[Ttvetjanu]

I am a student with very limited money living in Finland. I own a SR-80 and a MB Quart QP400 (mini HD600, in a sense). I listen to almost everything. I use my Sony CDP-XE310 CD player for home listening, which I run through my Marantz 5.1 reciever. For portable I use a combo of Sony D-EJ825 Walkman/iPod Shuffle (1gb)/Creative Jukebox Zen Extra (30gb) and SR80.

On my compuer I have a Audigy 1 sound card, which I used to run through my reciever. Now, however I've bought a DVD player, so the usual dvd slot on my reciever will be taken (the one i used to connect my computer to). It would be really nice to have my headphones run through a separate amplifier for them, which would be easily moved.

Now to the question....

Should I be wanting an amplifier??

And If I should, which one??

As a reminder, I live in Finland, so Cmoys arent easily accessible here, unless a finnish member on the boards wants to sell me one.

My only real choice is to order online, and I dont want to spend more than about $70, including shipping.

Another thing I could concider is building my own cmoy, but because my DIY skills are quite basic the risk might not be worth it.

Thanks for reading this far,
Ttvetjanu

 

[crazyfrenchman27]

As long as you have access to the internet, anything is easily accessible.

I'd look at the used amp FS forum here. You might be able to pick-up a used PIMETA or a mint at that price.

Good luck!

-Matt

 

[Runningwater]

I just sold me Creek OBH21 which is a nice amp for Grados.
But I think your MS1 could live without a amp. It's not so necessary to buy a 70 USD amp for low impedance headphone!

 

[japa]

If you decide to order online, please note that you always have the risk of getting your stuff to be declared (tullattavaksi). In that case, 22% VAT (alv) and some duty is added to the price. In case of headphone amps, the duty is 2%. If you order your amp from USA, then there is 15% extra duty on top of everything. It has something to do with the trade disputes between USA and EU. I found this out when I got my Go-Vibe, which is from Canada (no 15% extra duty there!).

If you are interested in Go-vibe ver3, PM me.

 

[rauer]

If you end up buying a new one, the forum sponsor Meier-Audio is highly recommended. And as the company is located in Germany (though Jan's Dutch), there wouldn't be any problems with taxes or customs duties.

BTW, a hint for fellow Finns considering headphones: As most equipment tend to cost a lot more here, I was really surprised to find out that one of the cheapest places to buy Beyerdynamic DT770-80s was a Finnish pro-audio store. In case I'd break any rules here, I wont post the name but feel free to PM me.

 

[plainsong]

I'd second the suggestion of Meier's amps. I have an HA-2, and a porta corda II. Ok, so I've moved on to the ae-1 for a portable amp, but let's take nothing away from the little amp that could, the pcII. If it's any indication, the pcIII should really be something great. Of course it's well more than your budget.

There's the Headsave go-vibe, but that's 90 USD before shipping. And Norm is a great guy, but when he sent mine, he forgot to include the invoice. Customs wouldn't have even let me have it unless I thought to print out the Paypal receipt.