[cifani090]

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May i ask what you paid for it

 

I have seen one unit at around $150. Is this a good price? Do you have this receiver?

I think that is exactly what the market is for those units.
 

 

[Frank I]

Picked up a super clean G4500 Sansui for 45.00. This one looks new. No static very clean piece and well cared for. It weighs less than the SX650 but has 10 more watts than the SX650 and very close in sound signature to the Pioneer Silver Series. It driving the HE6 out of the headphone jasck at 9 very7 loud and clean. As the Pioneer still besting all my head amps in the SS arena and by a distance. For 45.00 I consider this a score and happy it handles my HE6 and D7000. No pigtail required . Will post pictures and more impressions as I get more time on it.

 

[Skylab]

That's very cool, Frank! We want pics

 

[cifani090]

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That's very cool, Frank! We want pics

x2

 

[Frank I]

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That's very cool, Frank! We want pics

I will but I can say its very nice for sure but I think I prefer the Pioneer both of them and the SX650 slightly better with more focus and better definition. But this one is very clean and weighs much less than the SX650 both list price similiar. Those Pioneer spoiled me.

 

[moodyrn]

I was thinking the other day and thought....."what took so long"!! When you look at some of these vintage amps, many of them have the recipe for producing great sound whether it's through headphones or speaker. They have very, very good and overly built power supplies, and fully discrete components and output stages. Even some higher end dedicated headphone amps are op amp driven. And the high end headphone amps with discrete output stages may sound good, but many of them lack power to drive every headphone. So even with those you have to be careful matching them to certain cans. You do save a lot of space with them, but many(not all) just don't have the guts some these vintage receivers have. I'm really speaking more so about solid state headphone amps. Vintage tube amps are great too, but there are many current production tube tube amps that are really great. Well....maybe not. I would say there are some. The highest rated tube amps now aren't really dedicated headphone amps. The leben among others are really tube integrated with headphone outs. So while there are very few "dedicated" headphone tube amps that will compete with the best of these vintage receivers you still may have to step up to a current production integrated to surpass some of the "monster" vintage receivers. And this is coming from a tube guy.

 

 

[RexAeterna]

I was thinking the other day and thought....."what took so long"!! When you look at some of these vintage amps, many of them have the recipe for producing great sound whether it's through headphones or speaker. They have very, very good and overly built power supplies, and fully discrete components and output stages. Even some higher end dedicated headphone amps are op amp driven. And the high end headphone amps with discrete output stages may sound good, but many of them lack power to drive every headphone. So even with those you have to be careful matching them to certain cans. You do save a lot of space with them, but many(not all) just don't have the guts some these vintage receivers have. I'm really speaking more so about solid state headphone amps. Vintage tube amps are great too, but there are many current production tube tube amps that are really great. Well....maybe not. I would say there are some. The highest rated tube amps now aren't really dedicated headphone amps. The leben among others are really tube integrated with headphone outs. So while there are very few "dedicated" headphone tube amps that will compete with the best of these vintage receivers you still may have to step up to a current production integrated to surpass some of the "monster" vintage receivers. And this is coming from a tube guy.

 

yea but impedance is actually not a big deal at all as some believe since there is no matter what speaker or headphone used you will encounter spikes and dips across the frequency range. you can try to match the nominal impedance with either speaker or/and headphones but that's the avg/nominal impedance load given. you can't always assure perfect impedance matching with any amp. these vintage amps don't use any type of dedicated headphone out like some say. they just use a simple dropping resistor between the power amp section and headphone socket. the headphone socket is always tied within the speaker outputs from the same power amp used in the integrated amp/receiver. that's why they don't have trouble powering most if all headphones. only type of headphones i suggest never plug into the sockets of these amps are very sensitive 16ohm earbuds. you can fry those very easily. they might use a resistor but they were never meant for headphones that can be driven from weak sources.

headamps are basically of same design of power amps/receivers/integrated amps but are usually more portable and much much lighter in weight. headamps are basically very low-powered power amps/receivers/integrated amps.

 

[moodyrn]

That's the point I was making. The better the power supply is, "usually" the better the amp will sound. Many dedicated headphone amps just don't have the "guts" many of these vintage receivers have. They may have a similar design internally but will not sound as powerful and clean as some of these vintage receivers.

 

[ardgedee]

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headamps are basically very low-powered power amps/receivers/integrated amps.
 

The Schitt Lyr may only have a published rating of 6 watts at 32 ohms, but that is equivalent to 24 watts into a conventional 8 ohm speaker load - low-powered, but not very low. The other Schitt amps are closer to 12-16 watts @ 8 ohms.
 
Conversely, since most receivers/integrated amps have resistors at the headphone jack, there can be significantly less power available to headphones: A 100 WPC receiver's headphone jack might only drive a 32 ohm headphone load to 2 watts or so - in the same range as the Schitt Asgard, Violectric HPA V100, and other headphone amps. (Edit: This is tangential at best to the discussion regarding quality of power supply, which I agree with you all on.)
 
I cooked up a spreadsheet to calculate and compare things like speaker and headphone efficiency, and amplifier output at the speaker taps and headphone jack. If anybody else wants a copy (and/or check my work; I may be doing something wrong), I'll clean it up, make it Excel-friendly, and post it for download tomorrow.

 

[Frank I]

 
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The Schitt Lyr may only have a published rating of 6 watts at 32 ohms, but that is equivalent to 24 watts into a conventional 8 ohm speaker load - low-powered, but not very low. The other Schitt amps are closer to 12-16 watts @ 8 ohms.
 
Conversely, since most receivers/integrated amps have resistors at the headphone jack, there can be significantly less power available to headphones: A 100 WPC receiver's headphone jack might only drive a 32 ohm headphone load to 2 watts or so - in the same range as the Schitt Asgard, Violectric HPA V100, and other headphone amps. (Edit: This is tangential at best to the discussion regarding quality of power supply, which I agree with you all on.)
 
I cooked up a spreadsheet to calculate and compare things like speaker and headphone efficiency, and amplifier output at the speaker taps and headphone jack. If anybody else wants a copy (and/or check my work; I may be doing something wrong), I'll clean it up, make it Excel-friendly, and post it for download tomorrow.All my receiver put out way more than 2W because the HE6 would struggle with 2W and they sail even on my 35W SX650. All three of my vintage speakers drive them both my hE6 and D70000 better than any SS headphone amp I owned anbd I had 4 of them

 

[moodyrn]

The resistor value are not the same on integrated amps. In fact, some of them don't even have them at all. I had an old sony from the late 70s. I really couldn't plug any headphones into the jack. It was way too powerful. Even with 600ohm cans there would be a great amount of hiss. I checked the inside and there wasn't any resistors. The headphone out was the same as the speaker out. The only headphones I was ever able to plug in without the risk of damaging them was a pair of he-5s I had at the time. My fisher had a pair of 330ohm resistors(now 165). And even with the 165ohm I have in it now, my he-6 are underpowered. So I have to use the speaker out for those. Some have 120ohm resistors others have some impedance different from that. So the formula ardgedee used isn't really a true formula. It may be for some, but definitely not for most of the vintage receivers/integrateds. But one thing I think we could all agree on is the superiority of the power supplies. A two watt vintage will sound more powerful and more clean than a "typical" two watt dedicated headphone amp.

 

 

[RexAeterna]

Quote:

The Schitt Lyr may only have a published rating of 6 watts at 32 ohms, but that is equivalent to 24 watts into a conventional 8 ohm speaker load - low-powered, but not very low. The other Schitt amps are closer to 12-16 watts @ 8 ohms.
 
Conversely, since most receivers/integrated amps have resistors at the headphone jack, there can be significantly less power available to headphones: A 100 WPC receiver's headphone jack might only drive a 32 ohm headphone load to 2 watts or so - in the same range as the Schitt Asgard, Violectric HPA V100, and other headphone amps. (Edit: This is tangential at best to the discussion regarding quality of power supply, which I agree with you all on.)
 
I cooked up a spreadsheet to calculate and compare things like speaker and headphone efficiency, and amplifier output at the speaker taps and headphone jack. If anybody else wants a copy (and/or check my work; I may be doing something wrong), I'll clean it up, make it Excel-friendly, and post it for download tomorrow.

i see what your saying but it depends cause all receivers/amps use different value resistors. it can range from anywhere of 120ohms@3w to 680ohms@2w. i mean you can easily change the resistor value of the receiver/amp to send 6w into 32ohms but that much will kill your hearing and the drivers since it only take a 1 MW for headphones to reach it's SPL of 86-92db due to it depending on how sensitive the headphone are. speakers it only takes 1w@ given sensitivity@1m. so that's why wattage is not much a big factor when powering speakers. same can go for headphones. it's usually the circuit tapeolgy design and how well it handles the shift of current and voltages change due to impedance spikes and dips. usually most amps/receivers won't have issues with big voltages and impedance spikes(16-100ohms) but it's the impedance load of 4ohms and under that can be an amp killer. that's speakers tho. most if all amps won't have issues running out of current or voltage for headphones. i'm not disagreeing either on your findings. it's good to see you know your stuff and i'm not hating on headamps at all. i will admit as well that i do not know everything.

 

[scottiebabie]

went to a vintage meet this afternoon to meet some fellow gearheads & despite mumbling&promising that im totally done with buying more vintage 'headamps", i couldnt help but brings these boys home.






 
its the bizzaro twins - a JVC JR-S300 MkII & a slightly newer (early 80s)  Pioneer SX3600 fluroscan. besides giving the both of them a nice soaking of contact cleaner & surface scrubbing, i havent done much listening but initial impressions says im very impressed with the JVC driving the HD650 & the vintage Pro Linear speakers. its very clean & seems to have a bigger than usual bottom heft than the pioneer(s). im loving the famed JVC SEA 5band eq - every amp should have this! both of em even having power meters with the SX3600s fluroscan leading the way.
 
reason i broke my promise not to buy anymore "headamps" is cos i snagged both for whooping $60! how can anyone pass it up?? booooyaaah!!
 
O & i totally agree with Moodryn - its all about power....power supplies that is. no headamp or even modern day hifi amps (at least <$1k) can come close to the kind of power supplies these vintages have. its the main reason why they sound sooo good! go ask Skylab bout the trafo, power caps & psu's in his SX1250! 

 

[bunit]

I'm a lot younger than the average poster in this thread I assume, but thats of course because it seems like I've inherited some gear that I didn't think of previously...this stuff is currently sitting in the garage with no use on them so I think I'll play around with them pretty soon.  
 
what I have on my hands is:
 
An EQ? it seems like... ADC Sound Shaper SS-315X
An integrated receiver?   Sony Legato Linear STR-VX4
Unrelated but also a JVC TD-W11x Stereo Double Cassette Deck..
 
 
I've done a little googling on this but I guess I just want an opinion - are these worth playing around with my headphones with?  From what I understand they were used primarily for my dads speaker system...but headphones should be fine too right?  I currently don't have any high impedance headphones or anything but I'm interested to see how these might change the sound of my (admittedly very modest) headphone collection.  I'm guessing I need a source to feed them though so I'll probably have to find one since I'm guessing my iPod isn't going to cut it? ....I don't even have an amp right now so that makes me especially excited to possibly tinker with these garage goodies haha.
 
Sorry for my ignorance and any help is greatly appreciated!
also, I'm down to take pictures and post (uneducated) impressions if anybody is remotely interested 

 

[Skylab]

Nice score Scottie!  How's the 3600 sound?  I've thought about getting a 3700 I have seen locally on CL - I like the Floroscan