[mk351e]

OK, so I'm a wacky new member here, and I've been searching through the archives like crazy. I believe that I now want to try to power my D7000's through the speaker outs on my Sony DA777ES receiver. I know, it's an evil HT receiver, but this is no ordinary receiver, rather, it is legendary for it's sound quality. I found the image for the Grado thing, but it seems overly complex, AND it is still connecting both grounds together anyway, so I just don't see the point. Unless I'm missing something.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong: a dynamic headphone such as mine uses a moving coil transducer, where a moving coil is attached to a diaphragm, and moves through a magnetic gap, like a speaker. As such, the driver has a positive, and negative terminal, nothing more. Our 1/4" plugs make the drivers share the ground, therefore, killing the image a little, and introducing noise/ distortion/ etc. All I should really have to do is simply hack off my 1/4" plug, and connect the positives and negatives to my receiver as if this were a pair of speakers, no? Do I need to add some type of a resistor setup? If so, why, and what values?
 
The Antique Sound Lab thing interests me, but the price does not (I'm cheap and funds are low), but the impedance plot for my cans seems ridiculously flat according to headroom, which is something the ASL thing is supposed to help.
 
Am I missing something here? I found posts with people talking about how they connected cans to speaker outs, but no one mentioned HOW. Am I falling victim to thinking this COULD be more complex than I think it is? HELP!! 

 

[Mochan]

You're right, you're wacky, and I suggest you stop what you are trying to do.

 

[boomy3555]

The " Grado thing " is what you need. Also ALO audio has a headphone adapter for it's "Mini-Watt" amplifier which will do the same thing. I believe the resitor connection between the signal and ground is some sort of crossover. It is 10% of the resistance of the signal path resitor. I may bew rong so maybe someone else can chime in with the reason for it.

 

[JadeEast]

Doesn't the receiver have a phone jack on it?
 
link to project.
http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm

 

[darkswordsman17]

Quote:

OK, so I'm a wacky new member here, and I've been searching through the archives like crazy. I believe that I now want to try to power my D7000's through the speaker outs on my Sony DA777ES receiver. I know, it's an evil HT receiver, but this is no ordinary receiver, rather, it is legendary for it's sound quality. I found the image for the Grado thing, but it seems overly complex, AND it is still connecting both grounds together anyway, so I just don't see the point. Unless I'm missing something.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong: a dynamic headphone such as mine uses a moving coil transducer, where a moving coil is attached to a diaphragm, and moves through a magnetic gap, like a speaker. As such, the driver has a positive, and negative terminal, nothing more. Our 1/4" plugs make the drivers share the ground, therefore, killing the image a little, and introducing noise/ distortion/ etc. All I should really have to do is simply hack off my 1/4" plug, and connect the positives and negatives to my receiver as if this were a pair of speakers, no? Do I need to add some type of a resistor setup? If so, why, and what values?
 
The Antique Sound Lab thing interests me, but the price does not (I'm cheap and funds are low), but the impedance plot for my cans seems ridiculously flat according to headroom, which is something the ASL thing is supposed to help.
 
Am I missing something here? I found posts with people talking about how they connected cans to speaker outs, but no one mentioned HOW. Am I falling victim to thinking this COULD be more complex than I think it is? HELP!! 

Those were probably headphones like the AKG K340 and K1000, which present a very different load than what your Denon's do.
 
Have you checked the headphone jack on the receiver itself? There was a well purported myth about receivers using cheap/poor opamp circuits for the headphone out, when that often wasn't true (which was part of why people were saying receivers were crap headphone amps). The problem then would be getting the output impedance to match (often its fairly high in the hundreds of ohms range I believe), as using a low impedance headphone with that type of output would alter its frequency response (not sure how much of an impact it would make, you might find it to sound good as is, plenty of people have).
 
I looked into this same subject myself quite a while back. I think the grounding issues arose from headphones that used a cable with a single ground. I believe the D7000 uses 4 wires (the extra being a ground for each channel), so you'd have to remove the current termination (1/4" TRS jack isn't it?), and figure out which ground is for which channel. I would strongly recommend you do not wire it right to the speaker terminals on your amp, as most amps aren't prepared to see the load that these headphones would provide, which could damage your headphone, your amp, or both. I believe some have wired headphones similar to yours to run on the speaker outputs, but they didn't just wire them directly, they had to make other changes, which is why you see the products that you've found.
 
Hopefully some much more knowledgeable and experience people can chime in. If you haven't already, you might try having this moved to either the amp or DIY subforum (and be sure to search both of those forums as well in your research).

 

[Mochan]

Since you clearly do not know what you are doing, I strongly suggest you NOT do this. There is the very real possibility you will damage your headphones and/or amp. But hey, it's your stuff, you can do what you want.

 

[ipm]

You could just get a dedicated head-amp that is made to do this. This is what they do, no?

 

[mk351e]

well, i wanted to do this so as to keep all the convenience that I enjoy with my receiver (internal DAC for my cable box, multiple sources, remote control), AND be able to enjoy the awesome sound quality of my receiver, but I believe (hope) the sound is better from the speaker outs. The reason? Without having done an extensive A/B test, just a brief swap, the headphone out on my $2500 DA777ES sounded the same as the headphone jack on my $200 Onkyo stereo receiver from the early 90's!! Please note, that neither one was lacking, and both went to stupid volume levels and sounded great. But, like any audiophile, I'm always looking for the next best thing. So, I probably just won't bother with this, as it sounds like too much.
 
And Mochan; why do your posts seem so angry and hostile? Chill out man, I mean, we are talking about HEADPHONES right?

 

[pyramid6]

If you want to use your internal DAC and other fun stuff on your HT amp, you can get a dedicated headphone amp, and hook it up to the outs on your HT amp.  You won't get the volume control, but you can use everything else.

 

[mk351e]

agreed, BUT, the headphone amp is to be paid for with the sale of the receiver! Doh! I haven't used speakers in ages, and even if/ when I hook up my speakers again, I have an extra receiver for that (it has no DAC).

 

[Ishcabible]

Look in the Orthodynamic thread for instructions to make an adapter. Or PM (I think) Sachu. You need to be able to solder. It involves resistors and I think capacitors. I'll try to find it and edit it in. If not, then go with http://www.aloaudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_4&products_id=316 as boomy3555 said.
 
And Mochan, why are you being so condescending?

 

[boomy3555]

Quote:

Since you clearly do not know what you are doing, I strongly suggest you NOT do this. There is the very real possibility you will damage your headphones and/or amp. But hey, it's your stuff, you can do what you want.

It is very clear from his own admissions that he has no experience with DIY and and although Mochan may have worded it differently I think a strong warning the newbee is in order. After all you can't just hook the ends of you headphone cables to speaker outs and a less forceful warning may go unheeded.

 

[Mochan]

My bad if it came out as condescending, was typing that on a celphone and it wasn't exactly the best for drafting a message. But I think it bears repeating and a strong cautionary warning is necessary here, I would really like to dissuade the TC from pushing through with this course of action.

 

[Ishcabible]

Quote:

My bad if it came out as condescending, was typing that on a celphone and it wasn't exactly the best for drafting a message. But I think it bears repeating and a strong cautionary warning is necessary here, I would really like to dissuade the TC from pushing through with this course of action.

But it is possible. Just not directly. I'm not positive if it'll be worth the trouble/money though.

 

[jpelg]

It is possible to "simply" wire a resistor network between your headphones & your speaker taps. This is basically the concept behind the Grado adapter. The resistor values used would be dependent on your headphones' driver impedance.