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Pro-Ject Head Box

post #1 of 77
11/19/05 at 12:16am
Thread Starter 
Anyone who have tryd this hadphoneamp: http://www.audiotra.de/project/project_headbox.html

Cheap!
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post #2 of 77
11/19/05 at 3:53am
Yup, it's cheap - especially the components inside. And it sounds even cheaper. It only takes a PortaCorda(I) to beat it all to heck and back. What one gets with it more or less boils down to deceiving hifi looks outside and ~ B-Tech BT928 (or less) quality inside. In my opinion, rather overpriced for what it does - not recommended. More info to be found via the search function, if you enter headbox as keyword.

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini
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post #3 of 77
11/19/05 at 3:59am
To be fair, it's inexpensive. Also, isn't it an older design? Most of the older headphone amps (e.g. Creek OBH-11) are pretty poor designs. It's almost like these companies weren't quite sure how to put together a good headphone amp back in the day, or maybe they just couldn't be bothered given the lack of popularity of headphones.
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post #4 of 77
11/19/05 at 10:19am
fewtch: Define "older design". That thingy appeared in 2002 - that doesn't really seem old to me. Also, define "inexpensive". For 200 Euro one could also get a nice little integrated amp like the Marantz PM4400, for example, or a Terratec Aureon 7.1 FireWire for even less (~ 160 Euro) - or three (!) Go-Vibes. Now, that Terratec would make a much better example for inexpensive, I'd say: It's a fairly good firewire "soundcard" that also serves as a standalone dac, comes with a remote and a few more extras (bag, adaptors, cables, power supply, software...), uses higher quality components and has a headphone amp section that's at least on par if not better than the HeadBox... *insert more ranting & bashing here*

If I had a long enough arm to reach that thingy (I left it in Munich), I'd throw it over to you, so you could have a (bitter) laugh, too.

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

P.S.: No offence meant, man - but that thingy is really, really lousy. At least for 200 Euro.
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post #5 of 77
11/19/05 at 1:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lini
P.S.: No offence meant, man - but that thingy is really, really lousy. At least for 200 Euro.
That's right. If you're ready to spend 200€, spend it right.
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post #6 of 77
11/19/05 at 1:47pm
Or how 'bout one of our proscribed?
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post #7 of 77
11/19/05 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lini
P.S.: No offence meant, man - but that thingy is really, really lousy. At least for 200 Euro.
Hi Manfred, just slightly off-topic but I had Mr. Gessner on the phone today and he told me about a relatively simple headphone amp that he has come up with using less than 15 parts in the circuitry (just one dual opamp, voltage regulators for each channel, 2 or 4 Elcos, a few Vishay resistors and a +/- power supply), which according to him performs better than all headphone amps up to 1000 Euros (and he's never heard one costing more than that), especially with high impedance headphones. Next time I visit him for some further cd player tweaking, he'll hand me the parts and the schematic which is apparently not to complex either. Sounds very promising and will probably beat the hell out of the Pro-ject Headbox.
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post #8 of 77
11/19/05 at 1:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ko Nectic Jazz
That's right. If you're ready to spend 200€, spend it right.
Go for one of our sponsors, you'll be sure to never be disappointed, portable or not.
The website lists it at 100 Euro, does that make it half as lousy
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post #9 of 77
11/19/05 at 2:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrea
Or how 'bout one of our proscribed?
Which one would you advise ?
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post #10 of 77
11/19/05 at 2:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ko Nectic Jazz
Which one would you advise ?
PM?
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post #11 of 77
11/19/05 at 3:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by saint.panda
Hi Manfred, just slightly off-topic but I had Mr. Gessner on the phone today and he told me about a relatively simple headphone amp that he has come up with using less than 15 parts in the circuitry (just one dual opamp, voltage regulators for each channel, 2 or 4 Elcos, a few Vishay resistors and a +/- power supply), which according to him performs better than all headphone amps up to 1000 Euros (and he's never heard one costing more than that), especially with high impedance headphones.
I wonder if this is a case of the CMOY being reinvented yet again...

P.S. it's incredibly easy to make such claims, but there are a whole lot of headphone amps that cost less than 1000 Euros. I tend not to believe it, and there's really no way to verify it short of comparing it with dozens of other amps. Fwiw, I'm a proponent of simple designs like the govibe and Portaphile X2, but claims like this just get old.
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post #12 of 77
11/19/05 at 5:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hciman77
The website lists it at 100 Euro, does that make it half as lousy
Ah, oh, uhm, oops - I should have clicked on the link before ranting, I guess: Apparently there's a new Mk II version I wasn't aware of. Cheaper, too - but no longer a dual amp with three inputs, either. Maybe this one is better, now...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred
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post #13 of 77
11/19/05 at 5:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by saint.panda
Hi Manfred, just slightly off-topic but I had Mr. Gessner on the phone today and he told me about a relatively simple headphone amp that he has come up with using less than 15 parts in the circuitry (just one dual opamp, voltage regulators for each channel, 2 or 4 Elcos, a few Vishay resistors and a +/- power supply), which according to him performs better than all headphone amps up to 1000 Euros (and he's never heard one costing more than that), especially with high impedance headphones. Next time I visit him for some further cd player tweaking, he'll hand me the parts and the schematic which is apparently not to complex either. Sounds very promising and will probably beat the hell out of the Pro-ject Headbox.
A headphone amp design by Gessner? Hmmm - now, that would be interesting. Glad you like the modded player, btw.

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini
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post #14 of 77
11/19/05 at 5:49pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the replys, Then its maybe wors then my btech amp, thats realy make my DT990pro sound realy good, then stright out from the soundcard.

If I want better sound from my soundcard. What amp sould i get if my budget is like, 200 dollar. I have looked at the rega ear, its in my price class.

Please help me out. I want a amp thats better then my btech.
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post #15 of 77
11/19/05 at 5:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lini
A headphone amp design by Gessner? Hmmm - now, that would be interesting. Glad you like the modded player, btw.
It's not something he's trying to push any further and more like a result of transferring speaker amp knowledge to headphone audio with some tweaking and playing around with the premium parts he always has at hand.

But yeah, the cd player is absolutely incredible and has so far outperformed any other player I've tried and that involves a couple of really expensive ones. Also, everytime you talk to him about audio, you just feel a lot smarter afterwards even if you didn't understand half the things he said.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fewtch
I wonder if this is a case of the CMOY being reinvented yet again...

P.S. it's incredibly easy to make such claims, but there are a whole lot of headphone amps that cost less than 1000 Euros. I tend not to believe it, and there's really no way to verify it short of comparing it with dozens of other amps. Fwiw, I'm a proponent of simple designs like the govibe and Portaphile X2, but claims like this just get old.
Of course, it depends on who is making the claim.

But seriously, he's a 100% speaker person and most likely just doesn't know the headphone amp market that has formed over the last few years. Besides, comparisons against mass consumer Creek amps just isn't very fair... I'm going to build this little amp anyway and see how it performs.
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