HifiMan HE-6 and Speaker Amps
Aug 23, 2012 at 9:15 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 5

Kzkzas

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I recently purchased a pair of HifiMan He-6 headphones with the intention of going for a Schiit Lyr/Bifrost setup, however I've been reading a lot about how these can be driven out of a Speaker Amp. This is the first time I've done anything like this, so my questions will probably sound really daft.
I've got a speaker amp, the Alesis RA150 Amplifier:

 
It  has 4 speaker terminals, the middle two can be run in mono. I'm not entirely sure how I can get my headphones into these terminals, through speaker taps I believe? Though I'm not quite sure what they are. At the moment, I'm thinking of buying:

To connect to the middle mono banana plugs on the back and just stick the jack into it, or would I need to run the amplifier in stereo? I could strip down the jack into 4 separate wires and hook them up to it but I want something more presentable and permanent. 
Help would be massively appreciated!
 
Aug 23, 2012 at 10:57 PM Post #3 of 5
Are those the screw on type terminals?  In any case, just get a speaker tap cable...what is that you ask?
 
So you know how you connect speakers to your Alesis with speaker wires?  Well a speaker tap for HPs is basically speaker wires on 1 side (4 wires in total, R+, R-, L+, L-) and usually 4-pin XLR on the other end.  
 
This guy sells them for a decent price - PM him.  http://www.head-fi.org/u/22191/hiflight
 
It IS a permanent solution, you just leave the 4-pin XLR at the front of your amp and you're done.  
 
Aug 24, 2012 at 4:38 AM Post #4 of 5
the device you have there is for bridging the 2 channels for mono-block operation, nothing at all to do with headphones. plug that into the amp and your headphones into it and you will have a brand new smoky hair-do.
 
as mentioned, you need a spade or banana->headphone adapter pigtail. these are commonly found for AKG K1000. the thing is, just because its a speaker amp doesnt mean it will automatically be able to put out more power into your headphones than a decent high power headphone amp. I know its rather fashionable to do it these days, but i'm not entirely sure everyone knows what they are doing
 
you should be pretty safe with the alesis as its solid state
 
Aug 24, 2012 at 5:29 AM Post #5 of 5
its a bit odd that they have you connecting the 2 channels in parallel for mono rather than series. I guess they arent rated for the lower impedance that comes with bridging, due to halving the apparent load impedance
 

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