"Headphone" amp?

[Chu]

People keep on telling me how much better a good headphone amp can make my grados sound, and I was wondering, can I use an old guitar amp as a headphone amp? It's an old crate model, costed me about $110 when I bought it. Was just wondering about the technical aspects of this.

-Chu

 

[mbriant]

I"m not 100% certain, but I highly doubt you could do it without modification. I understand they put a capacitor ( or is it a resistor?) between an audio amp and it's headphone jack to allow headphone usage through home stereos. Perhaps the same thing could be done for a guitar amp. I've found most guitar amps to be rather noisy, so this too could be a problem.

If you are going to experiment, I suggest you get a cheap pair of disposible phones to test with. You might blow the drivers right out of your Grados.

 

[thomas]

no, you can't use the guitar amp...

guitare amps are only 1 channel, and i'm guessing that you don't want to listen to your headphones in mono...

And as mbrient said, guitare amps are noisy, so they won't make the best choice. Most people use headphone amps to get better quality, not for the added power. Generally, real headphone amps can output very clean signals because they need so little power. A good headphoen amp will be cleaner sounding than most speaker power amps or guitar amps

If you really wanted to, you would use a resistor to reduce power. (capacitors would filter out low frequencies and allow all the high frequncies to pass through unimpeded) See the headwize FAQ for more info...

 

[wayre22]

What the previous comments say is correct. It most likely will not work properly and it would be in mono. Another thing to consider is that grados tend to be only around 30 ohms I believe which means they're not difficult to drive. Some headphones definitely sound better with a dedicated amp of course. I use a cheap magni 3+ for my grados and it does improve the sound but not by all that much to be honest.