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1197940150