[FallenAngel]

Unfortunately, for a decent headphone amp, $200 IS cheap.

Good thing the "sweet spot" with amps is in the $400 area.

 

[sampson_smith]

There was a time when I had to wrestle with the idea of picking up a ~$100 LD 1+. Now I start reassessing my finances when I see a WA6 for less than $550. I do ideed think that $400 is a major sweet spot. Makes me feel pretty nice about having a GLite, at least, when I embrace that concept. 'I AM content'.

 

[Spareribs]

Unfortunatly in hi-fi city, $200 can only get a room at the Holiday Inn. $400 will get you the suite that you need at the Hilton baby.

 

[earthpeople]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif cheap, man I don't consider 200 dollars cheap.

I don't consider $200 cheap either, but comparatively it is at the lower end of the price scale. You have to look at it relative to other headphone amps.

Back when I first got the HD580s, the only amp I had was a Practical Devices XM4, used with the LO from my iPod. Compared with the iPod headphone out, there was a noticable difference, but the sound was still weak. At that time, I also had the ES7s and those truly were more enjoyable out of the gear that I had. I preferred the ES7s from the iPod HO vs the HD580s from the XM4.
When I bought the aune, the HD580s reached another level of definition. I was gradually revealing what the headphones were capable of by improving important bottlenecks in the overall system. I sold my ES7s a bit after I bought the aune because they simply weren't getting much playtime anymore.
I recently built a CKKIII and as I listen, I am hearing more growth in sound reproduction from these wonderful headphones. Each level up that I go, I understand more and more why these are said to scale well with better amps. Even though I'm still at the low end of amps, the difference truly is there compared to the HO of my iPod. The headphones didn't sound bad out of the HO, but when compared with that lower end headphone it just wasn't as enjoyable. iPod HO vs my CKKIII? It's an incredible improvement and after hearing that difference, I can't imagine ever having to listen without the amp.

Of course, this post is just my experience/opinion and I realize many of the points I make have been made before in this thread. I just wanted to express my view.

 

[MomijiTMO]

Great post! My Senns went to another level (2 - 3) with the ckkiii. I was going to sell them but now I'm not. I wonder how they might sound from a better amp

.

 

[dweaver]

I have a $200 amp (it's in my signature) and it brings my HD600 to life VERY WELL, I have no desire to upgrade to a more expensive amp at all. The synergy between it and my HD600 as well as my IE8 IEM's is very nice. But I will admit I am not a super high end audiophile. But then again my headphones are not high end either, I figure the HD600 cost me $200 so another $200 on the amp was worth while. Now if I was spending over a $1000 on my headphones I would spend what it took to drive them right but I would still be looking at all amps not just expensive ones because my headphones were expensive, in the end it's all about synergy.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ypoknons /img/forum/go_quote.gif Going to have to hunt down the Elekit and Harmony EAR90 next.

In an act of madness, I bought an Audiovalve RVK MKII instead of the Elekit, but I still want to buy one, try it, upgrade the tubes and other bits and have a good play. It was remarkably good, if likely not among the most highly resolving amps.

I agree with you about the Compass though. The Fun is better and has performance more in line with its price, thankfully. There's some seriously interesting stuff coming out of China, if also a lot of generic and rather boring gear too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif cheap, man I don't consider 200 dollars cheap.

I assure you, after you've spent $1k on something, $200 is very cheap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spareribs /img/forum/go_quote.gif Unfortunatly in hi-fi city, $200 can only get a room at the Holiday Inn. $400 will get you the suite that you need at the Hilton baby.

And a $400 component will give you more than a one-night stand.

 

[MomijiTMO]

Heard any 'better' amps dweaver?

I thought the canamp was great with my hd650 until I heard a better amp.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif cheap, man I don't consider 200 dollars cheap.

You have to look at it terms of raw materials.

A lot of people here build amps and $200 doesn't go very far. I'm not talking about labor, overhead, marketing, taxes, and so on. When you look at part costs (and they're easily found if you look), $200 doesn't get much. If ou want tubes, you usually have to go $400-$500 into parts alone to get good quality and performance. If you want excellent quality and reliability, you're going to go to $1,000, maybe more.

There is no correlation between the price of amp parts and headphones. If you want to drive $300 headphones with a quality tube amp, you are going to pay more than $300 to get it. It's the nature of amps and cost. It seems unreasonable to the inexperienced, but that's just how it is.

If you really want to go cheap, get an older receiver with a headphone jack. The trick there is that receivers are fully depreciated. If you parted one out and priced the components, labor, etc., it would cost a lot more. Take advantage of that.

Avoid the cheap amps because they're cheap. Without going too far in, most of them compromise the design and use unacceptably cheap transformers. That's where the big dollars come in - iron might not be sexy and you cannot easily "roll" it, but that's where the performance and value lies.

If you want to run the HD-600 out of an iPod, go ahead. You're not going to hurt anything. However, before declaring amps more or less worthless, get yourself to a meet and plug into a few good amps. You'll be surprised. I've run the HD-600 from an iPod as well as some excellent amps. I think the cost is worth it. You might, too, but you will never know unless you try it.

 

[dweaver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MomijiTMO /img/forum/go_quote.gif Heard any 'better' amps dweaver? I thought the canamp was great with my hd650 until I heard a better amp.

I've gone to a couple of head-fi meets in my region so have heard a compass, the EF5 amp plus HE-5 (that was a very nice setup), the compass was powering an HD800 which was by far the nicest headphone I have heard but so far out of my league I ran away LOL. I heard a couple other amps powering various headphones (I have to admit I was keying on the headphones more than the amps mostly). A couple of the headphones were plugged in to Graham Slee amps (Novo and Solo). There was an awesome Stax setup as well but aside from being wonderfull to listen to was simply a curiosity for me as it was so far out of my league.

I have to say though, in hind sight I never thought to take my HD600 and try them with the other amps at the meet. I will try that at the next meet I attend. Having said what I just said, aside from the obvious heavy weights at the meet (HD800, Stax, HE-5, D7000, and $1000 Grado's I never felt like my HD600 rig and amp were seriously outclassed by other mid-fi rigs. But I will have to spend more time comparing amps using the same headphone next time. HEY maybe then I'll be able to make more informed comments!

 

[Il Mostro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazy*Carl /img/forum/go_quote.gif cheap, man I don't consider 200 dollars cheap.

It is.

Edit: This certainly puts your "takes" in perspective. You don't know what you don't know. So, context is critical.

 

[Il Mostro]

Avoid the cheap amps because they're cheap. Without going too far in, most of them compromise the design and use unacceptably cheap transformers. That's where the big dollars come in - iron might not be sexy and you cannot easily "roll" it, but that's where the performance and value lies./QUOTE]

I'll take this a step further. What appears to be prevalent in the headphone market is a "monkey-see, monkey-do" attitude" from Chinese "manufacturers". I see this in my own industry, which is not closely related to the consumer audio market. Small, back room operations will literally copy anything -- I have seen it first hand. Notwithstanding the fact that China has more EE's than any country except India, there is very little real original development going on. And the cloning, clowning and monkeying around is not subject to much real QC. Ask the off-shore, monkey-see/monkey-do "factories" about their ISO status. While there are a few companies with some history and manufacturing standards that are world class, the products that generally populate this niche are not. So take them for what they are worth and nothing more. Cheap $hit that can sound OK within set and setting.

 

[MomijiTMO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dweaver /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have to say though, in hind sight I never thought to take my HD600 and try them with the other amps at the meet. I will try that at the next meet I attend. Having said what I just said, aside from the obvious heavy weights at the meet (HD800, Stax, HE-5, D7000, and $1000 Grado's I never felt like my HD600 rig and amp were seriously outclassed by other mid-fi rigs. But I will have to spend more time comparing amps using the same headphone next time. HEY maybe then I'll be able to make more informed comments!

Yeah man, you so have to give it a whirl. You might still have the same opinion afterwards but I'm interested in your findings anyway. Being in Australia, meets are very sparse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong /img/forum/go_quote.gif I assure you, after you've spent $1k on something, $200 is very cheap.

It's so true. I was once struggling to buy a $200 headphone. Last week I spent about 0.2 seconds to decide if I wanted those used AD900s or not.

 

[VALIENTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grokit /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... get the best headphones you can, and you will like them. Then later, get them a proper amp and you will begin to appreciate them in a whole new light. Then upgrade your source, tweak your cables, etc. Very rarely is someone "done" in this hobby.

I think this one is a better route. That is why I bought a very good headphone first in the name of AKG K701. Then, amp, source, cable, etc will follow. I want to be sure that I will be safe on my route.

To conclude, if you are a beginner I suggest you to buy first a very good headphone, maybe K701, HD 650, D2000, or if you can afford HD800.

 

[MomijiTMO]

Dunno about that. I see so many people who say they are doing that but then stick with their STX or whatever and create threads about how awesome it sounds

.