[MuppetFace]

I am very interested to hear how these fair with a T-amp or something comparably inexpensive. I've never owned any quality speakers, so I'm pretty much a complete n00b when it comes to speaker amps. Still, I'd love to try the HE-6 when it comes out based on what people have said about it.

 

[Skylab]

I thought the Sonic Impact T-Amp II, which was 20wpc into 8 ohms IIRC was quite good with the HE-6, really, especially given they cost.  It was not quite as good as the 100WPC Rotel amp I tried.  That Rotel amp is about 15 years old, but you can get nice used Rotel 100 wpc power amps on Audiogon pretty regularly for under $300.  Compare that to the price of even a "decent" dedicated headphone amp that wouldn't power the HE-6 well, and the only issue is the size of the power amp, certainly not the price...

 

[fishski13]

Quote:

I thought the Sonic Impact T-Amp II, which was 20wpc into 8 ohms IIRC was quite good with the HE-6, really, especially given they cost.  It was not quite as good as the 100WPC Rotel amp I tried.  That Rotel amp is about 15 years old, but you can get nice used Rotel 100 wpc power amps on Audiogon pretty regularly for under $300.  Compare that to the price of even a "decent" dedicated headphone amp that wouldn't power the HE-6 well, and the only issue is the size of the power amp, certainly not the price...

the Adcom 545 is a nice amp i had for awhile and can be had for $150 in good nick.
 
i only have lower powered amps in house: B22(18W), F5(25W), Amp4(30W) and an ancient Denon receiver(40W).  i have a Harman Kardon Citation 12 i'm rebuilding that will do 60W, but i don't feel comfortable hooking up a 40 yr old amp that lacks DC off-set protection to a pair of HPs that don't belong to me.   

 

[immtbiker]

I didn't really hear a difference with my Adcom 545 (the were a great company in their time before they farmed out their build to China). I got mine at Harveys in NYC along with a GTP-400 combo pre-amp/tuner and it really did me justice until I moved up the food chain (I think my next step was a Bryston 3B, and then I bought another one and bridged them as monos. Great sound and a 20 year transferable warranty. Also, they performed a 100 burn-in test before sending them out to check for catastrophic failure, which they believed would happen within the first 100 hours, if it was going to fail at all. That was their theory, anyway.
 
My Adcom was built in the US and the amp and the tuner/pre-amp cost me something like $700. It was a steal. They believed that a high current output (easily performed by moving around Ohm's Law), was more important for good sound.
 
I started out with a 60 wpc 535, loved it so much, went right back to the store and substituted got the 545, even though I really wanted the 555, but at that time, my wallet said otherwise, just like I wanted the Bryston 4B, but alas, I got another 3B used, when there was more wallet flex. Making them bridgeable was a very smart move for the upgrade path. I ended up selling them when I got a Pioneer Elite AV receiver when I went surround sound, which after a year, got replaced by my still current Cary Cinema 5 and a McIntosh pre.
 
Sorry for my boring audio chain story, but I'm in a rambling mood this morning, while listening to Michael Franks in 24/96 through the HM-801 through my Portaphile V2^2 Maxxed into the LCD's. A nice combo. Wish I had enough portable power to be listening the HE-6's instead, but my Dareds and Adcom are in the bedroom and wifey was up late lat night.
 
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[kool bubba ice]

My Mistake. I must have missed that with the thrill of hoping to try it.. I do have the requirements.. But I never used headphones out of my receiever before.. & no way, was I about to experiment on headphones that are not mine.
 
Quote:

It was stated at the very beginning of the loaner program that to be a part of the trial, you needed to have an amp with speaker taps, in order to run the HE-6, so there is no surprise there. Like the K1000's the topography of this headphone requires wattage. That's not going to change in the production unit. I asked Fang. He said they will be more efficient and have improved sound output, but they will still need more wattage than just using a headphone out on a headphone amp. 
 
My Dareds only put out 13-15 volts and I feel that is sufficient for my tastes. I also used my 100 watt Adcom and didn't really notice any difference. Frank I felt that using a little more wattage than the Dareds (his Outlaw and a Denon), opened up some congestion that he heard on my amps (quaisi monos) at a NJ Meet. I bring this up because I'm not sure that a demo with an 80 wpc receiver would offer better results. YMMV.
I guess what I'm saying, is that if you like the headphones, then getting a small amp wouldn't bother you, but if the headphones are not your cup of tea, then something more substantial might not change your mind.
I amp borrowing a 20 watt Hlly Tamp 20 Class T amp in a week or so, which costs around $150 USD. This amp has no headphone jack, so I assume that it was made for headphones or speakers that are driven just out of the speaker taps. I'll report back on this. If you like the HE-6 and the Hlly sounds good, then $150 is not too large of an investment. Also, maybe we can get Fang to create an EF-6 and package it with the HE-6 like the EF-5 was made specifically for the HE-5's and 5LE's.
 
 

 

 

 

 

[mrarroyo]

The HLLY TAMP-20 that immtbiker mentions above was sufficient to drive my AKG K1000 to levels I did not even want to explore. At $118 including S&H is IMO a bargain that sounds very good to boot. 

 

[kool bubba ice]

Damn... I didn't think something so small & cheap could do that.. Label me ignorant..
 
Quote:

The HLLY TAMP-20 that immtbiker mentions above was sufficient to drive my AKG K1000 to levels I did not even want to explore. At $118 including S&H is IMO a bargain that sounds very good to boot. 

 

[immtbiker]

Ignorant yesterday, but more knowledgeable today! 

 

[MuppetFace]

I am intrigued by the Kingrex T20 AMP and matching power supply as a potential means of powering the HE-6.

 

[immtbiker]

Fang's first post in this thread...snipped for convenience...
 
Quote:

We would like to allow the first 20 eligible people that request a trial for each headphone, and here are the following parameters:

    * We ask that only people with experience with higher end or Orthodynamic headphones apply
    * The HE-6 needs ample power to exhibit all of its attributes, so we ask that you have an amp that can be used via the speaker outputs, between 5 and 30 w.p.c.  (We will be sending you a cable with tinned terminations on it in order to use a solid state or tubed amps’ speaker outputs)
    
Fang @ Head-Direct

 

[MuppetFace]

The Kingrex T20 is a speaker amp and meets those requirements. Whether it sounds good is another question, though.

 

[Maxvla]

Muppet, keep in mind he's requesting those power levels at 60 ohms not 8. I didn't check the specs on the t20, but you might want to double check them.

 

[kool bubba ice]

This site has taught me a lot. I remember asking, if high ohm headphones are better then low ohm headphones when I first got here.. Looking back, it sounds silly.
Quote:

Ignorant yesterday, but more knowledgeable today! 

 

[immtbiker]

We've all been there, and we are all still there. Learning doesn't end at school. I learn new and valuable info everyday.
 
It's when you run into a co-worker that has the knowledge and is insecure about sharing it with you, because they feel that it provides and edge over you by not sharing, those are the one"s that you want to stay away from. When I worked for Xerox (21 years), I shared everything that I know and found out through intense suffering), I made sure to pass it along to the 11 techs in my work group so they would not have to go through the pain and suffering that I went through, because we we a workgroup, a team, all with the same goal. Getting the customer's machines running again with as little downtime. But we has mensches (sp?) that would not share their findings because they felt it would help them rise up through ranks at a faster pace. A team works together for one common goal. Hate to be trite, but  there's no "I" in team (I can't believe that I just said that 

 )
 
Eventually those people showed their true colors and were placed at the bottom of the pickle barrel, only to find themselves clawing their way back up to the top, passing the dills along the way. Not very well liked or trusted. If you are a confident person, then you have to trust that being a good person is the best way to get along with you peers.

 

[rhythmdevils]

Here's an ignorant question: why can't all headphones be hooked up to speaker amps? All of this makes me want to hook my k340 up to my denon amp.