[tvhead]

Hello,

I have a low end Rotel Integrated amp. I can't seem to find any information on the headphone section of this unit on the Rotel site. Does any know anything about it? Is it the same as the higher end Rotels? Do I need a separate headphone amp? The highest end headphones I have are the SR-60 and the V6s, and the seem to work well with it. I want to know if I had add the cost of a separate amp with the HD600s I'm thinking of getting or will it be good enough with my amp now.

Thanks for the help.

 

[pedxing]

Strangely enough, I have tested a bunch of mid-end Rotel pre-amps and low-end integrated amps with with the HD600 at a store. They sounded OK except for the imbalances of the left/right channel at low volume levels. I asked the salesperson about this problem and he said that the amps and pre-amps are primarily built to drive speakers, not headphones. He said that buying a dedicated headphone amp for the same amount of money would perform much better.

I think the best thing to do is to test the HD600 on your integrated amp and see if you like it or not.

 

[dngl]

Integrated amps generally have a headphone out that is nothing but speaker out + resistors = less quality. Dedicated headamps don't have the resistors, etc. Is it worth it to get a headamp? Audition and find out.

 

[tvhead]

My integrated amp does something weird. I noticed that most amps will power off the speakers when you plug in the headphones. Mine does not do that. Does that still mean that the headphone amp is just the speaker out with resistors?

 

[Steril]

I never saw an amplifier that automatically powers off the speakers when the headphones are plugged. So, IMO, your amp isn't weird. This must be a japanese gadget.

 

[pedxing]

One of the funny marketing features of mass consumers electronics is to turn off the speakers when the headphones are plugged in. The so-called audiophile grade stuff don't do this, especially Rotel equipment. Super-high end stuff may not even come with a headphone jack.

This behavour of not turning the speakers off became a stupid mark of being an "audiophile-like" company. Some mass consumer electronic companies like Kenwood and Yamaha in the late-90's mimicked this behavour of leaving the speakers on to fool consumers that its audiophile grade material. Of course, in the 90's, audiophiles had this weird notion that less electronics packed in a component meant better design and less distortion (seperate power supply, digital counters creating "ticking noises" which was probably more psychology than reality). So it became trendy for companies to remove features out of their crappy line of products and one of them was turning off the speakers when headphones are plugged in. Instead they put a on/off switch for each speaker channels, claiming that people with multiple rooms with multiple speakers can control where sound is being played. The person can then listen to the headphone jack in one room and another person can enjoy the same music in another room with speakers.