Quote:
Originally Posted by Trogdor
Absolutely not. What they typically do is split a wire off the main line and put some huge reisistor on it, i.e. the deisgn of the headphone amp is typically a complete after thought!
Get a dedicated headphone amp...its worth it....
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What about if I tell you that I have heard some that will beat the dust of some very good reviewed headphone amps...???
Nik right now is using a Leben integrated amp, a classic push-pull tube amp, nothing fancy in design, and he absolutely love it, he sold of his expensive headphone amps, so IMO there is nothing written in stone here yet...
I'm testing right now a Marantz PM7200 and the PM7001 is on the way also, to keep one at the end, and the 7001 has a dedicated section with buffers for headphone driving, there is an after-though circuit, and both sound very very good as headphone amps, very clean, and with guts enough to drive anything...
Some vintage amps are very good sounding amps and very good driving headphones, all you need is clean sounding amp, to make a headphone sound and do not show the noise floor....typically not a problem with speakers, specially the hiss...Over this you will have a tone network just in case you need to for some recordings, non of the headphone amps I have seen so far have it with a very few exceptions of bass boost..
Of course a very good dedicated headphone amp, will sound better but the price is ten times as much also...if you have the means go for it, if you do not, just get an old vintage good amp....and be happy...