How to use my headphones with an amp with no headphone socket?

[wixy]

I have an EL84 single ended triode amplifier (good for about 5 watts per channel at a guess), that i'd like to somehow use to drive my headphones.

How would I go about actually doing this, given that the amp doesn't have a headphone socket?

Is this even worth trying?

I don't know much about electronics i'm afraid, so i'm hoping I don't have to use a soldering iron!

 

[Advil]

headphone extension cable... cut off the termination, and connect the right/left channels to the speaker connections?

watch the volume knob though.

 

[wixy]

Thanks for the tip, sounds like a good way to do it.

 

[facelvega]

Don't try that with any sensitive or efficient headphones! I'd recommend something like an original 2000 ohm HD414, or an orthodynamic that can handle the juice.

 

[ricmat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by facelvega /img/forum/go_quote.gif Don't try that with any sensitive or efficient headphones! I'd recommend something like an original 2000 ohm HD414, or an orthodynamic that can handle the juice.

yeah! for sure!

5watt/ch?? man, that's killer! you could feed K1000!

 

[ericj]

It's not the watts that I'd worry about, it's the voltage swing. I can get 6 watts rms out of my M^3, and will after i finish building the new power supply, but when i'm done it'll only be swinging a few volts more than it does now.

You should perhaps use a dropping resistor.

Pioneer used to sell a switch box with a couple dropping resistors in it specifically for powering their panel piezo headphones off of speaker outputs. I forget the model number. They do show up on ebay from time to time, and they're cheap.

 

[Clutz]

5W isn't necessarily going to be overkill for the headphones, because power (wattage) is current (amps) times voltage. What you want to worry about is having excess voltage being applied to the headphones.

 

[JadeEast]

Antique soundlabs used to make a box
that was designed to for this purpose.
My concern would be tying the ground
of the 2 amps together causing some
strangeness but it probably would work .

This give you a idea of how to go about
although the table doesn't have the specs
for low power amps.


http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm

 

[xenithon]

I would look into the Antique Sound Lab UHC Signature, as alluded to above. You can check it out here.