Headphone Amplification

Someone in my country is selling one of these for 1000 euros + shipping in a quite good condition. It has separate power supply (as every Gilmore Reference I guess) with oversized trannie, Blackgates internal Vampire wire and is fully balanced with separate RCA and XLR inputs and also SE and balanced outs with a switch in the back to chose either RCA or XLR, and separated stepped attenuators for each channel. I'd be thankful if anyone could tell me what was the original price for this amp, whether in your opinion it's worth trying it at that used price, and some technical specs, which I haven't found at the Headamp page. Considering I already own a RPX-100 and a H…

Since I saw a pic of the board, I was wondering if it is worth it to "clone" as a DIY project the amp. I found two very useful pics of the inside. Based on it, I tried to fill in the parts: Is it a AC coupled amp ? The two closest cap from the potentiometer are input caps and i'm wondering if the two electrolytic caps close to the 1W resistors are output caps. Also, I don't know the name of the componant below the left 1W resistor. There are two of them. I think the output stage is push-pull, it probably looks like this: here is what I got so far. What do you think ? PS: I don't know if it is the right section and if it is allowed on this forum, mods fell fre…

Right, another one of my "x vs. y" threads... I've been going back and forth with a guy on head-fi about buying his SLAM SE, and it seems he's not really interested in selling it anymore (after I sold off my whole rig ). I have a WTB ad up there (and here), but it got me thinking about whether it was worth buying used. Anyway, I fired off an e-mail to Mikhail about it, but I think I'll probably end up with a used amp, since I'd need it by January to take advantage of the fact that my dad will be in PA for a couple of weeks (no tax makes a HUGE difference!). While I was considering that, something that's always been in the back of my mind came up. I've always been cu…

I know they don't get many (any?) mentions over here and this will probably mark me as irretrievably jejeune -- but, for the money, I've been pretty happy with the Little Dot MkIVse I picked up used on HF. Anyway, their new balanced tube amp is apparently now available at a fairly tempting $724 shipped to the U.S. and I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the basic design? Haven't been able to locate any specs, though they explicitly say it was designed to be able to drive K1000s. Any idea what the driver tubes might be? Pity about the gold tube sockets, but what are you gonna do?

http://schiit.com/products/ragnarok http://www.head-fi.org/t/731216/oh-schiit-its-the-end-of-the-world-announcing-ragnarok Schiit is doing a public beta. Retail is $1700, public beta folks pay $1500 with a two week return period. Its an interesting amp, the big deal as I see it is it uses the same amplification section for the speakers and for the headphones, not sure if this has been done before in an integrated. Of course this also has the potential for terrible things to happen for that one dumbass who uses his IEMs on the high gain setting. I don't own, nor have I heard, a single piece of Schiit but I admit the company fascinates me. I love of course t…

So I've had about a week of listening time with TTVJ's loaner Corda Opera, and tonight some people came over to hear it as well. Basically we were pretty disappointed by it: it just did not have enough power plain and simple. I tried both the HD650s and the K701s, and the Opera had trouble driving them to levels that I consider acceptable. For some of my harder hitting music, I had to use up the entire range on the volume pot on high gain to get enough dynamic swing out of the K701s (of course the K701s are dynamic to begin with). It's a little bit better with the HD650s, but the sound just reminds me of every other mid-fi SS gear I've heard: which is to say, nothing …

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.

Last month Craig Uthus of Eddie Current debuted a new amp at a smallish gather of friends in NorCal. I've heard many amps by Craig and I've been impressed by his output with some of his amps like the BA and HD25 hitting it out of the park for me. I've owned a few of Craig's amps notably one of the original Moth 2a3s that was a visual masterpiece and sonically one of my all time favorites. To this day it is the one piece of gear that I regret selling. He's made better sounding amps like the HD 25 and Balancing act since then but the marriage of industrial almost gothic design, old school innards like brass plugs for switching output impedance and wax cloth wires and pluse…

My Rockhopper Audio β22 has arrived! I have to re-arrange and adjust my rack shelves since I didn't leave quite enough vertical space when I last adjusted the shelves. Well, I'm going to go set it up now!

I am trying to decide between the Headroom BUDA+DPS and GS-X to use as a "backup" balanced solid state amp to use with HD800 and ECD-1 for those times that I don't want to fire up the tube amp (Woo Audio WA5 LE). There are advantages to both of them. For instance, BUDA+DPS is maybe slightly smaller, bit cheaper (can't members of the other site get some sort of 10% discount?), will convert SE to balanced from an unbalanced source like my SA8001 that I use to listen to the few SACDs that I own, has a shorter waiting period. However, the GS-X is fully discrete while the the BUDA is chip based, the GS-X has stepped attenuators, and Justin's work is absolutely amazing. Als…

I recently purchased a Blue Hawaii (DIY) and it looks great. I am ensuring that all is well, and I am performing some measurements on the amplifier prior to plugging in my headphones (SR-Omega.) The amplifier was built in a single chassis and uses Headamp's boards from 2004. One thing I noticed while examining Kevin's project page for the Blue Hawaii is that it calls for +-450v and +-15v outputs on the PSU. However, the Headamp KGSS/Blue Hawaii (as labeled) supply boards seems to output +/-360v and +/-15v. This seems to be closer to the KGSS specification. Does this throw off the amplifier sections in any way? Finally, when I measures from Bias output to Ground on …

What is a reasonable price for a used KGSS?

Anyone else notice this? hmmm.... ALO Double M3 amp - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

FS: Aristaeus - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

so i received this amp yesterday and i plugged it in last night in the following order. 1. put bendix 6080 tubes all the way in the back 2 sockets. 2. put the sylvania 6sn7 tube in the front. noticed that the metal base was slightly loose and could be moved a wee bit. 3. attached the necessary cables and then turned it on with the headphone plugged in. 4. listened to music. the gear loop is very simple and as follows. lenovo laptop (line out) - mini - rca cable - sp extreme - hd 650s. problem that only occurred last night if i even tap the amp lightly with my fingernail it sounds like it would if i were inside a tube and someone were tappin…

Intro As mentioned in my previous review of the Shanling PH3000, I'm really no longer writing reviews, but I recently had an opportunity to check out the Woo Audio 6. Thought I might as well write a review of this amp too while I was at it. Like the Shanling PH3000 review, this too was accelerated - all listening here was also done in 4 days, so this can be considered more of a mini-review than a full-length one. Associated Equipment Power cord: Black Sand Silver Reference MKV Digital source: Plinius CD-101 RCA interconnects: Analysis Plus Silver Oval Comparison amplifier: HeadAmp Gilmore Lite (used only as a reference point of contrast) Headphones: AKG K7…

There has been very tranparent and clear pictures of the 32000 USD base model of Warwick Aperio. Sonic wise, while it doesn't have the stage height of Hifiman Shang SR and maybe even the seperation of Stax X9000 driven by T2/ Grand Cayman with TOTL source, it does have the best low extension as well as the most normal shape of stage. While I feel TOTL AIO electrostactic systems as HE-1 and Aperio have better transducer and headphones (or most current after market electrostactic headphones are problematic here and there ), they might be limited by the geometery to accomodate the best amplification. Looking inside of the chasis, while I won't judge the component…

What commercial tube head amp would you buy?

I figured something this rare deserved a thread of its own. Let me introduce the Stax SRA-7S, integrated amp for earspeakers. This was introduced in 1966 for the SR-1 and remained in production into the 70's. With Stax we never really know when they stopped making something but given it's all tube design, it was dead by the mid 70's. This one was missing just one knob but amazingly they are still in current production. A full set has already been sourced... Those RCA's really need to go but pretty clean over all. Pretty much unmolested but somebody decided to remove the fuse holder. Not a good sign... Amp and phono stage on separ…

When using Normal Bias Stax SR-Lambdas, or any normal bias stax can; can the sb energizer, paired with a great amp, deliver sound on par with a stand alone stax amp? Or will it always be lacking? example: Pair a fully restored Fisher 400 tube amp -> srd-7sb -> sr-lambda (normal bias) What level of sound can you expect from this? would the performance be on par with anything modern or classic? and is the srd-7sb the weak link here? is the standard srd-7 preferred? I have been pondering this, as it can be much easier, and less costly to find and restore an old tube amp then to buy or build a new amp. The Fisher for example is a well regarded amp. 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

Could someone please recommend a few Solid State headphone amps either to buy or have built. I've read so much my eyes are popping out of my head. I've got LCD X's. I've listened to a few friends tube and SS amps (Woo, Lake People, HeadRoom (older Home amp). I don't want to deal with tubes and want to go SS but can't afford Stax for a few years. You guys certainly know leagues more than I and there is no bull$itt here. Thanks.

Hey guys, Check out my review if you have the time, just got put up couple of days ago: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/headroom2/desktop.html

I have had my HeadAmp Gilmore Lite + DPS for over three years now, and I have never given serious thought to replacing it. It drives all my cans to a satisfactory level, except of course the TakeTs. Earlier this year I had designs on going balanced, but four months of house renovation has ensured I won't be bankrolling that any time ...ever, really. I'm now content to live in the single ended solid state world, but.. I am in need of an amp with more than one input. In spite of my recently acquisition of a Quad 99 CDP-2, and its variable outputs, I could benefit from the GS-1's preamp outputs as well. I see a lot of Beta22s changing hands around here. Most are mad…

Get your orders in, folks, don't miss out: https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=120&cp_id=12008&cs_id=1200801&p_id=33305&seq=1&format=2