[davidlynch1982]

I've just purchased a new set of DT770 80 ohm's because I loved them the last time I had them. I've never amped them before as I use an old Teac Ref 300 amp and cd player for them as the sound is rather good imo and seems more exciting than my higher end kit which is used to drive my B&W CM1's.
I popped down to my local Richer Sounds and was to.d that the btech headphone amp would make them come alive ! Well it didn't ! It was worse than the onboard headphone amp on the Teac.
What amp will drive my cans well ? It's not volume I want but better sound
 
Any advice is welcomed
 
I'm new to headphone amps !

 

[devhen]

Quote:

I've just purchased a new set of DT770 80 ohm's because I loved them the last time I had them. I've never amped them before as I use an old Teac Ref 300 amp and cd player for them as the sound is rather good imo and seems more exciting than my higher end kit which is used to drive my B&W CM1's.
I popped down to my local Richer Sounds and was to.d that the btech headphone amp would make them come alive ! Well it didn't ! It was worse than the onboard headphone amp on the Teac.
What amp will drive my cans well ? It's not volume I want but better sound
 
Any advice is welcomed
 
I'm new to headphone amps !

 
Anything with a good amount of power. Whats the power output of the BTech? I doubt its anything to write home about...
 
I think the Lake People G103 is a great choice because its great bang for the buck at just ~ $250 and packs a lot of power.

 

[davidlynch1982]

It said it was capable of powering 20ohm-600ohm. The sound was horrendous. I had it wired directly from the phono out on the cd player through Atlas Enigma Signum's but the treble was overpowered by overblown bass. I don't want to colour the signal

 

[devhen]

There are a lot of amps out there that say they can power up to 600 ohm headphone but are actually quite weak. As you well know, getting enough volume doesn't mean you're getting the most out of your cans. Look into something more powerful. See if you can demo one in person to see if that floats your boat. I know my 600 ohm 770s and 250 ohm 880s sound bloody great out of my Lake People G109. The G103 has close to as much power for less $.

 

[davidlynch1982]

thank you for your advice devhe it's much appreciated.
What are these smsl and topping amps like on ebay and amazon ? They sound spec'd up but are relatively cheap. I have a dealer near me who stocks the Project headbox range, are they good ?

 

[pp312]

Quote:

Excellent. Glad to hear they sound good to you; with the way some people talk about the DT880's you'd think that the 600 Ohm version is the only one that sounds good. They're kind of a pain to find...

 
Except for the two or three people who claim that the 600 ohm blows the 250 ohm right out of the water, most people, including "DavidMahler" of the big comparison thread and Tyll Hertsen, find only minimal difference between the two, with many claiming no difference at all. Tyll even stated that what difference he heard could well have been "placebo". I think it's time we stopped elevating the 600 ohm to godlike status and agreed that all the higher impedance 880s sound much alike.

 

[Tsujigiri]

Good to hear. It seems like we have a massive thread dedicated to reiterating that the 600 Ohm version is better, but very few users who have heard both the 600 and 250 Ohm versions, and no consensus within those users.

 

[devhen]

Quote:

thank you for your advice devhe it's much appreciated.
What are these smsl and topping amps like on ebay and amazon ? They sound spec'd up but are relatively cheap. I have a dealer near me who stocks the Project headbox range, are they good ?

 
I googled it and found the specs for the Project Headbox II and its specs are 330 mW at 30 ohms and just 30 mW at 300 ohms so you'd probably be around, idk, 150-200 mW with the 80 ohm 770s. That's not a lot of power. But I would demo it anyway, you never know.
 
From what I've read, voltage is more important than wattage with the Beyers but these specs at least give you a general idea of how powerful the amp is. For contrast, the G103 puts out about 1000 mW into 80 ohms so that gives you an idea of how much more powerful it is compared to a lot of the amps out there that claim they can power 600 ohm headphones but really aren't that suited to it.

 

[devhen]

Quote:

Good to hear. It seems like we have a massive thread dedicated to reiterating that the 600 Ohm version is better, but very few users who have heard both the 600 and 250 Ohm versions, and no consensus within those users.

 
There's a lot of people that have demoed both and say there's no difference unless you're using an amp with high output impedance, like an OTL amp. I suspect they are probably right. And I would suspect at least some of the people who have heard a difference between the two were actually hearing standard driver variance.

 

[Dubstep Girl]

Quote:

 
I googled it and found the specs for the Project Headbox II and its specs are 330 mW at 30 ohms and just 30 mW at 300 ohms so you'd probably be around, idk, 150-200 mW with the 80 ohm 770s. That's not a lot of power. But I would demo it anyway, you never know.
 
From what I've read, voltage is more important than wattage with the Beyers but these specs at least give you a general idea of how powerful the amp is. For contrast, the G103 puts out about 1000 mW into 80 ohms so that gives you an idea of how much more powerful it is compared to a lot of the amps out there that claim they can power 600 ohm headphones but really aren't that suited to it.

 
 
i had the Headbox Se II which was one of the better ones out of the pro-ject line. it worked ok with the HD 650s, drove them ok, i tried it at the time with 80 ohm beyers and it powered them ok too.
 
still i think theres way better to be had for the money, and it would almost certainly struggle with the 600 ohm headphones. the sound of the amp was a little congested, not too bright, not too detailed, tonality worked ok for hd 650s but was still not the best.

 

[pp312]

Quote:

 
There's a lot of people that have demoed both and say there's no difference unless you're using an amp with high output impedance, like an OTL amp. I suspect they are probably right. And I would suspect at least some of the people who have heard a difference between the two were actually hearing standard driver variance.

 
 
I don't attend Meets, but couldn't someone at one of these Meets do a little blind A/Bing with a small group of Golden Ears to try to get some concensus on this question. It couldn't be that difficult given the ubiquitousness of this particular phone, in both impedances.
 
Also, I think the question of driver variance is underestimated. No one has really investigated this issue; it would make an interesting project I think for someone like Tyll Hertsen. Even left and right variance comes into play.

 

[devhen]

Quote:

 
I don't attend Meets, but couldn't someone at one of these Meets do a little blind A/Bing with a small group of Golden Ears to try to get some concensus on this question. It couldn't be that difficult given the ubiquitousness of this particular phone, in both impedances.
 
Also, I think the question of driver variance is underestimated. No one has really investigated this issue; it would make an interesting project I think for someone like Tyll Hertsen. Even left and right variance comes into play.

 
I agree that driver variance with the Beyers is underestimated by some but there's a lot of people that have experienced it and are well aware of it. I bought two 770 Premium 600 ohms 2 weeks apart from one another and one was bass-shy and sibilant and the other was bass-heavy with no sibilance. Reports of variance from one headphone to the next is most common with the 770 and much less common with the 990 and even less common with the 880. Since the 770/880/990 all share the same basic driver I would venture to guess that Beyer saves the most consistent drivers for the 880 since its the most neutral of the three and the most popular for use in studios and professional applications. The 770s likely get the least consistent drivers since its the least expensive of the three and the 880 and 990 are marketed as slightly "higher-end" models. However, even with the 880s you're likely to experience variance from one to the next that likely surpasses the amount of difference in sound between the 250 and 600 ohm versions (unless of course you're using an amp with a particularly high output impedance).
 
However, despite the variance that exists in some Beyer headphone models I've never heard reports of Beyers having particularly badly *matched* drivers. By that I mean the two drivers fitted into a single Beyer headphone will be matched drivers with matching sound signatures. Obviously they won't match *perfectly* but no drivers ever do. I suspect Beyer matches the two drivers for a single headphone as well as any other company does if not better than most.
 
Edit: I should note that this is not a phenomenon limited to just Beyer headphones. All headphones vary from one to the next, to some degree or another, which a lot of people don't realize or have experience with since its pretty uncommon for someone to buy more than one of the same headphone model.
 
Edit 2: Tyll's measurements already show how well the two drivers in that particular headphone are matched. If you checkout his PDF measurement files you'll notice the frequency response is shown for both the left and right drivers. You'll notice, for example, that the HD600 has a decent amount of variance between the two drivers. More so than most of the Beyers he has measured. However, this could be caused by the left and right cups having a slightly different placement on the dummy head.

 

[Tsujigiri]

So it's not true that some of the Beyers have hand-matched drivers?

 

[devhen]

Quote:

So it's not true that some of the Beyers have hand-matched drivers?

 
Well I'm not sure but I very highly doubt any of the > $100 ones do. Or any of them for that matter. Hand-matched == not matched at all. That would show up very obviously in measurements and would probably be easily noticeable just by listening to them.

 

[Tsujigiri]

By hand-matched I meant pairing the drivers by hand using instruments to measure compatibility, not matched using just manual inspection. Like what Sennheiser does for their higher end models. I think there was a rumor floating around that the Manufaktur version of Beyers had matched drivers, but I never saw it substantiated.