[woodytone]

i recently got a creek OBH-11 headphone amp to power my Senheisser HD600's. I honestly cannot tell the difference when i plug the headphones into the amp and when i plug them straight into the cd player. I don't know if i have insenstive ears or what. I was thinking part of the problem may be that im playing out of a 7 year old portable phillips cd player and connecting to the amp using the rca to mini that came with the player (which looks really cheap). Im sure this would have something to do with it but i assumed that i would at least get a little better sound quality even with the portable.

 

[pbirkett]

Perhaps your Philips has a good headphone output and is able to drive the HD600's well.

 

[woodytone]

Quote:

Originally posted by pbirkett Perhaps your Philips has a good headphone output and is able to drive the HD600's well.

that kind of sucks then cause i paid like 200 dollars for that amp only to find that it does nothing

 

[sygyzy]

You must sell it now.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

The biggest problem is the fact that you are using the headphone output of an old PCDP. To make a headphone amp sound good it needs to be fed a better signal - like directly from the RCA jacks of a full-sized unit. The output of a PCDP headphone jack is one of the worst there is. They use really small, cheap parts and a really bad op amp for amplification, thus making them sound mediocre at best. All you are doing is amplifying a bad signal, thus it won't sound any better since the Creek is merely taking what it gets and making it louder.

Using the Creek with some Senn 600s for over two years I can say that they do sound very good together. In your case it is simply a matter of getting them a better source to provide the music. (Not expensive, just better.)

 

[akar]

Perhaps your phillips is a poor source to judge by.
An amp won't magically improve your source.
Garbage in, Garbage out.

 

[pbirkett]

Yeah they're right, you need a better source. I'd only have bought an amp for a portable if the portable was struggling to drive the cans, which would have manifested itself in poor volume, lack of bass and control etc.

 

[woodytone]

what a relief. im very glad to hear that. i was afraid either the headphone amp sucked or my ears sucked. im going to buy a new source very soon. Thanks for the info

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by woodytone what a relief. im very glad to hear that. i was afraid either the headphone amp sucked or my ears sucked. im going to buy a new source very soon. Thanks for the info

Cool. Once you get the new source you can determine whether or not it's your ears.

Seriously, once you hook-up the Creek to the RCA line level outs of a source it should sound quite nice.

 

[NEO]

I saw some constraints in your system

- As others said, you need to plug in from the line out instead of headphone jack

-The interconnects (RCA) should be the good quality one. You can get Audio Research mini -> rca for 13 bucks or better cable from Zu Cable or JMT. But I would suggest the 13 bucks one since I think that's enought.

-The power supply of OBH-11 should be liner-regulated one like OBH-2. I heard that it does improve the sonic quality of an amp significantly.

At least even if OBH-11 can't improve the sonic quality dramatically, you should get a fuller sound with tighter bass. That's what most good quality amp supposed to be able to do at the minimum.

NEO

 

[woodytone]

what type of rca interconnects do you recommend (not to expensive) that are rca's on both ends to connect a cd deck to the amp? and how does the power supply make any difference?
isnt an ac adapter an ac adapter? this is kind of unsettling.

 

[NEO]

ok for the type of rca cable, it really depends on what will be used at your source.

-If the portable cd player is source, then you will need mini -> rca interconnects. These are available from under $20 (Acoustic Research, Monster) to over $30 like the one from JMT (www.jmtaudio.com). Or the more expensive like the Zu Pivot mini->rca (over $50). But you can start with not too expensive one undeer $20.

-If you use CD Deck at the source, then you should use rca->rca You can still use mini->rca if connect from headphone out, but rca->rca should give a better result. Again these cables are available from all source I mentioned above, Including the famous rca-.rca from outlawaudio.com which many said it's the best value.

My suggestion is to get mini->rca first so that you don't have to buy 2 cables and you can use with all sources.

For AC adapter, yes it make a difference. The regulated one like OBH-2 will deliver the cleaner and higher current, resulted in fuller sound and more bass. But the OBH-2 is over $100 in retail so you should find it used if you want to try. But even with the standard power supply you have right now, I believe you should here a difference. If not, it's a slight chance that OBH-2 will change that.

NEO