Amp for Headphones and Speakers?

[Uncle Erik]

The Dared MP-5 is designed to drive both headphones and speakers. At $399, it's a steal. Here's the link:

http://www.dared.us/

[Zanth]

The Cary would be my number 1 choice for sure...but the speakers it can power are limited.

[bonethugz]

i've been looking for an amp like that. headphone mainly and speakers second. is this a good idea?

zachwhite0

[gundam91]

Originally Posted by bonethugz

i've been looking for an amp like that. headphone mainly and speakers second. is this a good idea?

zachwhite0

Yes and no. This is another amp from China that I forgot to mention in my earlier thread. I came this close to buying one. ASR had a mini-meet here a couple months ago and I wanted to pit my Cyber 20 against it. Unfortunately, I was sick and missed the meet. According to a friend of mine in Hong Kong, he actually went and listened to them side by side in a store and bought the Cyber 20 instead. So I was curious and want to hear it for myself.

As I had mentioned earlier, you need to figure out which speakers you intend to drive. This one is also a Single Ended Triode (SET) amps with output of 2watts. It will only handle very efficient speakers. Probably speakers with efficiency rating of 98dB and above. (That might be a low number too)

[bonethugz]

Originally Posted by gundam91

Yes and no. This is another amp from China that I forgot to mention in my earlier thread. I came this close to buying one. ASR had a mini-meet here a couple months ago and I wanted to pit my Cyber 20 against it. Unfortunately, I was sick and missed the meet. According to a friend of mine in Hong Kong, he actually went and listened to them side by side in a store and bought the Cyber 20 instead. So I was curious and want to hear it for myself.

As I had mentioned earlier, you need to figure out which speakers you intend to drive. This one is also a Single Ended Triode (SET) amps with output of 2watts. It will only handle very efficient speakers. Probably speakers with efficiency rating of 98dB and above. (That might be a low number too)

then this is really a yes and no. ASR talked how great this headphone amp was via headphone out but he didn't(or i didn't pay attention) tell if this is a good speaker amp. anyway, what about yarland? have you heard about this?

[bonethugz]

i search before but nobody seems to know
sqeezebox questions

[gundam91]

Originally Posted by bonethugz

ASR talked how great this headphone amp was via headphone out but he didn't(or i didn't pay attention) tell if this is a good speaker amp.

I'm pretty sure ASR didn't talk about Cayin's ability to drive the speakers. I had read everything regarding Cayin HA-1A on this forum for the past two years. Either have I with my Consonance Cyber 30. Simply put, I don't have any speakers here that can be driven by the Cyber 30. All of them require a little more muscle than what these SET amps can put out. The only speakers, that I can think of, that can be driven by these are horn speakers.

Originally Posted by bonethugz

what about yarland? have you heard about this?

No I have not. Am I am sure there will be more of them coming ashore soon. I've just browsed through a recent issue of some Asian Hi-End Audio magazine, and I noticed that there were quite a few of ads for headphone amps. (that weren't there a year ago)

There are a lot of audio companies (small operations) coming up in China these days. There was an article in one of those magazines covering a convention in Guongzhou where tons of Chinese audio manufacturers were demonstrating their products. And I had only recongnized a few names. You can see a lot of these products selling on eBay as well, or through some dealers in Hong Kong. As to how good these are, who knows? I'm sure they are all over the map. Samething can be said about the product quality as well.

I have had three amps from China. One was a DIY group buy. If I were to buy anything from China in the future, I would stay with a handful of reputable manufacturers that have elevated themselves onto the international stage. These include Consonance by Opera Audio, Cayin, Ming Da, and Shanglin. But I am sure in a few more years, we will see more of them.

[Asr]

Speaking for the Cayin HA-1A, I have no experience with the amp's ability to drive speakers (although I do have a spare set of speakers I could test it with, now that I think about it). However, the amp puts out a lot of power, way more than I ever thought it did (as it was well able to drive the K1000 at a recent meet). It is indeed an SET amp, but it does have a switch in the back to toggle between Triode and Ultralinear modes, and as I understand it, Ultralinear bumps up the power output to 2.2W. I don't know if Ultralinear is meant to power speakers, but if 2.2W is a common power rating for speakers, then the amp has the ability.

The Cayin is an incredibly versatile amp, I haven't run into any amps that offer near as many features as it. It doesn't have a loop out unfortunately, but it does have a Preamp (which has its own switch on the front), analog RCA inputs, the speaker terminals of course, the Triode/Ultralinear switch, and an impedance selector, which adjusts the voltage for 6-32 Ohm, 33-64 Ohm, 65-120 Ohm, and 121-300 Ohm headphones. The headphone jack on the front is a 1/4" inch jack. On top of all that, the amp looks dead sexy with that porthole and austere brushed aluminum chassis!

Here's the manufacturer's product page: http://www.sparkaudio.com/ecp02.asp?id=135
And some great pics from AcousticSounds' site: http://store.acousticsounds.com/huge...title_id=17073

[cotdt]

The Dynamight outputs over 35W into 8ohm speakers. Needless to say, it's also a headphone amp.

[Mikesul]

The advice to look at NAD amplifiers is interesting. How good is the built in headphone amp? To which of the dedicated headphone amps would you compare them? Are we talking about being equivalent to a Headfive? A HeedCan amp a Corda Aria? Has anyone done the comparisons?