[senns&nonsense]

A couple questions for the owners of the 600 ohm Beyers. I will be getting the 880s, but the advice of 990 owners is similarly welcome.

- What is the single best combination you have heard in terms of driving your hungry Beyers?

- Are any of the well-respected portables (i.e. RSA Hornet or sr71, Xin, other?) up to the task of driving these phones adequately?

- Do the 880s in particular fare better with tubes or SS?

- On the lower-end, what is the best bang for buck amp in driving these?

Thanks for the help!

 

[roastpuff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by senns&nonsense /img/forum/go_quote.gif A couple questions for the owners of the 600 ohm Beyers. I will be getting the 880s, but the advice of 990 owners is similarly welcome. - What is the single best combination you have heard in terms of driving your hungry Beyers? - Are any of the well-respected portables (i.e. RSA Hornet or sr71, Xin, other?) up to the task of driving these phones adequately? - Do the 880s in particular fare better with tubes or SS? - On the lower-end, what is the best bang for buck amp in driving these? Thanks for the help!

I own a 600-Ohm Darth Beyer, which is based on the DT770, so I think that my experiences have usefulness here. My favorite amplification that I've heard with the Darths so far have to be my MG Head OTL tube amp. It turns the Darths super-lush and increases the soundstage greatly. It might be a bit too warm for some, but I love the way that it portrays sound - rock sounds awesome with it, and jazz is incredible. I'm running all-American NOS tubes on the amp, and I'm happy with what I've got.

The well-respected portables ought to not have a problem with it; I can vouch for the RSA side of things as my Tomahawk can drive the Darths to pretty loud levels with my iPod-lineout. I think the Hornet will do even better, and the SuperMacro ought to do similarly. I've never had the chance to sample the other amps, but they ought to do great too.

The 600-Ohm impedance really favors tubes, just because tubes do really well the higher the impedance on their load is. It also depends on the signature that you want - tubes tend to be lush and have soundstage, but lose some detail. SS has details and speed, but can be somewhat hemmed in and colder.

As for budget amps... I'd say the Corda Headfive/Arietta did pretty well with my stock DT770's, and a Millet Hybrid DIY ought to do quite well too.

Hope that helps!

 

[epaludo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roastpuff /img/forum/go_quote.gif The 600-Ohm impedance really favors tubes, just because tubes do really well the higher the impedance on their load is.

Seriously? Didn't knew that the higher impedance the headphones are the best for the tubes ...

 

[BushGuy]

Impedence has nothing to do with preference for tube(y) amp for dt880 - it is the sound of that particular model (eg. dt770 is best with a relatively tight, drier amp like the previous generation Cordas). Preferred home amping choices for the dt880 would include EarMax Pro, ASL OT versions, and Woo. You may be surprised to learn (I was) that the Xin Supermacro LE does a remarkably good job running dt880/600Ω portably. I have combination of 8616/8656 opamps in it. Not surprisingly, running dt990/600 would be borderline because of higher bass output.

 

[cooperpwc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roastpuff /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for budget amps... I'd say the Corda Headfive/Arietta did pretty well with my stock DT770's, and a Millet Hybrid DIY ought to do quite well too.

x2 on the Millett Hybrid from experience. It sounds good with both my 600 ohm DT880s and my 80 ohm Darths. (Get diamond buffers if you can.)

BushGuy's recommendation of the SuperMacro LE is also interesting. Based on his and other recommendations, I'm getting the Reference which has a similar power supply.

 

[swt61]

I have 600Ω DT990's that are cabled balanced. I amp them with my modded dual Darkvoice balanced monoblocks. While that's not a creation you can run out and purchase easily the single Darkvoice 336i will have more than ample power to drive your headphones. The synergy is fantastic, but I'll admit to being a tube convert. Overall the 600Ω Beyers are not as difficult to drive as other notable power hungry cans such as the AKG K340, Yamaha Orthodynamics...

I am able to drive them with my portable Pint, but it's not a perfect fit.

 

[senns&nonsense]

Thanks to all - that is very helpful.

I think I recall Skylab also mentioning somewhere that the MG Head OTL worked well with Beyers. I need to go read a bit about that one.

I like the idea of using one of the RSA amps. I have wanted to get and hear one of those anyway, as long as I won't be "shortchanging" too significantly the potential of the DT880s. I also recall Skylab (that guy is like a freaking one-man headphone wikipedia!) doing some RSA blind test where the RSA portable was remarkably similar to some high-end tube amp.....

As for tubes, I have no experience, but am very curious. In my current mid-fi set-up I have found (like lots of others) that my more detailed amp is lovely with my lusher Senns and my fatter amp (the 0404 hp jack) is much better with my 701s. I know it is a jump, but it does seem like tubes might be the right choice for the detailed 880s interms of balane/synergy.

My concern is that there is a whole new learning curve to climb. I do not really feel like figuring out whether to go Soviet (not in a political sense) or to go NOS or whatever. I guess I could just go stock, in a darkvoice for example, and then figure out the tube variations in the fullness of time..... But you know how that goes - you get the new toy, start reading about options, and the next thing you know you are paypalling some guy in a Siberian warehouse who says he has something made for the red army that is exactly what you need in the lower mids and can ship it out as soon as his tank thaws.....

Anyway, thanks for the advice. And other Beyer fans please join in if you have some stellar amp experiences to share.

 

[jcx]

600 Ohms and portable amp??

if the sensitivity is unchanged by the custom 600 Ohm option you need more V than a single 9V battery can manage

even if you consider 110 dB as a acceptable compromised clipping level with portable amplification you would need 11 Vpp
110 dB is low for dynamic headroom:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...ic#post2947366


It is possible to DC-DC convert for higher V in portables, the Xenos 1HA appears to use ~ +/- 12V internally and rates high in Skylab's review
some dual 9V cmoy/meta/pimetas have been made - I don't know about commercial versions


for desktop amplification I would want >120 dB spl clipping level from the amplification to cover real world dynamic peak spl

for 600 Ohm 96 dB/mW cans this requires ~250 mWrms, +/- 17.3 V swing

which leaves behind most op amp/buffer based ss and quite a few of the discrete ss which run from +/-12 to 15 V internal supplies unless you go balanced drive to double the output V swing

it is possible the # are worse - anyone have the sensitivity for the 600 Ohm DT880? - the "minimal moving mass" comment on the Beyer site would imply lower sensitivity to me (less total copper so straight transformer equal efficency impedance translation would be violated)

 

[BushGuy]

I will not bother with sensitivity #'s (just as I have no interest in amps utilizing 9v batteries). I DO know (by using my ears and experience) that my Xin Supermacro LE does a surprisingly good job with my dt880/600Ω. Normally the volume is around 1:00 or so with them.

stated in a post above "I think I recall Skylab also mentioning somewhere that the MG Head OTL worked well with Beyers. I need to go read a bit about that one." Yes, Skylab runs his dt880/600 with ASL MG HEAD DT OTL MKIII (replaces the Chinese tubes with Harmonix tubes)..........and also runs Denon D5000 from it. (FWIW I play those with the XIn volume at 10:00)................mind you. I'd still tend to use a full-sized amp at home. But, knowing what you CAN do is useful.

 

[senns&nonsense]

I appreciate the warning based on those #s but I frankly do not know enough to follow most of it. So I am left a little bewildered by knowing that the portables should definitely suck with 600ohm cans but also knowing that cogent people with seemingly good taste like what they hear at least enough to say that it works well, though they may opt for a home amp at home....

Here is the thing..... I do not NEED the portability. I could bump the budget up to, say, a Heed, but note that there are some who definitively don't like Heeds or say they need this or that mod. If the Hornet, for example, can drive them I would really like to try them because you just never hear anyone who dislikes the sound of the Hornet. IF there is enough juice, the Hornet seems like a pretty safe place to spend $350. What other choices are there at $350 that are so universally acclaimed? Again, assuming (which I can't quite do yet) that on high gain they can allow the 880s a full performance.

(I know acclaim isn't the be all / end all. But you can't hang out here and not develop a respect / curiosity about RSA amps and put them on the short list when upgrading into this amp level for the first time.)

Maybe I should write to Ray Samuels..... Maybe I should stop typing and just send RSA some money and then if I don't like it, I can sell it for a $5.12 loss.......

 

[senns&nonsense]

Then again, I really think I want to try tubes....

 

[senns&nonsense]

One other consideration, though I am not sure if it matters. I will likely be running this amp with a feed from an EMU 0404. The EMU main output has variable level control - you can turn it up and down. It seems that at anywhere near it's highest level it is already a pretty strong signal, more so than a typical line-out in my (limited) experience. And i have noticed no degradation in SQ even when turned to the highest level out. Will the receiving amp perhaps then need less juice to get to where it needs to be to drive a heavy load or is this irrelevant?

 

[BushGuy]

For the price category you suggest - you're back to the ASL model I suggested above in 2 posts. While nominally it sells for $500, there are one or 2 sites selling it for $400, and you could possibly find one used...........just replace the Chinese tubes with Harmonix (that will cost you aprox $50 - only 3 tubes in this one - there is a reliable vendor on eBay that carries them).

 

[vorlon1]

Two amps that I own that are not too expensive drive my old 600 ohm DT 990s well. The Dared Mp 5 and the Channel Islands VHP 2.

 

[Skylab]

You guys have good memories. Yes, I love the 600 ohm DT880's with the ASL MG Head mk III. It's a great combo, and the ASL amp has MORE than enough gain to handle them. Really a great combo, can't recommend it highly enough.

Definitely need to replace the stock tubes with Electro-Harmonix tubes, though.