To hear a bigger "improvement" which is more like a difference using a headphone with a good amp you should look for low sensitivity and high impedance headphones. The LCD-2 is one example that sounds much better amped. The Denon AH-D2000 has much better bass response amped.
What? You first say "low sensitivity high impedance" and then suggest high sensitivity low impedance cans to demonstrate some arbitrary point? I don't get it. :confused_face_2:
I also disagree with the rest of your point about "improved bass response from amplification" (let me guess, this is going towards damping factor, isn't it?) - but that's neither here nor there.
Hi all,
Thank you for your replies. I understand that the TU879s is a speaker amplifier, but i see no reason that it couldn't be used to drive headphones?
It'll be fine as long as:
A) you can "bridge" the gnd terminal (contact the designer to ask if it doesn't say in the build guide)
B) you rewire the headphones for differential drive (will cause no problems anywhere unless it can't handle the higher Z loading)
Basically building this is what I'd do:
http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm (that circuit more or less exists inside of most every stereo receiver ever made)
If the amplifier can't handle having the gnd terminals put together, you can re-wire the headphones to run balanced (so each driver is to each channel, +/-), and throw some resistors into the line to protect the headphones and drop the level.
If you don't want to build that box, HiFiMan sells one pre-made for around $50.
A speaker amp...for headphones?
There are only two things I know of for which that makes sense:
-electrostatics with transformer boxes that require speaker-level input (much cheaper than buying dedicated 'stat amps)
-AKG K-1000
Yeah, an amp is an amp. The notion of the "dedicated headphone amplifier" is a machination of marketing run amuck. Small adapter boxes can be added to speaker amps that lack them internally, or you can just tap right to the outputs assuming you don't get too insane with the volume control and the amp is okay with the loading. I'd go with the adapter to protect the cans, and not have to fuss with re-wriging. But you could always just drop some resistors in-line and run differential and life is good. The K1000 is insensitive enough to handle a higher input, but same idea in principal across the board - the device doesn't have to say "headphone amplifier" on it to work very well (and in most cases, devices that DO say that, work very poorly despite costing a fortune).
There's also basically every receiver, IA, etc ever made with a headphone jack that fits into this criteria. FWIW.