[Cerith]

Just discovered this site a few days ago. I was looking for opinions and advice on portable headphones, which I ended up getting. ATH-EC7's. I am now thinking about getting full sized headphones for my audio set up at home. Reasoning that they may allow me to enjoy my music more sonically since I can not afford real speakers. And when I say real speakers, I mean the $$$$ and up sets that you need to get to achieve really good sound, along withe the high end equipment needed to drive them. My question is if I already have an amplifier, a Harman Kardon AVR-430, do I really need to get a seperate "headphone amp". This would be to listen to CD's through a HK DVD31 player. Is my 430 OK to use with a set of headphones? If not I have an older NAD stereo amp (non avr) deck also available to use (pretty pricey when I bought it 10 years or so ago). What is the reasoning of a "headphone amp" as opposed to a standard deck. The headphones that I would most likely buy would be the HD 600 or HD 650.

 

[gimmieshelter31]

Welcome to Head-Fi. Sorry about your wallet ! Do you "need" a headamp? The answer is simple . No. If you are happy with the sound that comes from your headphone jack on your receiver or cd player you do not need a headamp.

 

[ReDVsion]

Sometimes receivers can do a very admirable job of driving headphones. It's certainly better IME than running straight out of a soundcard. As far as getting a dedicated headphone amp as opposed to your receivers'... that's hard to say. It really depends upon how good your recievers' headphone jacks are, and how much you'd be willing to spend on a dedicated amp. In the end, you'd just have to try one out to see for yourself whether it's worth it or not.

 

[__redruM]

Do you have hundreds of dollars burning a hole in your pocket, yes, then you need a headphone amp. Most headphones benifit from a headphone amp, some more than others. Benifit is usually 3%-20% range.

 

[oneeyedhobbit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by __redruM Do you have hundreds of dollars burning a hole in your pocket, yes, then you need a headphone amp. Most headphones benifit from a headphone amp, some more than others. Benifit is usually 3%-20% range.

It really depends on cans. With A900s and a PPA, its definitely in the 3% range. Unamped Senn HD650s to a good amp, its much greater than 20% (to my ears, anyway).

 

[ATAT]

this is also a nagging question... how much improvement DO you get from those $2k amps (assuming use of a HD-650) doing comparisons of my headphone out of laptop compared to a CMoy yeilds only a slight improvement in bass response (maybe soundstage.. really to slight to tell) is CMoy -> PPA a large improvement? large enough to justify the expense? or am i just deaf?

 

[Jonoh]

If you goal is to achieve sonic brilliance equivalent to high end speakers. Get the 650s and a good headphone amp.