[MoreCowbell]

I am sure I am missing something here...

I'm guessing it'll be obvious by my questions that I'm an electronics dolt but I'm gonna let 'er snap anyhow. Here's my pondering: Your basic headphone amp is actually an integrated amp in the floor standing speaker world. You have an amplification stage and a pre-amp stage, however simple or complex it may be. Well why? I have a perfectly good pre-amp already. I'd like to find a real headphone amp, that is: line in and headphone out. Volume and switching coming from my pre-amp. No? Amplify what ever signal it gets. What really got me think about this is my cd player. It has volume control onboard. I see a nice balanced out to a balanced in on a true amp. Balanced in and a balanced set of heaphone outs... done.

Sorry if this has been covered before. I had no idea what to search on...

 

[MoreCowbell]

So... is hallowed ground being tread on here? Or is the question that stupid?

I'm sure this can be done. It's done all the time, only difference of course is that you have speaker outs instead of a headphone out. Yeah, there's different elements at work but it's not impossible. The question I have is simply "why isn't this being done?" Is it cost prohibitive? Are there engineering issues involved? hmmm...

 

[unclejr]

Probably most of us (myself included) don't know the answer off hand, but I am sure that as soon as someone does they'll be happy to help.

 

[Assorted]

I'm sorry the structure of your question is very confusing :/ What are you asking? (not in an offensive tone, not at all)

I assume what you're asking is, why aren't integrated amps used to power headphones? Because speakers take more power in general. Headphones don't need that kind of amperage... I think.


Just my opinion, since nobody's here to answer.

 

[Jamfan16]

Is this what you're asking?:

"Can I use my home theater preamp as the preamp for a headphone amp?"

 

[meat01]

I think he is asking why headphone amplifiers come in a 1 box solution with a volume control rather than separates (headphone preamp and headphone power amp.)

If this is what you are asking, I believe it is because headphone amps are similar to preamps.

Headphone amps are not as mass produced like stereo receivers, integrated amps and power amps. I don't think enough people would want to bother with buying a separate headphone preamp and headphone power amp.

This is my opinion on your question, if that is what you are asking

 

[AV8TR]

MoreCowbell,

Note clearly that I'm a more profound Noob than you are! With that clearly in mind, allow me to hazzard an answer:

I suspect that separating the amplifier stage in a headphone integrated amp may not confer an appreciable advantage. What is interesting is that some manufactures separate the power supply from the headphone amp -- one example would be Ray Samuel's Raptor. From talking to Ray, he believes that that configuration does indeed provide a significant advantage, but I don't know what it is. Sorry!

The traditional preamp is designed to control several components (tuner, CD, phono, tape, etc.) with dedicated circuitry for each, I believe. In the case of a headphone amp, driving only one component, the dedicated preamp (which is limited in function) can be designed with extremely high quality without separation. This is my guess anyway.

You might want to speak with one of the amp designers, such as Ray Samuel -- I'm sure he could shed a great deal of light on your question. And if you do, please let us know what you find out.

Thanks for the interesting question!

 

[MoreCowbell]

Thanks for the response.

sorry about the syntax of the question. I think the last few posts have the jist of it. I am wondering if there's a device that simply amplifies a signal from a preamp and outputs it to a headphone jack instead of a pair of speaker terminals. All volume control and source switching happens somewhere else; either a typical hi-fi preamp or say a Cary 308 cd player. A single box amp for headphones. No volume knob, no source selection etc...

thanks...

Yes, Meat01, that's it!

 

[clauswitz]

Maybe I can try. Some headphone amps allow you to run in the tape loop of your preamp.

 

[hugz]

Basically what you're after is a headphone power amp. Off the top of my head i cant think of any, but i wonder if many headphone amps use passive preamps? If that's the case then simply bypassing the volume pot would probably be sufficient to turn the headphone (integrated) amp into a headphone power amp. If you're willing to spend a bit, then a firstwatt f1 or f2 makes a good headphone amp and it is a power amp (thus you can connect it to your preamp - this is what i use); however, it's not specifically a headphone amp

Come to think of it, it's surprising that no one makes a headphone power amp. I know that some people use their preamps as headphone amps, so maybe a headphone amp is not too much more than a preamp, and thus if you remove the preamp component of it they'd have nothing to sell. At least it would be a buffer though to get the impedance match right, i think