Driving a Beyerdynamic DT880 with a vintage pre-amp, a new mixer board and a new headphone amp. How different?

Jul 24, 2011 at 10:40 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 3

raphaelmsx

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Hi people.
 
How different would be driving a Beyerdynamic DT880, 250 ohm and 600 ohm versions from a vintage 70's pre-amp (Sansui CA-3000, Pioneer SPEC-1...), a new small mixer board (Mackie VLZ3, Allen&Heath, etc...), or a new dedicated headphone amplifier, like the Headroom series? Assuming that the source is either very high quality turntable or cd-player.
 
I know that the headphone output impedance of the Mackie VLZ3 is 60 ohm, if it can be of any help.
 
I also know for sure that the Headroom can drive 250 ohm and 600 ohm headphones, but what about the other two options? 
 
And what about sound quality between the three options?
 
Jul 25, 2011 at 4:55 PM Post #2 of 3

 
Quote:
Hi people.
 
How different would be driving a Beyerdynamic DT880, 250 ohm and 600 ohm versions from a vintage 70's pre-amp (Sansui CA-3000, Pioneer SPEC-1...), a new small mixer board (Mackie VLZ3, Allen&Heath, etc...), or a new dedicated headphone amplifier, like the Headroom series? Assuming that the source is either very high quality turntable or cd-player.
 
I know that the headphone output impedance of the Mackie VLZ3 is 60 ohm, if it can be of any help.
 
I also know for sure that the Headroom can drive 250 ohm and 600 ohm headphones, but what about the other two options? 
 
And what about sound quality between the three options?



I had and heard the Pioneer SX980,Sansui G45000 and marantz 2220B and still own the Pioneer SX650 and I can say they drive any headphone better than the 5 solid state head amps I owned. They all drove any including the hE6 out of the headphone jack and the Beyer I have  had the 880 600 and T1 work on my SX650 better than others also. My D7000 loves the Pioneer but I use my tube amps more.  So the answer is any vintage amp wil;l drive headphones and do it well because of the discrete transistor designs no opamps were in use in the 70's
 

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