Headphone Amplification

From RSA's site: Another amp/dac combo for your portable applications. So many of these are available now. I rather save my hearing for my home/work rig.

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.

After mucho waiting and waiting, it appears that Larry at LaRocco may...I say with hesitation...may be actually readying to ship. The latest word is that "some" amps will be shipping this week with the rest soon to follow. There were supposedly 50 in the original group buy, and according to Duncan (Larry's still not talking), there are 100 ready to go. Anyway, after all this waiting, this is all I've got to go on, so here are the lastest pics/teases swiped from a post at ipastudio: All non-alignment critical parts are assembled prior to final chassis assembly on the PCB. The final aligned control and interface components are installed in the chassis, tested,…

I find the built in headphone amp in my E-MU0404USB is really lacking compared to my M^3. So I've been thinking about getting the Mini^3. Or I'll entertain other amps in its price range.

I never thought I'd get a tube amp but it looks like I am. I know nothing on the subject but really need a crash course. Is there a good resource out there that I can read?

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/ Not a bad review but I wish the reviewer did a better job at reviewing the B-52 as a headphone amp rather than pre-amp. I'm wondering how well does the B-52 handle the R10, Qualia, and L3000.

I've pretty much settled on the L3000 as the headphones for me (other than the K1000) and I'd like to look into comissioning a high end custom built tube amp for them. The L3000 specs from their website: Type Closed-back dynamic Driver Diameter 53 mm Magnet Neodymium Case Cherry blossoms wood, CONNOLLY leather Frequency Response 5 - 45,000Hz Maximum Input Power 2,000mW Output Sound Level 104 dB/mW Impedance 48 Ω Weight 380 g Cable 3.0 m Connector ?6.3 mm phone plug Accessories Furnished BOX So I'm probably looking for schematics that are available that I could have someone build the amp based on. Does not need to have a preamp. Headphone amp o…

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1194912658 Looking at the parts used and the design it sounds like it might be kinda neat. Custom tango iron for 2.5k? Maybe I'll grab this for a K1000 amp. Some of direct coupled design? Yeah okay I really don't know enough to know if this is any good ;p

I was wondering if anyone knew the going rate for a used ARC PH3 phonostage in a good condition? I've been thinking of selling it and replacing it with a solid state phonostage since it's not exactly the quietest phonostage. I'm wondering if I can resolve some of the noise issue by replacing the tubes, but I know very little about the design of PH3 and 6922 tubes it uses. EDIT - I've been looking on A'Gon, but haven't seen any PH3 on there of late.

I've read some comments about very slow build times and delayed delivery dates, sometimes as much as several months. I realize SinglePower is a small company and customization takes time. I don't mind waiting several months. I've waited months for headphone cables, so waiting for an amp isn't a problem. I'm just wondering what to expect.

I found a post by "morphsci" listing his ES-1 options in his thread titled "Custom ES-1 about to find its new home" on that other site. 1). Power Transformers Plitron Custom Toroidal 2). Cardas Silver Solder surcharge 3). Cardas Audio Wiring 4). Audio Note Silver Foil in oil coupling capacitors 5). 4 Channel GoldPoint Attenuator 6). Solen Plate Voltage Input Capacitor 7). Black Gate Power Capacitors Stage I . Black Gate Cathode bypass capacitors ES 9). Dual Umbilical cord upgrade for maximum separation 10). Quad Regulators for maximum separation Other than these options, plus maybe some extra inputs and preamp outputs, what other options would be nice to ha…

I had a fun 20 mins chatting with Mikhail, speccing up a high voltage Supra for my newly acquired R10's. After saying 'yes' to most of the options (mostly having Blackgates all around), two things that were sticking points for me were the Plitron transformer ($900 vs $250 for an upgraded Supra Transformer) and Audio Note coupling caps (again around $7-900 - bit hazy here, vs $360 for V-Cap Coupling Caps). My question for those who have been able to do a comparison, is what difference does a Plitron transformer or Audio Note coupling caps make and is the extra cost worth it? If you had to choose one upgrade, which would it be? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this …

Received her Wednesday afternoon and we've been getting along just fine so far! Like a lot of my favorite gear, its sonic presentation was unexpected at first and took some getting used to. This happened with the L3000, Qualia, and my vinyl rig - often it takes several listens to really get a handle of whether something so new is truly going to be wonderful in the long run. The one exception would be my SDS, which was pretty much love at first listen. I'm still in that evaluation period with the Zana Deux, but it's already bestowed some truly magical listening sessions and several spine-chilling instances. What got me about the Zana was how it's unlike other tube amp…

http://tubecad.com/2007/08/blog0117.htm Woo! I wonder how it would do with Grados.

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

I'm always intrigued by a full line of products from one manufacturer that can pretty much handle all your audio needs. As much praise as I've read about the Opus 21, I'm surprised to have never even heard of the S30 Integrated Amplifier and the XS "Extra Sources"..., um, box thing, which has an MC and MM phono stage, additional inputs including USB, an FM/AM tuner (!!!!!!), and a headphone amplifier. Can't find much about these two components around the world wide internet. Anybody ever seen them, heard them, or read a review of them?

http://www.tubedepot.com/nos-4212e.html Holy Shit! $2000 for a pair.

I am looking at some new output tubes to try in my latest idea. The 1626 looks good. A low mu and lower power output tube so if the amp is transformer coupled I will get a good half to three quarter of a watt. Not to much .... not to little and only $5 a piece. I have a lot of 6S4A's and 6P14P-EV's but I want a cool looking coke bottle shaped tube. I have some coke bottle shaped pentodes like the 6Y6G .... and they have the advantage that they have the same pinout as a bunch of other pentodes. But the 1626 is a true triode like the 6S4A and will likely sound better; although you never know. But do I need to break the mold and start using a true pentode .... or atleast …

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…

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1192058776 I'm not sure what it is, or what tubes those are...but it does look funky enough to be a "collector's" amp.

So I go to case up my M^3 today, and I snap the volume pot's shaft. Yes I snapped a shaft. Dammit, so for the fuck of it I tried to epoxy that shit back into place. Game over for my RK27. Fuck. So I fire up my VanTOTL tonight, to discover my only 6AS7 has decided that about 10 hours of use was enough, and one of the triodes is dead. At least I have a backup 6080. *sigh* Amp maintenance isn't my idea of fun spending.

everything considered should be under $150... preferably under $100 to buy or build. some amps of up to $300 in cost to build or buy may be considered if TRULLY worth the extra dough... but try to keep the recomendations under the first list of requirements. also, list what phones and IEMs the amps pair well with.

Okay. I've been applying to new apartments and they keep asking me about my stuff (Berkeley people are notoriously stressing over conservation and such). The thing is that my rig keeps freaking people out: i use alot of electricity and many power cords and shit. At minimum i use: 1 outlet for my music hard drive, 1 outlet for my sound card, 1 outlet for my transport, 1 outlet for my dac, and 1 outlet for my Zana Deux. This is bad... very bad. It doesn't look good and such. The thing is that I want to say away from making me rig into a "benchmark dac-1 with usb." or worse a corda opera. If i do decide to consolidate, I want something that's gonna be the shit. here ar…

Since changing up my work rig, the Lunchbox is kind of in limbo with me right now... I'm not sure if it's staying or going. But I was reading Skylab's Lunchbox II impressions "over there," and was interested if anyone here had tried rolling tubes with it. It seems as though the Western Electric 396A and/or Sylvania 2C51are direct swaps for the 6N3P and the Electro-Motive 6FC7 is a direct swap for the 6N24P, and I've read nothing but positive reviews of the results in the LB & the EC-01. I ordered some from the TubeDepot, as I figured $30 wasn't a big chance to take, but I'm curious what to expect. IMO, the LB offers a pretty impressive bang for the buck, and i…

I'm mulling over the options. The source will be a laptop, possibly a docking station with a Lynx Two in it. I'll probably order a headphone out of the Headroom options to go along with it. Any opinions? I'll probably be going with Home modules either way, and speccing the DAC as a flexibility option. What does the ~$1200 difference boil down to?