[Silent One]

 We love listening to our Sansui here in SoCal!
 
Silent One
Team Sansui

 

[Seamaster]

Scored this on the flea-bay the other day, waiting to come in:
 

 


That I can use this with it:
 

 

[Seamaster]

It is a pair of Sony TA-N77ES. Now only one is hooked up. I know the Sony has a kind of variable input can act like volume control but my iFi micro has so much gain that almost blew my ear drum out when I tried it the other day. I think my 3-year-old son next to me got PTSD from that one incident when I tried that!

 

[SpeakerBox]

Nice gear Seamaster!

 

[frahengeo]

  Guys just a heads up, if you find any mid 70s era sansui amplifiers/receivers even the entry level ones highly suggest you pick them up because they sound fantastic all of them. Recently serviced this vintage Sansui au 2900 very basic and entry level amp of the series same can't be said about the sound though because testing it against my fathers yamaha as-700 we have lying around it was honestly the nicer one to listen to. Bass was thick and impactful on the B&W speakers i tested it on even with the loudness off. Honestly shocked considering how entry level this is.
 

Anyone reading this thread is most likely aware of this, but  thanks for the heads up.

 

[xevman]

  Anyone reading this thread is most likely aware of this, but  thanks for the heads up.

A lot of people seem to avoid the entry level stuff of that era, thats why I brought it up because not all entry level gear in that era is good.

 

[Mechans1]

I will add that many of us weren't in a position to buy the up level gear but we coveted it. We may have already own/owned entry level gear.    So these many years later we are interested in fulfilling these desires, and look for the gear we couldn't get then.  I bought the best I could which stood up for many years, but then wanted the  top model.

 

[frahengeo]

And with the current global demand for TOTL 'vintage' gear, we are now back to where we were.  Not many could or want to pay the asking prices of a Marantz 2500 or a Sansui G33000 or BA/CA3000 today.
 
Out of curiosity, anyone here have any thoughts/knowledge on gear produced from the 80's and on?  Do you have any separates/int amps/receivers that you would consider 'keepers'.  How do you think they fare against gear from the 70's and before?
 
If we fast forward 20 - 30 years from now, will desirable vintage gear still consist of those from the 70's and before?

 

[analogsurviver]

  And with the current global demand for TOTL 'vintage' gear, we are now back to where we were.  Not many could or want to pay the asking prices of a Marantz 2500 or a Sansui G33000 or BA/CA3000 today.
 
Out of curiosity, anyone here have any thoughts/knowledge on gear produced from the 80's and on?  Do you have any separates/int amps/receivers that they would consider 'keepers'.  How do you think they fare against gear from the 70's and before?
 
If we fast forward 20 - 30 years from now, will desirable vintage gear still consist of those from the 70's and before?

Technics and Nikko - but separates, not receivers.

 

[gixxerwimp]

I just found this thread and searched for info on my amp, but didn't see anything. So here goes.
 
I bought a Yamaha "Natural Sound" A-450 integrated amp in highschool as part of my first system. I've used it to power my living/bedroom speakers until I bought an NAD D3020 a little over a year ago, at which time I put it in a cupboard. It only just occurred to me that I could use it as a headphone amp.
 
Can anyone tell me if it would be any good as a headphone amp? For the price ($150 in 1981), it did a pretty good job driving bookshelf speakers. Pots have gotten a bit noisy, and I had to replace some of the indicator bulbs. But it was a pretty nice unit and worked reliably for over 30 years.
 
I've started reading this discussion, but the first few pages don't seem to reach any conclusions.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/338299/many-av-receivers-stereo-integrated-amps-do-not-use-opamp-powered-headphone-jacks

 

[KeithEmo]

  I just found this thread and searched for info on my amp, but didn't see anything. So here goes.
 
I bought a Yamaha "Natural Sound" A-450 integrated amp in highschool as part of my first system. I've used it to power my living/bedroom speakers until I bought an NAD D3020 a little over a year ago, at which time I put it in a cupboard. It only just occurred to me that I could use it as a headphone amp.
 
Can anyone tell me if it would be any good as a headphone amp? For the price ($150 in 1981), it did a pretty good job driving bookshelf speakers. Pots have gotten a bit noisy, and I had to replace some of the indicator bulbs. But it was a pretty nice unit and worked reliably for over 30 years.
 
I've started reading this discussion, but the first few pages don't seem to reach any conclusions.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/338299/many-av-receivers-stereo-integrated-amps-do-not-use-opamp-powered-headphone-jacks

 
There are a couple of important factors that determine the answer to that question.....
 
1) If you have low-efficiency planar headphones that actually require a speaker amplifier to drive them well, then the only thing that matters is how good the main amplifiers in that receiver actually are (because you'll be using them directly). Other than the way it actually sounds, the only real issue there is that some speaker amplifiers may be too noisy to make great headphone amps. (Even though low-efficiency planars aren't going to be much fussier about the noise floor than speakers, they're still headphones, and they're attached directly to your ears, so background noise that you might not notice with speakers might be audible.)
 
2) In "the old days" the most common way of "making" a headphone output was to simply run the output of the speaker amplifier through a voltage divider (a pair of resistors) to drop the level. This is NOT a great way to run normal headphones for several reasons. For one thing, many speaker amps of this vintage and quality aren't especially quiet, and this becomes more obvious with headphones. For another, since the resistors are in series between the output and your headphones, they raise the output impedance seen by the headphones. (If they used a voltage DIVIDER, then the output impedance at the output end of the divider will be the parallel combination of the two resistors - so, if they used a 100 ohm resistor and a 10 ohm resistor, the output impedance will work out to about 9 ohms, which is not great but still OK. However, if they did it the really cheesy way and just put one resistor in series with the output, then the output impedance is pretty much simply the value of this resistor - so, if they used a 100 ohm resistor, the output impedance is 100 ohms. This means that you have almost no damping factor, which means that the output will interact with your particular headphones (so it may sound very different with different headphones), and simply won't sound very good with many headphones.
 
3) If you're lucky, then an old receiver will have an actual dedicated amplifier on its headphone. It is also true that most older receivers would have used separate transistors for this, but that isn't really important (both IC amplifiers and amplifiers made out of separate transistors can be good or bad - and neither is especially likely to be better than the other). The simple reality is that, until recently, the sound quality of the headphone output wasn't considered to be terribly important - so they range from "really awful" to "quite good". The problem is that, unless you know specifically that the headphone amp in a given model and brand is good, the only way to tell is to try it (you sometimes find lousy headphone outputs in otherwise excellent units, and you sometimes find really excellent headphone outputs in receivers that aren't otherwise especially good).
 
HOWEVER, the headphone amplifier is a really tiny portion of the electronic circuitry in a typical receiver or integrated amp - literally a few dollars worth of parts at most. Therefore, unless you're using the speaker outputs (and so the main amps) to run low-efficiency planars, using the headphone output on an integrated amp for a headphone amp makes about as much sense as keeping your old car around so you can use the radio. (It's doubtful if the headphone amp in the most expensive receiver or integrated amp around is anywhere near as good as the little $99 one from Schiit audio, and you're running a lot of other junk just to use tat one little corner of it). So, by all means, try the headphone amp on the one you have and see if you like the way it sounds, and, if you're buying a receiver or integrated amp anyway, you might as well check around for a model that's known for having a decent headphone output, but don't even consider BUYING a receiver or integrated amp just to use its headphone amp to run ordinary headphones; it's just not worth it. 

 

[Skylab]

I had always hoped headphone amp manufacturers would never find this thread. Looks like the party is over, boys, we should all just pack up our 900+ pages of fun and go home. :rolleyes:

 

[Terja]

Lol ... I've bought vintage receivers, integrated amps just to run headphones. What can I say ... Recently found a fantastic matching integrated for the Sennheiser HD650s, very obscure Korean made Citizen JSA 8 which I gifted to my son. It's the best amp I've found so far for the HD650s and I've tried several (>10), oh yeah including dedicated headphone amps.

 

[Oregonian]

  I just found this thread and searched for info on my amp, but didn't see anything. So here goes.
 
I bought a Yamaha "Natural Sound" A-450 integrated amp in highschool as part of my first system. I've used it to power my living/bedroom speakers until I bought an NAD D3020 a little over a year ago, at which time I put it in a cupboard. It only just occurred to me that I could use it as a headphone amp.
 
Can anyone tell me if it would be any good as a headphone amp? For the price ($150 in 1981), it did a pretty good job driving bookshelf speakers. Pots have gotten a bit noisy, and I had to replace some of the indicator bulbs. But it was a pretty nice unit and worked reliably for over 30 years.
 
I've started reading this discussion, but the first few pages don't seem to reach any conclusions.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/338299/many-av-receivers-stereo-integrated-amps-do-not-use-opamp-powered-headphone-jacks

The short answer - YES, it will make a great headphone amp.  Better than most "headphone amps" and trust Skylab and I, we kid you not.

 

[gixxerwimp]

 

KeithEmo /img/forum/go_quote.gif

There are a couple of important factors that determine the answer to that question.....

Spoiler: Argument for Side A:

1) If you have low-efficiency planar headphones that actually require a speaker amplifier to drive them well, then the only thing that matters is how good the main amplifiers in that receiver actually are (because you'll be using them directly). Other than the way it actually sounds, the only real issue there is that some speaker amplifiers may be too noisy to make great headphone amps. (Even though low-efficiency planars aren't going to be much fussier about the noise floor than speakers, they're still headphones, and they're attached directly to your ears, so background noise that you might not notice with speakers might be audible.)
 
2) In "the old days" the most common way of "making" a headphone output was to simply run the output of the speaker amplifier through a voltage divider (a pair of resistors) to drop the level. This is NOT a great way to run normal headphones for several reasons. For one thing, many speaker amps of this vintage and quality aren't especially quiet, and this becomes more obvious with headphones. For another, since the resistors are in series between the output and your headphones, they raise the output impedance seen by the headphones. (If they used a voltage DIVIDER, then the output impedance at the output end of the divider will be the parallel combination of the two resistors - so, if they used a 100 ohm resistor and a 10 ohm resistor, the output impedance will work out to about 9 ohms, which is not great but still OK. However, if they did it the really cheesy way and just put one resistor in series with the output, then the output impedance is pretty much simply the value of this resistor - so, if they used a 100 ohm resistor, the output impedance is 100 ohms. This means that you have almost no damping factor, which means that the output will interact with your particular headphones (so it may sound very different with different headphones), and simply won't sound very good with many headphones.
 
3) If you're lucky, then an old receiver will have an actual dedicated amplifier on its headphone. It is also true that most older receivers would have used separate transistors for this, but that isn't really important (both IC amplifiers and amplifiers made out of separate transistors can be good or bad - and neither is especially likely to be better than the other). The simple reality is that, until recently, the sound quality of the headphone output wasn't considered to be terribly important - so they range from "really awful" to "quite good". The problem is that, unless you know specifically that the headphone amp in a given model and brand is good, the only way to tell is to try it (you sometimes find lousy headphone outputs in otherwise excellent units, and you sometimes find really excellent headphone outputs in receivers that aren't otherwise especially good).
 
HOWEVER, the headphone amplifier is a really tiny portion of the electronic circuitry in a typical receiver or integrated amp - literally a few dollars worth of parts at most. Therefore, unless you're using the speaker outputs (and so the main amps) to run low-efficiency planars, using the headphone output on an integrated amp for a headphone amp makes about as much sense as keeping your old car around so you can use the radio. (It's doubtful if the headphone amp in the most expensive receiver or integrated amp around is anywhere near as good as the little $99 one from Schiit audio, and you're running a lot of other junk just to use tat one little corner of it). So, by all means, try the headphone amp on the one you have and see if you like the way it sounds, and, if you're buying a receiver or integrated amp anyway, you might as well check around for a model that's known for having a decent headphone output, but don't even consider BUYING a receiver or integrated amp just to use its headphone amp to run ordinary headphones; it's just not worth it. 

 

 

Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I had always hoped headphone amp manufacturers would never find this thread. Looks like the party is over, boys, we should all just pack up our 900+ pages of fun and go home.

 
I feel like I've just moved to a new town (i.e. "Head-Fi World") and gotten used to the surroundings, only to discover there's an underground level with a renegade population hiding from the authorities. And then some bald guy with cool sunglasses, bad acne scarring and a long leather coat gave me a red pill. Where the hell am I?

 
 

Terja /img/forum/go_quote.gif
  Lol ... I've bought vintage receivers, integrated amps just to run headphones. What can I say ... Recently found a fantastic matching integrated for the Sennheiser HD650s, very obscure Korean made Citizen JSA 8 which I gifted to my son. It's the best amp I've found so far for the HD650s and I've tried several (>10), oh yeah including dedicated headphone amps.

 

Oregonian /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The short answer - YES, it will make a great headphone amp.  Better than most "headphone amps" and trust Skylab and I, we kid you not.

 
I have to say, KeithEmo makes some good points (even if he is on the "dark side" of the headphone amp makers

), and has given me some direction for investigating what's under the cover of my amp. The PCB layout is pretty simple and wide-open from what I saw when replacing the indicator bulbs, so I should be able to determine how the HP output is powered.
 
On the other hand, the proof is in the listening. Seems like lots of anectodal evidence of people being very happy with the sound coming out of their vintage amp HP outputs. I've got an iFi micro iDSD and ZMF Blackwood LTD coming next month, so once I've got a handle on the amp section of the micro I can play around with the Yamaha. Admittedly, in my search for a USB DAC/amp, I've had a hard time distinguishing the sound quality differences between my Note 3, HA-2, HiFi-M8, and HA-1, other than with "hard to drive" phones like the HD 800 and HE-560.