Hi folks, it’s been a while. I was here on the forums for a little while back in 2007-8 and pieced together my first real headphone setup based on all the good info here - Sennheiser HD650 with an Original Master amp. It was a nice little setup and I got a lot of use out of it. Fast forward to the present day and a lot has changed in my pursuit of audio nirvana. I sold off my headphone setup some years ago and focused solely on my stereo, which is now at what I would call a very advanced state of stability and providing much joy.
BUT, my wife’s new cat is terrorizing my life. The cat tends to be restless in the evenings and just will not keep away from the speakers if music is playing. So now I’m back on the forums looking for the best way to incorporate a pair of headphones into my arsenal while we weather the storm.
I’d like to utilize as much of my current equipment as possible (see profile About section), which leads me to my question about using my tube amps to power the headphones. The amps are Audio Note Quest monoblocks:
- 8wpc into 4 or 8 ohms, pure Class A
- Each amp has one 300B, one 6SN7, and one 5U4G rectifier
- Zero negative feedback
- Single ended output
- Directly heated triode
I have my eye on the Audeze LCD-2 at the moment, but of course I’d be open to hear about other options in the $1-1.5k price range. I believe this budget should get me a halfway decent pair of ‘phones with lots of room to grow if I find myself putting in a lot of headtime. Note: I am not a treble junky; in fact I am very sensitive to high frequencies and quickly find things irritating if tilted up at all. I like tone, body, texture, and musicality; I value these qualities over pin sharp imaging.
So if I want to avoid buying a separate headphone amp, what are the considerations that need to be made?
1. Safely connecting headphones to speaker terminals: I’ve seen the Hifiman HE-Adapter but I’m not sure about the parts quality or whether it can even be used with monoblock tube amps (something about the amp’s negative terminals not sharing a common ground?). Are there other pre-made options like this or is DIY the best route via something like the simplest RobinetteBox?
2. In general I am much more concerned about hurting the amps given the relative cost to repair or replace. Would this approach put any extra strain on the amps? I assume not since the amp sees a constant ~8 ohm load with the adapter.
3. Are there other headphones that would be better suited to this type of arrangement? AKG K1000? Based on my searching it seems like the older LCD-2 was commonly used with speaker amps, but I lose the trail a bit with the current model.
4. Anything else I need to be concerned with before plugging these into my amps? I am already aware that tube amps need to have a load connected to them before you power them up, so I shan’t be unplugging the speakers while the amps are on, etc.
Plan B: My preamp (Audio Note M5) does not have a headphone jack but it does have a second set of pre-outs that I could feed to a dedicated headphone amp if the Quests won’t work. This would at least give me access to the front end of my system. The problem here is, I would want the headamp to be tube based...and down the rabbit hole we’d go.
Thanks a lot,
Jon
BUT, my wife’s new cat is terrorizing my life. The cat tends to be restless in the evenings and just will not keep away from the speakers if music is playing. So now I’m back on the forums looking for the best way to incorporate a pair of headphones into my arsenal while we weather the storm.
I’d like to utilize as much of my current equipment as possible (see profile About section), which leads me to my question about using my tube amps to power the headphones. The amps are Audio Note Quest monoblocks:
- 8wpc into 4 or 8 ohms, pure Class A
- Each amp has one 300B, one 6SN7, and one 5U4G rectifier
- Zero negative feedback
- Single ended output
- Directly heated triode
I have my eye on the Audeze LCD-2 at the moment, but of course I’d be open to hear about other options in the $1-1.5k price range. I believe this budget should get me a halfway decent pair of ‘phones with lots of room to grow if I find myself putting in a lot of headtime. Note: I am not a treble junky; in fact I am very sensitive to high frequencies and quickly find things irritating if tilted up at all. I like tone, body, texture, and musicality; I value these qualities over pin sharp imaging.
So if I want to avoid buying a separate headphone amp, what are the considerations that need to be made?
1. Safely connecting headphones to speaker terminals: I’ve seen the Hifiman HE-Adapter but I’m not sure about the parts quality or whether it can even be used with monoblock tube amps (something about the amp’s negative terminals not sharing a common ground?). Are there other pre-made options like this or is DIY the best route via something like the simplest RobinetteBox?
2. In general I am much more concerned about hurting the amps given the relative cost to repair or replace. Would this approach put any extra strain on the amps? I assume not since the amp sees a constant ~8 ohm load with the adapter.
3. Are there other headphones that would be better suited to this type of arrangement? AKG K1000? Based on my searching it seems like the older LCD-2 was commonly used with speaker amps, but I lose the trail a bit with the current model.
4. Anything else I need to be concerned with before plugging these into my amps? I am already aware that tube amps need to have a load connected to them before you power them up, so I shan’t be unplugging the speakers while the amps are on, etc.
Plan B: My preamp (Audio Note M5) does not have a headphone jack but it does have a second set of pre-outs that I could feed to a dedicated headphone amp if the Quests won’t work. This would at least give me access to the front end of my system. The problem here is, I would want the headamp to be tube based...and down the rabbit hole we’d go.
Thanks a lot,
Jon
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