[jelt2359]

My first watt f7 also sounds great with my utopia, for what it's worth. When you find a great speaker amp like this, with pretty much perfect gain and power for all headphones, it really makes you question what's the point of headamps!

 

[Clemmaster]

Less heat. Better noise specs.

 

[posedown]

Yes i have the jotunheim for my he-500. And im thinking about to upgrade to the he-6.

 

[cskippy]

I mean, it's not going to sound like crap but it will scale well with better amps.  

 

[posedown]

Ok, what would be a nice entry level amp? Im from germany and most recommendations are not available in germany.

 

[Moochibond]

Ok, what would be a nice entry level amp? Im from germany and most recommendations are not available in germany.

 
I will be receiving an HE6 in a week or 2 and have read this thread from start to finish.
 
I'm gonna start with this: http://www.head-fi.org/t/662393/topping-tp60-best-budget-amp-for-he-6-he-500-orthos
 
Why, well A) I do not have many hundreds of $$$ B) I gotta start somewhere and I think this is a good starting point. This amp is relatively inexpensive and has received very good reviews all over. IF I feel the need to upgrade at least I will have a reference point on which to base my upgrade.
 
Enjoy the journey! 

 

[GearMe]

Hello,

can the Shiit Jotunheim (Balanced Output) drive the HE-6?

Thank you.

So...I'm putting this quote below from Schiit's Jotunheim product page. That said, I've been considering a Jotunheim and ended up buying an Emotiva BasX A-100 to drive some HE-6's (as well as some bookshelf speakers).


"Ready For Any Headphone
IEMs? Sure. HE-6? Sure...."

FWIW, Schiit doesn't make a habit of stretching the truth on claims like this. It could either be perfect for your needs while allowing easier headphone connection capabilities for other sets of cans. Or...it may not be enough for your tastes. My guess is that you'd be happy with your purchase but ymmv!


BTW, for the A-100, "A pair of internal jumpers allows you to bypass the dropping resistors and route the amplifier outputs of the A-100 directly to the headphone output – and avoid the need for messy external adapter cables."...a big reason for my purchase.


Lastly, since this thread has a large group of members that lean towards using speaker amps to power their HE-6s, you may be getting a biased sample; kinda like asking the HD800S Appreciation Thread if choosing a Beyer T1 gen2 makes sense.

 

[murphythecat]

My first watt f7 also sounds great with my utopia, for what it's worth. When you find a great speaker amp like this, with pretty much perfect gain and power for all headphones, it really makes you question what's the point of headamps!

how do you connect the utopia to speaker amps ? with something like the canopener? http://www.vinylflat.com/canopener.html
 
or did you bought a utopia cable with speaker taps?

 

[ambchang]

I got a used sansui Au-717 and it sounds great before recap. Issue is that since these amps are so old there will be cases where there are issues (like mine) and you'd have to put in many more hundreds to fix them. That said, even after plunking in close to a thousand on the thing I still think it's worth it based on the sound alone.

You can always get a smaller amp like the Au-2900 or the 4900 for $250 and then you are good to go.

 

[jelt2359]

how do you connect the utopia to speaker amps ? with something like the canopener? http://www.vinylflat.com/canopener.html

or did you bought a utopia cable with speaker taps?

Same way I connect the he6. Speaker taps to xlr adaptor, then Utopia connects directly to that.

 

[rigo]

Same way I connect the he6. Speaker taps to xlr adaptor, then Utopia connects directly to that.

If that is all it takes, why do these adapters like the can opener exist? I have a speaker tap to XLR adapter and want to try out also but keep hesitating. I have a vintage pioneer tuner and my Mogwai tube amp has speaker taps.

 

[Jozurr]

If that is all it takes, why do these adapters like the can opener exist? I have a speaker tap to XLR adapter and want to try out also but keep hesitating. I have a vintage pioneer tuner and my Mogwai tube amp has speaker taps.

The adapters like can opener are just that: same taps to xlr adapter in a box etc with sometimes resistors in the path. Most of the times these will degrade SQ and it is preferred to go with the simplest adapter without resistors etc in the chain (talking about SS gear here only).

 

[cskippy]

+1 
 
Double check on the Mogwai as it's tube based so they might not like the higher impedance of the HE-6 vs the standard 8 or 16 Ohms they expect. 

 

[jelt2359]

+1 

Double check on the Mogwai as it's tube based so they might not like the higher impedance of the HE-6 vs the standard 8 or 16 Ohms they expect. 

Just connect it to the highest impedance output on your amp. I use the 8 ohm output on my Ear Yoshino V12, although the 4 ohm works too. Both have more than enough power...

 

[Rossliew]

I use a vintage NAD3020 amp which has more than enough power for my arsenal of cans. Out of the speaker taps they all sound more dynamic and punchier