[isamu]

Hi guys. Been a long time since I been on this forum

I've owned a pair of Beyer Dynamics DT880's for about 8 years now, and I still love 'em. I was always under the assumption that pairing(no pun intended) a pair of headphones with an Home Theater receiver was among the best solutions to bringing out the best sound in headphones for music. I've been rocking Yamaha receivers, particularly the RX series for years. But lately I've been reading an abundance of comments from people saying headphones are best paired with dedicated headphone amps in order to achieve the best sound quality.

I've never owned a headphone amp. My sound chain for the past 15+ years has been PC Soundcard>Yamaha receiver(via toslink optical cable)>headphones. Never really occured to me to include a dedicated hp amp or even a dac into this chain.

With that having been said, have I been missing out all this time? What are the benefits of replacing my HT Yamaha receiver with a headphone amp purely for music?

I have my eye on the Schiit Magni 3 , which seems to be getting enormously glowing reviews. Can something like the Magni 3 really deliver superior sound to my Yamaha RX-V473? One of the reasons I've been sticking to an HT receiver is because of the features they offer, particularly options like treble and bass control, as well as various DSP effects, options which I see none of on any of these dedicated headphone amps. So is it worth sacrificing these particular features in favor of "allegedly" better sound quality from these amps?

What are your thoughts, and which amp would you suggest to best drive my Beyer Dynamics, under a $400 budget?

 

[isamu]

Bump

 

[isamu]

Bump

 

[richard51]

I bought a Sansui Au 7700 and will never look back... 3 main reasons : For the low price paid compared to a high end headphone amplifier,for the flexibility of uses and fonctionalities that gives this vintage amp, for the high end sound qualities, any other choices would be bad on all count,and by the way I like speakers also and this amplifier drives them on a high audiophile level...Not a single day has passed without my grateful satisfaction...I dont know for the Magni 3 but I listen to the first Magni, and the sound was not to our likings to say the least, my friend sell it on the spot the first day we listen to it...


Buy a vintage Sansui of the AU series, and buy one with 15 or 20 watts, the price will be low...

 

[NikonJ]

So here's the thing, many of the HT receivers these days don't really pay attention to the headphone output. In the past, the engineers would build in a dedicated headphone circuit that had low output impedance for impedance matching purposes, therefore you could get that 1/8 ratio or so with your nice cans. But now, for some reason($), they aren't putting these circuits into the receivers anymore. What you get is typically a headphone output that has a high output impedance, in my case around 300 ohms. To be able to impedance match that to my headphones I would need headphones with an impedance of around 2400 ohms...not happening. The problem with this is while you will still probably get some of the power out of the receiver, the high output impedance can color the sound, cause all sorts of strange occurrences at different frequencies.

So what you need to look at, at least to start with, is what the output impedance on your Yamaha is on the headphone jack. Next, look at the headphones input impedance. Take that number and divide it by 8, this number or anything below it is what you want to look for as the output impedance on the receiver.

Your DT880s have a 32 ohm impedance, therefore, you want to look for an output impedance that is 4 ohms or less on the receivers headphone output. That will at least let you impedance match. There are other factors, DAC, Amp, power, etc but this is one of the big limiting factors to listening from a receiver. On my old Yamaha RX-V671, the output impedance was 560 ohms. Pretty high.

In short, you are most likely loosing some of the best stuff that your cans can reproduce, just by using a high output impedance headphone jack(if you are.). I am in the process of picking up a Schitt Modi, Magni 3 and a Vali 2. I have heard nothing but great things about them, with the very rare dig. The newer devices are very highly recommended so I don't think you'd go wrong for your first dedicated headphone amp...which is why I'm doing the same.

Good luck!

 

[PurpleAngel]

Hi guys. Been a long time since I been on this forum
I've owned a pair of Beyer Dynamics DT880's for about 8 years now, and I still love 'em. I was always under the assumption that pairing (no pun intended) a pair of headphones with an Home Theater receiver was among the best solutions to bringing out the best sound in headphones for music. I've been rocking Yamaha receivers, particularly the RX series for years. But lately I've been reading an abundance of comments from people saying headphones are best paired with dedicated headphone amps in order to achieve the best sound quality.
I've never owned a headphone amp. My sound chain for the past 15+ years has been PC Sound card>Yamaha receiver(via toslink optical cable)>headphones. Never really occurred to me to include a dedicated hp amp or even a DAC into this chain.
With that having been said, have I been missing out all this time? What are the benefits of replacing my HT Yamaha receiver with a headphone amp purely for music?
I have my eye on the Schiit Magni 3 , which seems to be getting enormously glowing reviews. Can something like the Magni 3 really deliver superior sound to my Yamaha RX-V473? One of the reasons I've been sticking to an HT receiver is because of the features they offer, particularly options like treble and bass control, as well as various DSP effects, options which I see none of on any of these dedicated headphone amps. So is it worth sacrificing these particular features in favor of "allegedly" better sound quality from these amps?

What are your thoughts, and which amp would you suggest to best drive my Beyer Dynamics, under a $400 budget?

I doubt you will have any noticeable improvement with the Magni, over plugging the DT880 into the Yamaha.
Receivers do a fairly good job at driving headphones in the 250-Ohm to 300-Ohm range (and maybe 600-Ohm headphones)
Do you use speakers with the Yamaha, or just use it to drive the DT880?
If you do use speakers, you might be better off getting a newer receiver, like this Yamaha RX-A770, $330.
https://www.accessories4less.com/ma...rx-a770-7.2-ch-x-95-watts-a/v-receiver/1.html
and sell off the RX-V473

Or maybe putting that $400 for getting some better headphones?, like the Beyerdynamic T90?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyer-dyna...a:g:5tUAAOSwylBcO38d:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true
The Beyer T90 is my preferred headphone.

 

[richard51]

If you need impedance flexibilities with an headphone amplifier, garage 1217 tube amplifiers make very good gear with more than good sound...The only reason I sold one is because the headphone out of the Sansui kill them, for my headphones,be it the he 400 of hifiman, the akg k 701, or the AKG 340...By the way the headphone out of the Sansui is minus some resistance directly connected to the amplifier...

 

[PurpleAngel]

Hi guys. Been a long time since I been on this forum

I've owned a pair of Beyer Dynamics DT880's for about 8 years now

What are your thoughts, and which amp would you suggest to best drive my Beyer Dynamics, under a $400 budget?

Are the DT880 the 32-Ohm or 250-Ohm or 600-Ohm version?

 

[isamu]

Thanks for the replies guys much appreciated.

A few comments/clarifications:

I've decided to keep my AV receiver in the sound chain, and went with a Schiit Modi Multibit DAC which I'll be using to connect from my PC to the Modi to the receiver(via RCAs).

I should have clarified......I actually have *two* Yamaha receivers. One is the Yamaha RX-V473(my current HT every day receiver) and the other is the Yamaha RX-V493. Despite the similar model number, the RX-V493 is a far FAR older model. It was made in 1997!!! It's a dinosaur! I bought it 1998, and yes it's still kicking! Only thing is, it doesn't have an s/pdif optical input, so RCAs are necessary.

I should have also mentioned in my OP that have had ZERO problems driving my DT880s from the RX-V493. I bought the DT880s back in '09/early '10, and immediately paired them with the RX-V493, via my old SoundBlaster card's analog 1/4th jack line out. Back then I had no problems with them but since then I upgraded to the RX-V473, a model that by this point is now quite a few years old(2011-2014-ish?)

Anyway, the RX-V493 is the one I'm going to whip out of storage, and use again to start listening to music on, after having it collect dust for years. It has a certain distinct clarity in its sound that the other Yamaha for some reason doesn't match despite being much newer. Go figure. And yes my RCAs are fairly high quality. Very thick Monster(remember them?) brand RCA cables. Bought them back in '98 and have kept them stored away for days like these

So here's the thing, many of the HT receivers these days don't really pay attention to the headphone output. In the past, the engineers would build in a dedicated headphone circuit that had low output impedance for impedance matching purposes, therefore you could get that 1/8 ratio or so with your nice cans. But now, for some reason($), they aren't putting these circuits into the receivers anymore. What you get is typically a headphone output that has a high output impedance, in my case around 300 ohms. To be able to impedance match that to my headphones I would need headphones with an impedance of around 2400 ohms...not happening. The problem with this is while you will still probably get some of the power out of the receiver, the high output impedance can color the sound, cause all sorts of strange occurrences at different frequencies.

So what you need to look at, at least to start with, is what the output impedance on your Yamaha is on the headphone jack. Next, look at the headphones input impedance. Take that number and divide it by 8, this number or anything below it is what you want to look for as the output impedance on the receiver.

Your DT880s have a 32 ohm impedance, therefore, you want to look for an output impedance that is 4 ohms or less on the receivers headphone output. That will at least let you impedance match. There are other factors, DAC, Amp, power, etc but this is one of the big limiting factors to listening from a receiver. On my old Yamaha RX-V671, the output impedance was 560 ohms. Pretty high.

In short, you are most likely loosing some of the best stuff that your cans can reproduce, just by using a high output impedance headphone jack(if you are.). I am in the process of picking up a Schitt Modi, Magni 3 and a Vali 2. I have heard nothing but great things about them, with the very rare dig. The newer devices are very highly recommended so I don't think you'd go wrong for your first dedicated headphone amp...which is why I'm doing the same.

Good luck!

@NikonJ, very informative post. Thank you! I found a webpage containing specs for the RX-V493 and it looks like the receiver has an output Impedance of 8 Ohms. Not bad huh? Again, considering I've driven my DT880s before with this dinosaur receiver(albeit with a much inferior sound source) and had no problems doing so, I should be OK.

https://www.cnet.com/products/yamaha-rx-v493-av-receiver-5-1-channel/

I doubt you will have any noticeable improvement with the Magni, over plugging the DT880 into the Yamaha.
Receivers do a fairly good job at driving headphones in the 250-Ohm to 300-Ohm range (and maybe 600-Ohm headphones)
Do you use speakers with the Yamaha, or just use it to drive the DT880?
If you do use speakers, you might be better off getting a newer receiver, like this Yamaha RX-A770, $330.
https://www.accessories4less.com/ma...rx-a770-7.2-ch-x-95-watts-a/v-receiver/1.html
and sell off the RX-V473

Or maybe putting that $400 for getting some better headphones?, like the Beyerdynamic T90?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyer-dyna...a:g:5tUAAOSwylBcO38d:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true
The Beyer T90 is my preferred headphone.

Thanks for the reply. I will consider the T90s. Are they a good step up from the DT880s? How does their sound differ? To answer your question, no, I will not be using speakers with the RX-V493. It's strictly for HP listening.

Are the DT880 the 32-Ohm or 250-Ohm or 600-Ohm version?

Very good question and I wish I knew. Is there any way to find out? I bought them somewhere back in late 2009/early 2010. Based on that timeframe, would you say they're the 250-Ohm or 600-Ohm version? Is there anywhere on the cans themselves that indicate this? Does Beyerdynamics keep a record of orders that are 10yrs old?


**UPDATE**......... just went to https://support.beyerdynamic.com/hc...he-impedance-of-my-DT-770-880-990-Edition-is- and according to that, my cans are the 250 Ohms version, since there is nothing written on the plug. It's blank. Guess I'm good to go

 

[NikonJ]

@NikonJ, very informative post. Thank you! I found a webpage containing specs for the RX-V493 and it looks like the receiver has an output Impedance of 8 Ohms. Not bad huh? Again, considering I've driven my DT880s before with this dinosaur receiver(albeit with a much inferior sound source) and had no problems doing so, I should be OK.

https://www.cnet.com/products/yamaha-rx-v493-av-receiver-5-1-channel/

Sounds good to go man! I hope it all sounds amazing! I have found as well that some of the older receivers do quite well driving headphones, DACs may not be as good but that's ok if you get a Modi.