[MarkusTubesNow]

I recently purchased (perhaps too hastily) a Dark Voice 336SE headphone amp for my brother's upcoming birthday. Now I've learned that there might be problems with my brother's Sony MDRXB 400 headphones which have an impedance of 24 ohms. Apparently the Dark Voice works better with high impedance headphones.

Am I right to be anxious about this? Or am I worrying about nothing...

The Dark Voice has arrived and I am not looking around for tubes to give him to roll. I have several 6SN7 variants I can give him and am looking a the inexpensive "SINO 6AS7G" tube available from Tube Depot. But if this tube is not a good value then I'm prepared to spend more for an alternative, if I can track one down. Any recommendations?

 

[Infoseeker]

What will happen, your already bassy headphone will become even more bassy.

It may work out amazing....Or more probably sound like a bloated mess. But nothing between.

I used to use my Darkvoice 336 with my bassy Jvc Hp-dx1000, which had an impedence of 64. But the bass wierdness worked in its favor.

 

[Monsterzero]

Typically OTLs work best with higher impedance headphones,and like what was said above,it might sound super bassy,or more likely it will sound not too great.
A headphone like the Sennheiser HD6xx or Beyerdynamic DT770 or DT990 250 ohms are more appropriate headphones to use in the 336.

 

[buke9]

I recently purchased (perhaps too hastily) a Dark Voice 336SE headphone amp for my brother's upcoming birthday. Now I've learned that there might be problems with my brother's Sony MDRXB 400 headphones which have an impedance of 24 ohms. Apparently the Dark Voice works better with high impedance headphones.

Am I right to be anxious about this? Or am I worrying about nothing...

The Dark Voice has arrived and I am not looking around for tubes to give him to roll. I have several 6SN7 variants I can give him and am looking a the inexpensive "SINO 6AS7G" tube available from Tube Depot. But if this tube is not a good value then I'm prepared to spend more for an alternative, if I can track one down. Any recommendations?

Forget tubes give him different headphones.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I recently purchased (perhaps too hastily) a Dark Voice 336SE headphone amp for my brother's upcoming birthday. Now I've learned that there might be problems with my brother's Sony MDRXB 400 headphones which have an impedance of 24 ohms. Apparently the Dark Voice works better with high impedance headphones.

Am I right to be anxious about this? Or am I worrying about nothing...

The Dark Voice has arrived and I am not looking around for tubes to give him to roll. I have several 6SN7 variants I can give him and am looking a the inexpensive "SINO 6AS7G" tube available from Tube Depot. But if this tube is not a good value then I'm prepared to spend more for an alternative, if I can track one down. Any recommendations?

The headphones will either sound like a mudslide or tin cans. The thing is though it's entirely possible he likes the result, like how a lot of people deliberately use OTLs even if the distortion is high, damping factor is low.

What might be a real problem across the board is noise. OTL amps barring outright crap designs or cheap tubes will be dead quiet on high impedance headphones (as opposed to how some other amps might get pushed towards producing noise since you have to crank them up), but can be utterly different when presented with a low impedance, high sensitivity load. Like how the SE535 is even before you get to OTL amps.

 

[MarkusTubesNow]

Sounds like I've set things up for a real crap shoot. 'Doh!

 

[FullBlownEargasam]

I would either keep the amp for myself or buy him the amp and an appropriate headphone..... if you decide the latter then he will be your best friend and brother

 

[Aanta]

Yes it doesn't matter if you swap tubes if the headphones got the wrong impedance from the start.

For serious tube listening we prefer NOT to have a transformer between the headphone amp and our ears.
One trafo would make it possible to use low impedance phones though.

The whole point is to have a straight line from the tube to the cans though.

 

[MarkusTubesNow]

Thanks all for your comments.
We are now looking for recommendations for appropriate headphones to match this amp. Cost is a big factor, as my brother is very thrifty. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Monsterzero]

Thanks all for your comments.
We are now looking for recommendations for appropriate headphones to match this amp. Cost is a big factor, as my brother is very thrifty. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

You will want a headphone thats 250ohms or higher. Some to consider:

Sennheiser
HD600
HD650/6xx
HD800

BeyerDynamic
DT770
DT880
DT990
T1

There are a few others as well,including discontinued models.
If I had to choose any of those and remain on a budget I'd go for the Drop/Sennheiser HD6xx.

 

[Aanta]

Hello again.
The choice all depend on what music he listen to.

The Darkvoice actually have the ability to 'lift' average cans to a nice listening pleasure.

Montezero just said what I had in mind here.
Beyer Dynamic gives a lot of boom for the buck with their lower priced models.
Suitable for that boom kind of music, electronic, fusion and techno-whatever-their-sub-genre-is-called.

AKG and Sennheiser for serious listening, but the price might be too much if you're in a squeeze.

Discontinued ones might be an option I had this in my text also when I looked at Montes post and now made an edit.
If anyone here sell a pair of used or surplus stock Sony high imp cans, buy!

Focal - run, don't delay, and the direction is away from them and get as far as possible from those atrocities.

 

[Infoseeker]

Hello again.
The choice all depend on what music he listen to.

The Darkvoice actually have the ability to 'lift' average cans to a nice listening pleasure.

Montezero just said what I had in mind here.
Beyer Dynamic gives a lot of boom for the buck with their lower priced models.
Suitable for that boom kind of music, electronic, fusion and techno-whatever-their-sub-genre-is-called.

AKG and Sennheiser for serious listening, but the price might be too much if you're in a squeeze.

Discontinued ones might be an option I had this in my text also when I looked at Montes post and now made an edit.
If anyone here sell a pair of used or surplus stock Sony high imp cans, buy!

Focal - run, don't delay, and the direction is away from them and get as far as possible from those atrocities.

Just know specifically for the Beyerdynamics, higher Ohm models give better bass. The have higher impedance due to their driver design. Not because of some impedance adapter.

 

[Aanta]

Just know specifically for the Beyerdynamics, higher Ohm models give better bass. The have higher impedance due to their driver design. Not because of some impedance adapter.

Oh yes that's true, and could be part of the story if connected to a tube amp.

The pair I got is Beyerdynamic custom studio, those are 80 ohm.
My standard issue and the ones I am all but married to is AKG 601 that got 120 Ohms.

Now lets go into the not so nice details, Beyerdynamic got closed cans tight on the head not allowing any sound spilling out while recording.
Their ad state they are good for recording sessions and that they're 'ideal for complex musical arrangements'....
Bloody hell no they're NOT!

They would be suitable for casual listening, but are in no way suitable for serious work. So recording amps and gear is solid state.
I tried to find other use for them, like at my computer desktop, also in one stereo amp and finally plugged them into my phone - neither that got tubes. Again they had an odd bump in the mid-bass and a sound that is not at all neutral. Plugged them into the headphone tube amp only to see but.....nope!
Like many others on this forum I ended up with a pair of cans that doing nothing more than collecting dust as they do not fit any use here.

Edit: To make entirely clear these two mentioned last would not be suitable for any headphone amp with tubes as they are 32 Ohm.
What do I use for recording then?
I started out with Isk HD9999 Pro HD Monitor Headphones - but those had some issues as well.
Quote from Gearslutz.com where one poster arrived at the same conclusion as me about the ISK cans: "I would not use these for that purpose because of the kindness of the bottom end and the potential of masking subtle parts in the lower mids. But, that's just me."

Finally I found a used pair of Sony electrodynamic cans, MDR-something and those are currently in use. Very neutral and even a bit airy - perfect to hear details with.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Thanks all for your comments.
We are now looking for recommendations for appropriate headphones to match this amp. Cost is a big factor, as my brother is very thrifty. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Massdrop Sennheiser HD6XX

 

[JKDJedi]

So what did this guy end up doing?