DIY amp for Sennheiser HD497
May 7, 2002 at 11:31 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 2

JungleJim

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I recently bought a pair of HD497s, which I like pretty much as my first pair of decent headphones. Because of my sources (soundcard and PCDP) and reading that the HD497 can benefit from a headphone amp, I'm thinking of building an amp, both as an excerise, and useful part of equipment.

The CMoy amp seems a likely candidate, because of the price, availability of parts, portability and good documentation (on headwize, and tangentsoft's guide) available. Are there any other DIY amps that are comparable to CMoy's?

I'm also wondering what kind of 497 specific tunings (gain tuning, I think) are in order? Advice from the pros is welcomed!

Edit: what I forgot to mention is that I listen mainly to classical music.
 
May 7, 2002 at 2:41 PM Post #2 of 2
Hi,

I've got the HD497s, and I did the same thing you want to do, build an amp for it
smily_headphones1.gif


I built a cmoy, with cmoy's 'modified linkwitz crossfeed' which is also in the headwize library. I built them into one unit. I used a transparent blue Serpac H-65 case, and one 9V battery. I used a gain of 11, and a 100 ohm output resistor (R5, I believe) which is placed outside the feedback loop.

There are probably settings that are more 'tuned' to these phones than this, but the way I have it sounds very good! I'm very happy with it. I really like the way the crossfeed sounds. Its a matter of personal taste for many, but I find that it enhances the headphone experience.

Anyway, its not hard to build, just follow the instructions, and test the circuit at each stage of construction (to help you track down any problems you may have). Good luck
smily_headphones1.gif


peace,
phidauex
 

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