HE-500, LCD2, D5000, DT770, SR80, on a speaker amp (Emotiva mini-X A-100) Project - Page 24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoom25 

 

Thanks for the heads up jsplice! Much appreciated! I'll send Chris_Himself a message right now. Can anyone please elaborate on this more or suggest something. Can you please suggest a safe way for this? 

Here is an easy (but relatively expensive) solution (at $99) for those who want to connect single-ended headphones to a speaker amp:

The APPJ Headphone Adapter

Available in black or silver, this photo shows that it has banana plug jacks at the rear, so to connect it to a speaker amp, all you need is four wires, each with banana plugs at both ends.

At the front, it has one 3.5mm TRS jack and two 6.3mm TRS jacks.  It's not clear which jack offers which level of gain (or attenutation, actually) but the 3.5mm jack is most likely the low gain jack. 

ALO is a reseller:  http://www.aloaudio.com/miniwatt-headphone-adapter

UPDATE on 22 January 2013:  It seems ALO no longer carries this product.   A similar product, called the Miniwatt Headphone Adapter, can currently be seen at the website of ALO's sister company, 32 Ohm Audio.

ALO does not provide specifications at their order page, but here are specs from the DIY Audio link, below:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/twin-audio/192702-appj-2011-new-product-mini-headphone-adapter.html

APPJ is the same company that produced the (2.5W into 8-Ohm) 6F3 Mini Tube Amplifier 

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/twin-audio/176069-final-sales-6f3-mini-tube-amplifer-sold-out.html

Thanks zilch. Would the sound quality change If I was to use this adapter vs. using a direct cable or even the adapter I was talking about? Also based on the Emotiva and HE-500 stats, which output would be best suited for HE-500?

I honestly don't know, as I've never had a chance to use the APPJ adapter, but I would think that it's very neutral and transparent - as it does not contain any active components.  The high-gain output jack (that's not attenuated) would be the cleanest of the the three outputs, if any difference can be detected at all.

The thing is that if you really need to attenuate the output of a speaker amp, for use with headphones that are a lot more efficient than HE-6 or just can't tolerate as much power as the LCD-2 / LCD-3 can, the APPJ adapter strikes me as a very convenient way to handle the problem.

Given that APPJ also makes the miniWatt N3 tube amp (carried by ALO), and the mere fact that ALO is willing to sell this headphone adapter, its build quality and performance must be pretty nice.  My thinking is that Ken Ball doesn't sell any junk.

Thanks for the input, I'll keep that in the back of my mind. Still waiting to get a reply back from Chris_Himself, will update on what he suggests.

Interested in what you find out too. Just ordered a set of HE-500's. My first real set of headphones. Other than my vintage Pioneer Monitor 10's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy Camper 

Good to see others giving a spin through speaker amp land. I would suggest once your rig is settled and you've lived with it, take some flac files and dac to a A/V store that handles some hi end amps of the same wattage. That way you can check out amp performance through the price ranges without coming out of pocket. I need to refresh my memory but the Sim Moon integrated amps were astonishing with respect to how open a soundstage can get, the accuracy of placement within it and the refinement of the sound. Anything in the signal is brought out and put in place to make an almost 3-d impression. Coming from the mid priced gear, it was quite a revelation to hear delicate and brawn in the same experience. Captivating is the least way of describing it.

I have two speakers amps that I can try them on. A vintage Pioneer SX-950 with a hp connection and multiple speaker connections. I also have a Simaudio i5.3 with just speaker connections. Just concerned both (85 watt amps) will be to much with the speaker connections.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy Camper 

No problem but keep the volume down and bring up slowly. There is more power there than is needed but the headphone will only use what it needs. Listening volumes won't hurt them.

Thanks. I can use the -20dB Audio Muting feature on the Pioneer to gain more volume adjustment, but the Sim has a very touchy volume control. Luckily it makes very small increases in the volume in the lower ranges. Just curious to see what the cheapest route turns out to be. The APPJ or the 6.35mm adapter (if safe to use).

If you really want to make sure not to damage the headphones with a speaker amp, just add some strategically placed tape on the knob and on the plate around the vol knob, so that it is physically blocked by the tape to turn the knob any more than a certain amount; ugly but it'll do its job, especially if you have children or clueless visitors as potential "hazards" playing around with your equipment without your supervision on occasions like house parties etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoom25 

I just ordered an adapter (about 6 inches long) from Chris_Himself. It's a female 6.5 mm to banana plugs.  

Silly question. Mostly for learning purposes. What is the difference between the APPJ device and the cable Zoom25 is trying to order? Is it not similar?

Quote:

Originally Posted by weverb 

 

Silly question. Mostly for learning purposes. What is the difference between the APPJ device and the cable Zoom25 is trying to order? Is it not similar?

I would still like to know as well if the adapter I mentioned would've worked or not. As someone previously mentioned, this might not have worked with the signals from speaker amp converging into a single ended being bad for the amp and/or headphone - still would like some clarification. Although today I changed my order since my stock silver cable started to crap out on me. Anyone else had problems with the stock silver cable that came with the HE-500 in terms of durability?

As for the APPJ, I think that has resistors built in, so I could perhaps have used D2000 from one of the ports of APPJ. Whereas, my adapter would be taking the full output without any resistors.

My new order is very similar to Malveaux. I am still getting it from Chris_Himself for $200.

Charged me as:

$120 for a 5ft cable terminated in 4-pin Neutrik XLR
$40 per adapter going to those two terminations.

He offered me a 7N silver, copper+silver and copper options. I must admit that the copper looked very sexy, but decided to stick with the silver cable since I heard it's more transparent, although bright - I honestly don't know how much of this is true, so I just went with silver, since the sound from stock silver was good enough. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilch0md 


That's a great question, actually, but I cannot imagine what this cable looks like, schematically, to be safe for use.
How can that which Zoom25 has ordered convert a four-conductor, balanced connection to a three-conductor, unbalanced connection without connecting the two grounds into a single ground? I would get the adapter cable's schematic and check with the amp's designer before plugging it into the amp...
Mike

This is where I get confused. Isn't the 6.35 and 3.5mm stock wire end connectors unbalanced to begin with? I get that it is balanced coming from each can, but don't you loose it at the end of the stock cable? Or is it a TRRS four contact connector versus the common TRS three contact connector? Which leads me to a final question. Is there such a thing as a female TRRS connector?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS_connector

Answering my own question. I see the stock HE 6.35mm connector is a TRS three contact. That is why Mike says the grounds are shorted together. Then, how does a vintage receiver with a standard hp connection deal with this when it is getting the audio from the amp section?

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilch0md 

Thanks for all the information Zoom25, but I can't discern from reading this whether or not the two grounds are united to get from balanced to unbalanced.
Regarding the possibility of resistors in the APPJ, I wouldn't think the high-gain jack attenuates the power, but we could ask ALO.
I'm not likely to order an Emotiva amp any time soon, but if I were, I would get on the phone with them and get to the bottom of whether it's safe to short the two grounds of the speaker terminals. Seriously.

I would love to know as well. I'll bother Chris_Himself a bit later on to find out what he would've done had he gone through with my initial adaptor design.

If you do ask Emotiva, please let us know on what they say about this.

For now, with my current adapter design, I don't think I should be having any problems, since it's HE-500 to XLR male to XLR female to banana plugs - If there is a problem, someone let me know right away!!!! I think Malveaux said he had no problems with a similar setups.