[sling5s]

From your experience: (besides the general rule of high impedance cans working best with tubes).
1. What headphone(s) have you heard the best synergy with tubes and the worst.
2. And headphone brands that best synergizes with tubes.

The Best: The headphone that best synergized with tubes in my experience was the HD800.

The Worst: The headphones that were the worst I have to say are the Denons (AH-D2000, AH-D7000). The mid bass and midrange was too thick and warm. It killed it for me. I think closed headphones with tube amps in general do not work for me.

Headphone brand that best synergizes with tubes:
I have a feeling that AKG's by their general nature/characteristics will synergize the best with tubes...followed by Grado's.

What has your experience been?

 

[GuyDebord]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sling5s /img/forum/go_quote.gif From your experience: 1. What headphone(s) have you heard the best synergized with tubes and the worst. 2. And headphone brands that best synergizes with tubes. The Best: The headphone that best synergized with tubes in my experience was the HD800. The Worst: The headphones that were the worst I have to say are the Denons (AH-D2000, AH-D7000). The mid bass and midrange was too thick and warm. It killed it for me. I think closed headphones with tube amps in general do not work for me. Headphone brand that best synergizes with tubes: I have a feeling that AKG's by their general nature/characteristics will synergize the best with tubes...followed by Grado's. What has your experience been?

Theoretically higher impedance phones will synergize better with tubes, practically... well...
The best I have heard are the K1000 with an Airtight 300B amp, but any good tube amp will do marvelous with these.
300ohms as the hd800's are a good pairing, also the 600ohm Beyers are magic with tubes.

 

[sling5s]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuyDebord /img/forum/go_quote.gif Theoretically higher impedance phones will synergize better with tubes, practically... well... The best I have heard are the K1000 with an Airtight 300B amp, but any good tube amp will do marvelous with these. 300ohms as the hd800's are a good pairing, also the 600ohm Beyers are magic with tubes.

ahh...yes you are right about high impedance cans: the best are my 300 ohm HD800 and 600ohm AKG K240.

but certain low impedance cans with tubes with coupled transformers (I believe that's the terminology) like the Woo Audio 6 work well.

 

[Currawong]

Do you understand that there are different types of tube amps, such as OTL (Output Transformer Less), transformer coupled and a variety of hybrid types? It is only, as far as I know, the OTL amps that work best only with high-impedance headphones. Regardless, one can't generalise that headphones do or don't go with a tube amp, for the above reasons, and because there is no generic "tube sound" -- the design will dictate the performance.

 

[Acix]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sling5s /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have a feeling that AKG's by their general nature/characteristics will synergize the best with tubes...followed by Grado's. What has your experience been?

Most of the AKG's (120ohm-600ohm) will do great with tubes, but this is not the case with the K701/2 (62ohm). My bad experience was with the single power extreme and the K702, and it was extremely bad, the sound just crash. Better experience I had with the Bottlehead amps, and the DNA.

I want to try the WA6/SE before I totally give up on tubes experience. For now I'll highly recommend the best solid state amp and DAC that you can buy to drive the K701/2.

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acix /img/forum/go_quote.gif Most of the AKG's (120ohm-600ohm) will do great with tubes, but this is not the case with the K701/2 (62ohm). My bad experience was with the single power extreme and the K702, and it was extremely bad, the sound just crash. Better experience I had with the Bottlehead amps, and the DNA.

I agree, OTL into low impedance loads the extreme leaves something to be desired. The extreme with an output transformer sounds quite nice with the K701 (and other lower impedance headphones). Irony, there was mention a long while ago that one of the prototypes of the extreme was transformer coupled.

 

[bada bing]

Tube outputs, regardless of topology, are designed around a specific load impedance. Some designs and topologies are more forgiving than others of variations in load, but they all have a design point. That's a part of what people call "synergy".

I like to swap phones around, and because of that I have pretty much given up on tube outputs for day to day use. Chasing amp "synergy" isn't that interesting to me anymore. Lately I've been tweaking and rolling an EHHA and a SOHAII (both hybrids). Big advantage is they respond to tweaks, but don't vary all that much with the load impedance. The SOHAII in particular seems to let you listen directly to the tube and not so much the output impedance/coupling interactions. Hybrids are a way to eliminate one big variable factor out of the listening equations. Of course YOMV (your opinion may vary). Most people probably aren't nearly as interested in the guts of their equipment as the average DIY'r.