[Brumagician99]

I am struggling to understand Cmoy amps. Which headphones in particular would you hear a benifit?? What benefits would you hear? Are there people that can make the Cmoy for me? Can it be made specific for sr80i's? What are the pro's and con's of Cmoy amps? Is it a budget amp that doesnt acheive clarity of sound or am i being disullioned based upon the price?
 
Please forgive me for being a bit sceptical and naive. I'm a newbie - its just the very low price, size, and build it yourself factor that puts me off. But if it boosts SQ i'm not fussed.
 
 
I'm all for clarity of sound, i listen to lossless and flac, so I'm no keen on the cmoy just adding bass (this is what i assume it does based on other reviews), drowning out other frequencies etc
 
Alternatives to Cmoy?I was considering getting a Pro-Ject-Head-Box-MKII, but with sr80i - are they worth it? Anybody got one? Any noticable differences? 
 
I look forward for responses

 

[Avro_Arrow]

A "CMoy" is pretty much the simplest amp you can build.
It consists of an Op-Amp, a few resistors, a couple of caps
and maybe  a TLE2426 rail splitter. The name comes from
Chu Moy who popularized the circuit. As for the sound quality...
Well, that depends on what Op-Amp you choose and the quality
of the other components you pick. They can sound not very
good all the way up to pretty darn good. The main thing they
do if designed well is to provide more output voltage and output
current than what they are plugged into can do on it's own.
Some people also add a simple bass boost.
More information can be found here.

 

[Brumagician99]

Thanks for this well explained. Im more interested on the pretty darn good ones! You know anybody who has had, makes, sells or knows alot about these amps?
 
How do they compare to say Little dot mk1 or mk2, caliente or maverick a1?
 
Quo te:

 
"They can sound not very
good all the way up to pretty darn good. " 

 

[Avro_Arrow]

CMoys are typically meant to be A: small, B: battery powered.
The desktop equivalent to the "CMoy" is the "Szekeres". 
 
If you have the luxury of A: more space, and B: more power
it is pretty easy to build an amp that sounds better than a CMoy.
 
There are several people selling amps on EBay who also are members
here. Do a search on EBay for CMoy and you should find several
to choose from. I don't currently offer any products or services,
just advise.
 
Are you looking for a portable amp or one that will be used just at home?
The LD MK1 is a battery portable and the LD MK2 is a wall powered tube amp...

 

[Brumagician99]

Id rather a wall powered tube amp or solid state to be honest.
 
I do not plan on taking the amp on walks or around with me... it will stay on my desk and only my desk.

 

[the_equalizer]

 
Quote:

Id rather a wall powered tube amp or solid state to be honest.
 
I do not plan on taking the amp on walks or around with me... it will stay on my desk and only my desk.

 
Quote:

I am struggling to understand Cmoy amps. Which headphones in particular would you hear a benifit?? What benefits would you hear? Are there people that can make the Cmoy for me? Can it be made specific for sr80i's? What are the pro's and con's of Cmoy amps? Is it a budget amp that doesnt acheive clarity of sound or am i being disullioned based upon the price?
 
Please forgive me for being a bit sceptical and naive. I'm a newbie - its just the very low price, size, and build it yourself factor that puts me off. But if it boosts SQ i'm not fussed.
 
 
I'm all for clarity of sound, i listen to lossless and flac, so I'm no keen on the cmoy just adding bass (this is what i assume it does based on other reviews), drowning out other frequencies etc
 
Alternatives to Cmoy?I was considering getting a Pro-Ject-Head-Box-MKII, but with sr80i - are they worth it? Anybody got one? Any noticable differences? 
 
I look forward for responses

A portable headphone amp might or might not make a difference depending on the quality of your source and how much a load to the amp are your headphones. For example, if I connect my IEM's directly to the headphone out of my Sansa e200, I can hear all kind of whirring noises and clicks as I navigate the menu options and the device loads tracks. If I put a CMoy in the middle, all those noises go away. That's because the very high input impedance of the amp is not a heavy load for the little Sansa amp, as are the IEM's with it's low impedance (and very high sensitivity).

This is only one possible benefit of using a headphone amp with your portable device, as you mentioned, in other cases it can help with frequency response or transients, etc.

For desktop amps, for one, many sources do not have a headphone out (like turntables, or standalone DAC's) so a headphone amp becomes mandatory in those cases.

In some other cases, the built-in headphone outputs on some devices are simply not good or they're not powerful enough to drive certain high end headphones to good volume levels and/or good dynamics,  so a good standalone headphone amp will improve the listening experience quite a bit. The reasons for this are space and or target cost restrictions in devices, or simply because the manufacturer doesn't care about driving headphones and the headphone out is a mere afterthought (this one is IMO less frequent with modern devices).

Yet one other reason for using a standalone headphone amp is that it includes certain processing that alters the sound, the obvious example being crossfeed processing as in the Meier and HeadRoom amps.

Wether you need an amp or if it will make a substantial difference in your setup (be it portable or desktop) is something only you can decide by trying an amp with your setup(s) and listening. A well built CMoy is a good way to try since its cost compared to most desktop amps is low.

cheers!