Devialet d-premier as headphone amp / system ?

This amp had some impressive reviews. I heard it on Wilson speakers. Big advantages are:
- ultra high end digital resolution, very revealing, excellent macro and micro dynamics, very impressive spacious resolution.

- compact size, containing DAC/preamp / amp system

- will be fitted with WIFI interface this summer, providing the best link possible to your streaming music collection.

- programmable, you can vary the output power (now between 190 -> 240 W) and the required in/output to some degree.

At the moment I play with a Rudistor RPX100 balanced amp with a AKG701 headphone I rewired myself with silver/gold (tube amp) connection wire, now on Furatec XLR plugs. I could easily remove the plugs and connect the wiring directly at the amplifier output, providing some adjustments are made on the amps output power...

Getting enthousiastic on the idea, I checked with the guys from Devialet if this would be possible at all. This was my question to them:

        I use often headphones and I’m a kind of headphone enthousiastic. I understand that an analogue line out can be defined so the D-premier would only act as DAC. But would it be possible to configure the power outputs to a very low power (say 3-4 W) so I can use a balanced connection to directly drive my headphone? Guess it would make a fantastic headphone amp….

Ye 

      Their answer:

      Yes you can! Digital 1 & 2  can also be Fixed  or variable Level Line Out for connecting the headphone amp  with selectable maximum voltage level at fullscale input, any value up to 4.0Vrms, with default setting of 2.0Vrms. We are about to launch the 'configurator' in 4 weeks from now. You will download it for free from our website. 
It's also possible to directly connect your headphone on the speakers outputs, we can internally limit the output voltage (thus the power) of these outputs. This will indeed convert the D-Premier into probably the best headphone amp ever built. Note that such feature will not be available in the configurator and will require custom configuration.

     So this seems to be a real possible option. Only drawback is the price..... (11900 Euro's). However, compared to a top high end headamp + DAC + digital interface/player + cabling, I guess the price will be about the same or even less.

      Do you have any thoughts / considerations on this you would like to share on this 'crazy' idea? 

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I don't think you'll need it unless you have something unfathomably hard to drive

Of course you do not need the full power, however 3-4 W of power for a headphone amp is not abnormal, especially when you have magnetostatics to drive like LCD-2 or the good old K1000 and the amp can be software tuned to that level.

But you are missing the point, that this is one of the best integrated dac/amps is of the world and you could actually use it to drive your phones directly....

You do realise that the devialet is a way to piggyback a class A line-stage without huge power consumption and heat ... none of which are factors with headphones.

For headphones and with a huge budget I'd look into a real multibit DAC like the MSB's and a tube amplifier with a large rolling potential and very good technical parameters. Something like these two guys:

http://davidberning.com/products/preone

http://www.atma-sphere.com/products/mp1.html

Agreed, the components mentioned are very good indeed but take you (including a high-end interface) to again a (much) higher price level.  The reason I think the devialet seems attractive is because of its integration level. The amp is internally fully digital with short lines which is one of the reasons I believe it sounds so sensational, even relative to its already high price.

I have a Berkeley Design Alpha DAC which is a very good dac already, but this is blown away by the Devialet, although I admit I never heard the Devialet operating as DAC only.