Are recievers good enough to use an a headphone amplifer?

Some recievers - particularly vintage and higher end ones - sound really good as headphone amps.

Depending upon what your source is, often times even newer/less expensive recievers can sound better with headphones than many standalone cd/mp3 players, and some sound as good as good or better than some smaller amps - ex. cmoy's.

If you have it, just try it and find out.

It does depend on the type of receiver and the other links in the chain (source, etc.), but I have a similar Yamaha receiver and have found that it is really no comparison to a decent headphone amp, especially with decent cans.

Absolutely not. What they typically do is split a wire off the main line and put some huge reisistor on it, i.e. the deisgn of the headphone amp is typically a complete after thought!

Get a dedicated headphone amp...its worth it....

With bass, mid and treble control, a lot of people enjoy the colored sound from receivers much more than standalone headphone amps.

I recently listened to an old sony receiver and it was a fresh and fun change from the clinical and relatively colorless sound of my headphone amps.

There's also simply the question of cost. A decent old Marantz/Sansui/Sherwood/etc. integrated amp will generally run under $100. I got a Sherwood 7100 for $50 shipped, and it blows away my Cmoy, which is worth about the same. What's more, the old amp will also drive full-size speakers, of course, so it's more useful as well. Obviously, there's no question of portability with those old amps, but I think you'd have a hard time beating them for headphone amplification at the same price point.

What about if I tell you that I have heard some that will beat the dust of some very good reviewed headphone amps...???

Nik right now is using a Leben integrated amp, a classic push-pull tube amp, nothing fancy in design, and he absolutely love it, he sold of his expensive headphone amps, so IMO there is nothing written in stone here yet...

I'm testing right now a Marantz PM7200 and the PM7001 is on the way also, to keep one at the end, and the 7001 has a dedicated section with buffers for headphone driving, there is an after-though circuit, and both sound very very good as headphone amps, very clean, and with guts enough to drive anything...

Some vintage amps are very good sounding amps and very good driving headphones, all you need is clean sounding amp, to make a headphone sound and do not show the noise floor....typically not a problem with speakers, specially the hiss...Over this you will have a tone network just in case you need to for some recordings, non of the headphone amps I have seen so far have it with a very few exceptions of bass boost..

Of course a very good dedicated headphone amp, will sound better but the price is ten times as much also...if you have the means go for it, if you do not, just get an old vintage good amp....and be happy...

The Portal Panache is reputed to have an excellent headphone out.

It really depends on the receiver. As other has said, many vintage models have excellent headphone amps in them. I find there is a great synergy between my humble Yamaha receiver's headphone amp and my HD-590s.

The Panache is an excellent headphone amp and comparable to just about any dedicated headphone amp. I spent many hours comparing it to my other headphone amps, the Raptor and Grace 901. It beat the Grace 901 in every area that I can think of: bass, midrange, soundstage, ability to drive low and high impedance cans and power capability. For a SS amp, it sounds incredibly close to the Raptor. The highs are not bright unless the recording is bright. The midrange is sweet and clear. The bass, well its the best I've ever heard. The Panache is a great match for the K701 and the K1000's. It beat the 901 so soundly that I sold it after owning it for about 3 years. As an integrated amp, its a no frills but excellents sounding amp. Its a very solid amp weighing in at about 33 lbs. It has a robust power supply that is capable of doubling down, 100 w/Ch into 8 ohms and 200 w/Ch into 4 ohms.

Has anyone heard anything or had first hand experience using an Onkyo reciever as a headphone amp? I'm using an Onkyo TX-SV343 with my RT35s and was hoping that would be good enough for a quality set of headphones. I do tend to suspect, though, that the litte headphone jack was an afterthought as many here have suggested...

Depends what you're looking for sonically. Some receivers are "good enough" but will bloat the bass, some aren't good enough and will distort, a few are probably as good as dedicated headphone amps.

I have a Denon PMA 1560 amp that stayed in the box for years while I was busy rushing here and there, doing this and that. I 'stumbled' on it a few months ago and decided to make it earn it's keep. I think it was made round about 1990. This beast is HEAVY. This beast has POWER (250w/c at 4ohms or 150w/c at 8ohms). This beast is built like a tank, and there is nothing 'after thoughtish' about it at all.
Normally I would have no use for this beast because I'm a Stax person, but as fate would have it, I've recently acquired an AKG-K1000 and K701..just out of a curious, morbid interest in the 'competition'.
I've been reading so much about how difficult it is to find an amp capable of driving the K1000 the way they should be driven, so I decided to give my 'beast' the pleasure of showing what it could do. No sooner said than done. I duly connected the K1000 to one of the two pairs of loudspeaker outputs provided and let the Denon PMA 1560 do it's thing! K1000 difficult to drive? Says who? Certainly not the 'beast'. I dare not turn the volume knob on the 'beast' past the 9 o'clock position for fear of waking the dead or more seriously, splitting my eardrums! This amp..my 'beast', is more than a match for the K1000. In the past two weeks I have thrown my entire music arsenal at the 'beast'. Everything from Monteverdi to Ricky Lee Jones, from Bach to every punk/rock/hip hop thing alive, from Bob Marley to Youssou N'Dour via Soweto beat, and I can tell you..the 'beast' drives that K1000 like it has never been driven before. The 'beast' is confident, clean and relentless. Do you know that sometimes I get the feeling that if I were to sneak a glance out of the corner of my eye I would catch the 'beast' yawning! I swear, this amp drives the K1000 with such confidence... it hardly works up a sweat. After weeks of relentless effort, day in day out, the 'beast' is not even warm to the touch.
I bet you are all muttering..ok, but what about the headphone amp? Is it an after thought? I did mention the K701 didn't I? Yes. You've guessed correctly. The K701 is domiciled in the headphone jack. The story is the same. This ancient amp makes the K701 sing! No 'after thought' here. There is definitely a bonefide headphone amp lurking behind that black steel frame. Do you know that I sometimes find myself thinking that if I were to visit the homes of the people who made this amp, I would find, hanging there on the wall or above the mantlepiece, a framed certificate of membership of the "Amplifier Master Builders Guild"!

How did you hook them to the speaker outs? A cheap plug from Rat Shack?
I have several old receivers and amps that need dusting off too. The headphone jack on my old Marantz drives my KCS75's like a champ! AKG 701 coming this week.... Sounds like I need your advise
thanks