[Raymond Kim]

Hey guys, I'm not much of an audiophile or anything so you'll have to bear with me for a bit here...

Currently I have a Nakamichi OMS-7AII that is solely connected to a Headroom Home amplifier. So that's it; the CD player and the amp and the headphones.

It has great sound and all, but I want to listen to my headphones through my dad's slick-looking cd player. He has a shelf with these 4 things on it: A Sony CDP-R1, a Sony DAS-R1, an Audio Research preamplifer, and a Counterpoint amplifier. I have no idea what these things are. I just want to listen to my headphones on my dad's audio system.

Will anyone explain to me how to do this? Will anyone be willing enough to teach me some things along the way, too?

I have some specific questions. Is there a way I can just have simply switch between speakers and headphones without readjusting cables? There are "out" and "in" plugs on the back of my headphone amp. Can't I just put the speaker cables on the "out" of the headphone amp and have the headphone amp connected to the preamp (from "in" to "main")?

Any help is appreciated.

Btw, I'd like to give a thumbs up to Vertigo-1. I bought a Headroom Home amp from him - good communication and quick trading.

 

[Vertigo-1]

I believe you could simply just plug the Home right in between your preamp and whatever it was going from/to. If your dad won't kill you for it, you can actually just disconnect his preamp and put the Home in place of it...the Home can actually act as a preamp as well.

Man, your dad has a Sony CDP-R1? That must be a pretty sweet CDP...I think that player was made around the same time the MDR-R10s were made. It was probably around that CDP's time that Sony decided to get into the audiophile business and started cranking out some seriously heavy, kick butt machines, and the R10s.

 

[carlo]

raymond,

vertigo's suggestion would work, but a less intrusive method is if to connect rca's from the tape out jack of the preamp to the input of your headphone amp. select "monitor" or "tape" on the preamp and you'll be set. to switch back to speaker listening deselect the monitor switch. keep in mind though that for all intents and purposes the AR will be out of the signal path.

as for vertigo's original suggestion (preamp out to headroom in, headroom out to amp in), this will give you two problems: 1)while the signal will pass through the tubes of the AR, it'll also pass through the volume pot and more circuitry, and then will go through another volume pot on your head amp. whether the extra long signal path is audible and/or beneficial will be for you to decide. 2)unless your headphone amp has a passive switch (which i believe the headrooms don't), the signal to the power amp will once again go through the above signal path. due to your dad's taste in gear, i doubt he'd like that.

good luck,

carlo

 

[raymondlin]

There is a very easy way, get a pair of interconnector and connect one end to the pre-out (OUT) on the pre amp and connect the other end on the headphone amp (IN).

That's it! use the pre-amp to select what you want to listen to, be it Cd, tuner..... and turn on the Cd player and the Pre-amp and your headphone amp. Nothing more to it.

Don't connect the speakers terminal from the power amp to your headphone amp, unless you want to see smoke!

 

[monk]

One more method ....

Look at the back of the Sony CD Player and see if there are 2 pairs of analogue outputs. I don't know this particular Sony, but if it's from their higher end, it *may* have both balanced (XLR , would be a connector with a diameter about the size of 1 cent) outputs and single-ended (called *rca*, because their labs developed this type of plug ?,...these are the *normal* type of connector you'd see on most gear).

If there are XLR outputs on the Sony (and rca's), your father could be using these to feed the Audio Research Preamp. This would leave the rca analogue outputs on the Sony for you to connect to the inputs on your headroom amp.

If the Sony only has one pair of rca analogue outputs, you can still accomplish the same thing with a Y connector. Put a rca Y in the Left and one in the Right rca output from the Sony. Then use one side of each Y to feed the Audio Research Pre and one to feed your headphone amp.

Martin

 

[raymondlin]

You can connect directly to the Sony if you want and if the sony has 2 sets of output or a Y-adaptor (not something I would do, mainly because the quailty of these cable are some what questionable). And this way you only can listen to the CD player. By connect directly to the Pre-amp, you can listen to everything. Use the Tape loop (OUT) if it doesn't have a pre-out, the Audio Research preamplifer is a good quailty pre-amp and I am sure you'll fine the sound very nice indeed.

 

[Raymond Kim]

Ok, I tried various things here...

First, I don't think my dad would appreciate having the Home amp as a preamp for my dad's speakers so I've decided not to go that route

Second, I looked at the Sony cd player and I saw that it's connected to the Sony d/a converter. There are in fact 2 pairs of analogue jacks. One pair is connected to the Audio Research Preamp. The other pair I tried to hook it up with the Headroom Home. That was a no go.

Then I looked at the back of the preamp. There are several jacks - In the "Output" section there are "Main" and "Record" jacks. In the "Input" section there are "Tape," "CD," "Video," "Aux," and "Tuner" jacks. Carlo mentioned connecting the headamp to "tape" but seeing that it was under the input section I thought it wouldn't make any sense doing that. I tried it anyway and I got very small sound coming from my headphones. No go.

Afterwards I tried connecting the Headroom amp to the "Record" output jack instead. I assumed this meant "Tape Recorder" or whatever. Bingo, it worked, but the headphones AND the speakers played at the same time. And then I looked at two switches on the front panel of the preamp. One I can switch from "Defeat" to "Record" and the other one I can switch from "Direct" to "Normal." I fiddled around with them and by having the switches set to "Record" and "Direct" I am able to get sound from my headphones only.

Is this the correct way to have it set up? Is there any potential danger to connecting the Headroom Home amp to the "Record" output jack? Also, I find that changing the volume pot on the Preamp has no affect on the headamp at all. Is this correct?

I really appreciate your help!

 

[monk]

Experiment more with the analogue outs on the Sony,...if there are 2 pairs, you should be able to get one set to feed the Headroom amp.

And, if trying the Y ...try an adapter as pictured here (rather than a cheap Y cable)

Martin.

 

[carlo]

raymond, you got it perfectly. i should have made it clear to use the "record" output (which is basically the tape out/monitor feature), sorry about that. just fyi changing the volume knob on the preamp won't make a sound difference since, once again, it's basically out of the signal path.

no danger to your headphone amp at all, as all you're doing is taking a line level out from the preamp and feeding to the headroom.

i'm a bit confused about the "normal" and "direct" switches... i'd assume the latter is to use as a straight line feed (basically like sonic frontier's old preamps), i don't see how that would affect the monitor output. but oh well, you don't need to worry about that.

if you ever get the chance, try to use the main out jacks, which will give the benefit of the AR's tubes. as i noted above though, you're adding extra stuff to the signal path, and you'll need to reconnect the amp IC's when you're done.

as monk suggested, using a feed directly off the dac would be a shorter path than the preouts, but make sure you leave your headphone amp off when not listening to it to so the dac's not driving two sets of ic's (and their impedences). you'll also save the tubes on the AR by not having the preamp on during headphone listening.

blah, blah, blah. yadda, yadda, yadda. hope all of this makes sense.

so, how do you like the sound?

 

[Raymond Kim]

Hrmmm... Would you know where I could get one of those things, Monk? I'm not even exactly sure if the other pair of analogue jacks on the D/A converter are output jacks at all - The speakers block my way from seeing what's written on the back of the D/A converter.

"i'm a bit confused about the "normal" and "direct" switches... i'd assume the latter is to use as a straight line feed (basically like sonic frontier's old preamps), i don't see how that would affect the monitor output. but oh well, you don't need to worry about that."

I'm just as confused about this as you are. :|

Yea, it would really be a conveniance to be able to just hook the headamp into the D/A converter but I've tried it and it didn't work. Maybe I'm doing something, I don't know...

Oh yea, the sound is great! I love my CD3000 headphones!