[Captain_Cthulhu]

Greetings to you all! I am new to the audiophile world and have been eyeing the sennheiser Hd-600's for a long while. When I saw the amazon.com refurbished headphones deal...well, I just couldn't wait any longer. I will be soon recieving the headphones in all due time however...the amplifier is where my problem resides.

I really had never heard of a headphone amplifier before I came to this message board. But, with my limited newbie knowledge on the subject (and also the most recent purchase of the headphones which has somewhat cleared me out), I was wondering if I could use a speaker amplifier in place of a headphone amplifier. It has come to my knowledge that we own a nice home theater setup with a Rotel RB-976MkII six channel amplifier. I don't believe there is a headphone output on the unit, but I figured I could get an adapter for it and use the unit as a passthrough for whatever audio input I will use.
Is this a dangerous idea (will it blow out the Hd-600 Headphones)? Or will this just not work for headphones as is it only for a speaker setup? Hopefully I am not wasting anyones time posting this, but I figured it was worth a try. If I a moron for even attempting this...well then do not hesitate to tell me so

Anyways...thanks a lot!

 

[mkmelt]

You can connect the output of your current Rotel amplifier to your newly acquired HD-600 headphones without fear of instantly causing damage to either the amplifier or the headphones. You will need to build a switch box that includes a 1/4" stereo headphone jack as well as input connectors from your amplifier and output connectors for your speakers. At one time this type of headphone adapter/switch was something you could buy from the big electronics houses such as Lafayette Radio, before built-in headphone jacks became common on amplifiers.

You may worry that your 50 or 100 watt per channel amplifier may cause you to fry your headphones and while you could definitely overpower them and cause a driver to overheat and fail this is unlikely. Your amplifier can deliver it's rated power into an 8 ohm speaker load, but when driving the much higher 300 ohm impedance of the HD-600 phones the amplifier will be capable of delivering just a few watts or power. To avoid mismatches in volume when switching between the speakers and the headphones it is recommended to install a pair of 1/2 watt resistors with a value of between 100 and 200 ohms, inline with the headphone connector. This will allow you to effectively be able to use a wider range of your volume control before the music becomes too loud while also protecting your headphones from possibly being overdriven.

Before you go ahead and build the whole switchbox, you may want to wire up just the headphone adapter with the resistors and see if you like the resulting sound. You can also experiment with different value resistors until you find the value that gives you the most control over the listening volume and closely matches the volume setting used when listening to your speakers. Then you can wire up the switchbox with the headphone adapter so you can readily go from speakers to headphones without having to disconnect one and reconnect the other.

 

[gpalmer]

Yes, you can do it, take a look here...
http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm