[saowin111]

hi guys
new poster, long time lurker. anyone here using a speaker amp to drive your headphones? in my case, have a pair of NOS R10's, been deciding what to do with them. rather than spending the money for a top notch dedicated amp, i'm wondering if it's possible to properly implement using a speaker amp (in my case, lamm ML2's) to drive them instead. i've done a search on this, but was not able to find anyone doing this with high end gear.
thanks
s.

 

[Senn-Fi]

Operakid has a thread going about this very topic.  The bottom line is that yes, many people are doing this, but most are using resistors to help create an appropriate impedance load for the amp.  If you are uncomfortable doing this, Hifiman makes a resistor box that works quite well.  I have tried it both ways on a few solid state amps (e.g. with and without resistors) to good effect, but not on a tube amp. 
 
The other thing to know is that this will only work with a balanced headphone connector with either a 4 pin XLR or 2x 3 pin XLR's or you could mess up your amp.  
 
More info here:
 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/649107/speaker-amps-for-headphones

 

[saowin111]

thanks very much, subscribed to that thread, not sure how the hell i missed that.

 

[lugnut]

Quote:

Operakid has a thread going about this very topic.  The bottom line is that yes, many people are doing this, but most are using resistors to help create an appropriate impedance load for the amp.  If you are uncomfortable doing this, Hifiman makes a resistor box that works quite well.  I have tried it both ways on a few solid state amps (e.g. with and without resistors) to good effect, but not on a tube amp. 
 
The other thing to know is that this will only work with a balanced headphone connector with either a 4 pin XLR or 2x 3 pin XLR's or you could mess up your amp.  
 
More info here:
 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/649107/speaker-amps-for-headphones

Can you point me to the post that states you must use a balanced connection to prevent harm to your amp. I thought that it was the resistors that prevented the harm to the amp, and the balanced connection was just a preference. Please explain ?

 

[saowin111]

Quote:

Can you point me to the post that states you must use a balanced connection to prevent harm to your amp. I thought that it was the resistors that prevented the harm to the amp, and the balanced connection was just a preference. Please explain ?

here you go
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/649107/speaker-amps-for-headphones/15#post_9231946