[Gromit]

Hope you folks don't mind a question from someone who's not a serious audio hobbyist. All I want is some kind of simple little amp to run headphones from the line-out of a DVD player, but my search led me here and I kind of got sucked in.

I could buy a Minidisco Headbanger for $80 and it would probably work just fine, but after reading CMoy's and Tangent's how-to articles, I'm tempted to build an amp, just for fun.

So here's the question: How is the CMoy amp better than the Headbanger, and does it really make any difference in my application?

 

[skippy]

at $80 the headbanger is a rip off. it was designed to be an amp that you could build for $20 in rat shack parts. i haven't personally heard it, but from what i've read, the sound quality is atrocious. the cmoy pocket amp should be able to easily outperform it.

 

[tangent]

If you think you might get into tweaking and building better amps over time, do the CMoy. It's a great project for learning more about op-amp headphone amp design. It's quite subtle in and of itself, and you can just keep adding more and more parts to make the amp perform better and better. 'Course, you end up rebuilding it each time, because you didn't leave enough space on the protoboard for expansion, but....

 

[Gariver]

I suggest you buy a breadboard at Radio Shack. Then use it to build a CMoy amp that you can rapidly modify at will. Once you have the circuit that works well for you. Then you build the amp on a regular perforated board using hook up wire and solder.

 

[GoofyZiplock]

In a similar question, could we then extrapolate some of the previous answers to "all DIY headphone amp give either:
more options/possibilities;
better performance/quality;
than commercial headphone amps, for the price"?

P.S.
1) I'm being slightly vague on purpose. I can imagine that DIY gives also personal satisfaction and pride of a job well done. But I'm more curious about the technical side of it.

2) I'm a newbie too. I've read some of HeadRoom intro material, Headwize/Head-Fi posts. I used to assemble/modify easy electronics project decades ago.

 

[tangent]

Headphone amps aren't a high-volume market, so at best, the "big boys" are buying in qty. 1000 for their more common components. Probably their less-common stuff they can't even afford to get 1000 at a time. The difference between qty. 1000 and qty. 1 for most electronics components is about 2:1 on average -- a part that costs $5 in quantity will be $10 bought one at a time. Some components will have deeper discounts, and others will have shallower ones. The amp manufacturers also have a lot of overhead that doesn't apply to DIY. (Buildings, people, phones, e-commerce web sites, in-house manufacturing facilities, warranty concerns, R&D....)

So now ask yourself, "If my time is free, and I don't care about nice packaging, pretty custom enclosures, and a warranty, can I make something sonically equivalent to an OBH-11 for less than $200?" (Insert your own desired amp and price as needed.)

I'm all for commercial amps myself -- they have real advantages over DIY stuff. But if sound is all you're after and you have the skills and time, yes, you can save money doing DIY. But like any hobby, you can end up pursuing it on its own merits, so that in the end, you can spend as much on the hobby as you would have spent just getting one nice commercial amp.

 

[zzz]

Commercial products if purchased direct normally cost customers about 200% more than it cost to manufacture them, or 300% more if purchased from a dealer. That's the way of life.