Why not use a home stereo integrated amp in lieu of a headphone amp? Pic added.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab 

It really depends on the amp. Some integrated amps use cheap crappy op amps to drive headphones, and so are not very good in that regard. Some actually derive the headphone out from the same amp that drives the speakers, and they can be quite good. So it's something of a crapshoot.

I have no idea how that NAD does it.

Not much of a crapshoot. It was established on this forum long ago, thanks to someone writing to the manufacturers, that virtually all of them take a signal from the main amp through resistors. This means that the amp's performance with headphones will be identical to its performance with speakers, especially with high impedance phones like the 600 which are virtually invulnerable to impedance matching problems.

There are a few exceptions, especially in the high end. Cambridge's more expensive amps use their own design head amp--I have no idea why, as their budget A340SE, using a gainclone main stage, has a very good headphone out. Obviously all pre-amps etc have a separate head amp. Otherwise if you buy a typical NAD or Marantz or Rotel or Yamaha amp you'll be getting essentially the same signal as goes to the speakers, resistor reduced.  

Only one comment:

Go NAD, GO

Sorry--couldn't resist

FYI - The Portal Audio Panache "... headphone output does not differ from the main output path except for the addition of a simple protection device"

http://www.portalaudio.com/headphone_use.html

I've owned many, many amps in the past. Both tube and solid state. Other than my stax amp, I don't own a fullsize headphone. I have a vintage fisher tube integrated and love it. There are some really nice integrated amps out there with outstanding headphone outs. In fact the much loved leben, that's talked about so much on here, isn't a headphone amp either. It's also a tube integrated with a headphone out. I think Skylab has it rated as his best sounding "headphone" amp. There are quite a few who uses integrated/receivers for headphone amps. I'm not saying don't buy a dedicated headphone amp. I'm just saying you have options. But like Skylab said, they all are not going to have excellent headphone outs. So I would only look at brands that's been proven to have good headphone outs. I have three home theater receivers. Only two of them have the headphone out coming from the speaker out(one sounds excellent the other only sounds decent at best). So be careful when deciding. Even if the headphone out is directly coupled to the speaker out, that still doesn't mean it's going to give you the results you'll looking for.

It definitely depends on the  stereo amp. There is a huge difference between my Icon HD and my Pioneer stereo, and the difference is tremendously in the favor of the Icon headphone amplifier. Some stereo amps are good, and some are bad. Same goes for the discrete headphone amplifiers, too, but I think you're more likely to get a good headphone sound from an appropriately priced headphone amp than from a do-it-all stereo unit. 

My headphones sound great plugged into my Yamaha RX-V1800.  No need for me to spend money on a dedicated headphone amp. 

Willie, its a shame you couldnt spring for the 375BEE if you like bass impact - several reviewers have likened it to someone replacing their speakers with subwoofers :)

Make your 600s a speaker plug and try them on the speaker amp.

FWIW, I just ordered one each of 1/4" and 1/8" female to stereo RCA cables.  I'm going to cut off the RCA ends and use them as speaker leads to hook up to my Dayton DTA-1, to see what it's capable of with headphones.

It's a +/- 6 V amp capable of (of course) gobs of current - it puts out about 10 W at 4 ohms and 6 W at 8 ohms.  Obviously at +/- 6 V it's voltage limited, but that shouldn't ever be a problem - I don't think, anyway.  In fact, it'll certainly prevent me from running my headphones into current clipping.