[goobicii]

ohhgourami bought Krell 302e for his HE-6 and it got me thinking,the whole time I was only thinking about using amps made for headphones,for some reason it never crossed my mind that I could use speaker amp.... now I started searching and found out whole new universe of speaker amps that would probably sound amazing with headphones
 
one brand is mentioned alot and considered the best speaker amp makers,the Pass Labs,Nelson Pass is IMO great guy,no snake oil BS.I am super curious how his new flagship XS300 sounds with headphones,it cost more than 60000.
 
so anybody tried some Pass Labs amps with headphones? except for huge price,is there any other issue why people dont use them with headphones especialy HE-6? 

 

[icebear]

Why do most people not use a 30 ton truck to get a few bagles and the newpaper ?

 
There is a thread about "speaker amps for headphones" and also "best amp for HD800" in both you will find references to Nelson's amps used to drive headphones (e.g. INT-30A and First Watt M2), not necessarily two 300/8ohms watt monsters.

 

[goobicii]

  Why do most people not use a 30 ton truck to get a few bagles and the newpaper ?

 
There is a thread about "speaker amps for headphones" and also "best amp for HD800" in both you will find references to Nelson's amps used to drive headphones (e.g. INT-30A and First Watt M2), not necessarily two 300/8ohms watt monsters.

 
is it power overkill? yes,but thats not problem,my point is sound quality,Pass Labs amps are highly praised,I imagine this new flagship XS300 must sound extremly good,perhaps better than all SS headphone amps

 

[icebear]

If a product is not purely born out of marketing bs, then the designer has a certain performance goal on what his amp should do and he tests this. Obviously a speaker amp will be tested and optimized listening to speakers. A headphone amp will be optimized listening to headphones. The tasks are in principal the same, driving a dynamic speaker, just as the nature of the speakers is vastly different (impedence, mass), the loads are different. Using a speaker amp for driving headphones can work well, in certain cases even using a headphone amp driving very high efficiency speakers can work but both are designed and optimized for a different task.
 
It's not impossible to peel a grape with a 8" chef's knife but maybe a small paring knife is better suited. It doesn't matter too much if the chef's knife is really high class steel and very sharp.
... get the best tool for the job at hand ... there is no such thing like THE best tool.

 

[fire2368]

You should redirect your questions to @preproman. He uses a Pass Labs Int-30a with the Abyss. They apparently sound amazing and I'm saving money to do the exact same thing. Read the Abyss thread in the last few pages for info.