[Uncle Erik]

The Dynalo drives the hell out of the HD-600. It is much, much better than the el cheapo tube amps in the same price range.

 

[sennheiserhd485]

Quote:

The Dynalo drives the hell out of the HD-600. It is much, much better than the el cheapo tube amps in the same price range.

I could go ahead and buy a Dynalo, but I really love the way that tube amps look. It seems like I would love the glowing of them when I am sitting in the dark.
 
Do you know of a tube amp under $500 that would put out as much power as the Dynalo?
 
I just don't want my HD600s to sound veiled. That is my greatest fear.
 

 

[Uncle Erik]

Look at the Bottlehead Smack. You don't need 1W to run the HD-600, and the Smack has output transformers so you'll get a nice, low output impedance and a good damping factor.

 

[sennheiserhd485]

Quote:

Look at the Bottlehead Smack. You don't need 1W to run the HD-600, and the Smack has output transformers so you'll get a nice, low output impedance and a good damping factor.

It would actually be about $100 over my budget, including shipping.
 
I have actually decided on the Sheer Audio Dynalo for sure now.
 
I just need to know if I should get the 1x, 3x, or 11x gain for the HD600.

 

[Currawong]

If I still had HD-600s now, I'd be inclined to take a chance on one of the Bottlehead amps. I felt they were more enjoyable with a bit of musicality injected into the mix, which usually means tubes.

 

[sennheiserhd485]

Well this is really annoying, according to David, the HA-006+ is going to have unbalanced channel volume.
 
I could never deal with that.
 
He recommended that I buy the $500 Sheer Audio Dynalo instead, the one that has the stepped volume knob.
 
I have no idea what to do now.
 
I bet that they are amps for $500 that sound better than the upgraded Dynalo, right?
 
Are there any tube amps that would work better at that price point?

 

[sennheiserhd485]

 
Quote:

If I still had HD-600s now, I'd be inclined to take a chance on one of the Bottlehead amps. I felt they were more enjoyable with a bit of musicality injected into the mix, which usually means tubes.

I was considering the Crack, but I am a little scared about the DIY part.
 
If I do just one thing wrong, the whole thing will be ruined.
 
I would rather not have to buy replacement parts and wait forever for them to ship here.
 
Currawong, are there any better options near the $500 price point than the upgraded Dynalo?
 

 

[sennheiserhd485]

This is really annoying, according to David, the HA-006+ is going to have unbalanced channel volume.
 
I could never deal with that.
 
He recommended that I buy the $500 Sheer Audio Dynalo instead, the one that has the stepped volume knob.
 
I have no idea what to do now.
 
I bet that they are amps for $500 that sound better than the upgraded Dynalo, right?
 
Are there any tube amps that would work better at that price point? 

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

Well this is really annoying, according to David, the HA-006+ is going to have unbalanced channel volume.
 
I could never deal with that.
 
He recommended that I buy the $500 Sheer Audio Dynalo instead, the one that has the stepped volume knob.
 
I have no idea what to do now.
 
I bet that they are amps for $500 that sound better than the upgraded Dynalo, right?
 
Are there any tube amps that would work better at that price point?

Hello,
 
I didn't mean it will be that unbalanced, but if you require it to be very closely balanced left/right, then the higher end version will do that.  the cheaper HA-006+ model uses standard volume pot, which will naturally have some imbalance due to the way they are made. (They print carbon film on circuit board in a way that's like silk screening, which is why it can very from one to another)
 
Any other amp that uses traditional volume pot are going to have similar amount of imbalance (except for some that uses really exotic version of the traditional volume pot, like RK50), the imbalance will lessen as you turn up the volume, and the further you turn it up, the less imbalance would present itself.  This is more or less due to the way the pot is made as well.
 
 
Sorry I didn't describe it clearly enough there.
 
 
Thanks
 
David

 

[sennheiserhd485]

Quote:

Hello,
 
I didn't mean it will be that unbalanced, but if you require it to be very closely balanced left/right, then the higher end version will do that.  the cheaper HA-006+ model uses standard volume pot, which will naturally have some imbalance due to the way they are made. (They print carbon film on circuit board in a way that's like silk screening, which is why it can very from one to another)
 
Any other amp that uses traditional volume pot are going to have similar amount of imbalance (except for some that uses really exotic version of the traditional volume pot, like RK50), the imbalance will lessen as you turn up the volume, and the further you turn it up, the less imbalance would present itself.  This is more or less due to the way the pot is made as well.
 
 
Sorry I didn't describe it clearly enough there.
 
 
Thanks
 
David

David,
 
Thank you for clarifying that.
 
I didn't mean to sound snobbish, but I was so close to buying an amp, after a long research period.
 
I really do think that I will buy one of these amps, but I don't know which one quite yet.
 
Do you think that the extra $200 is worth it? How much left/right channel difference is there?
 

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

David,
 
Thank you for clarifying that.
 
I didn't mean to sound snobbish, but I was so close to buying an amp, after a long research period.
 
I really do think that I will buy one of these amps, but I don't know which one quite yet.
 
Do you think that the extra $200 is worth it? How much left/right channel difference is there?
 

 
Hey, no problem with that.  It's you spending your hard earned cash, and it is only reasonable to want to know more before actually paying that money out.
 
For the ++ model, it uses 1% resistor for the volume pot (21 steps), which results in extremely good matching, better than what your ear would be able to hear (and should match better than most headphones).  In addition to that, it is totally upgraded from the single + model with much better caps, connectors, better regulator setup and higher quality precision resistors.  It is about upgraded as we can reasonably get it to be without making a completely new machine.
 
For the + model, as I have said, it uses standard volume pot, which is rather mixed in regards of channel matching.  When you are really lucky, you may get one that is matched very well, but most of them have channel matching tolerances from 10 to 20% (Gang error), and it is not going to be easy to find one that is going to be perfectly matched. (Which is why they often either charge more or simply don't provide models with better gang error, as they'd have to spend a lot of labor time to pick and throw out the ones that didn't match.)
 
 
Thanks
 
David
 

 

[Pars]

The downside to stepped attenuators is the number (or lack of) steps. The one shown on the website is only 21 steps (which is really a small number). Some (many) users may have problems achieving an acceptable volume level with this few steps. The volume could either be too loud or not loud enough. For this reason, I prefer a good pot. Reasonably priced pots such as the TKD 2CP2511 perform quite acceptably (and sound better than the default Alps blue). These typically cost around $65 from partsconnexion, Michael Percy Audio, etc., and are what I use in my own Dynalo (and Dynahi).

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

The downside to stepped attenuators is the number (or lack of) steps. The one shown on the website is only 21 steps (which is really a small number). Some (many) users may have problems achieving an acceptable volume level with this few steps. The volume could either be too loud or not loud enough. For this reason, I prefer a good pot. Reasonably priced pots such as the TKD 2CP2511 perform quite acceptably (and sound better than the default Alps blue). These typically cost around $65 from partsconnexion, Michael Percy Audio, etc., and are what I use in my own Dynalo (and Dynahi).

Well, indeed you are right about it.  Which is why I offer the amp in 1x, 3x and 11x gain setting.   Most headphone will work fairly well with 3x gain and 21 step attenuator

 

[Maverickmonk]

So, I just stumbled upon the Dynalo schematic, and I think it looks great. I'd love to drive my Grado's from it but...would It be able to power the Sextetts too? They're kind of obnoxious, being 600 ohms and hard to drive.

 

[Maniac]

Quote:

So, I just stumbled upon the Dynalo schematic, and I think it looks great. I'd love to drive my Grado's from it but...would It be able to power the Sextetts too? They're kind of obnoxious, being 600 ohms and hard to drive.

Even tho Dynalo is first designed by Dr. Gilmore to drive his Grados, it is still very effective on high impedance headphones.  More effective than a lot of the amps out there actually.