[hekeli]

Quote:

I don't agree.  The O2 is neutral - yet lacks some "balls" needed to drive the HE-500s.

 
Ah the mysterious "balls".. I prefer eq/dsp to achieve that. Why spend my time looking for colored amps which still won't give me exactly what I want.

 

[ninjames]

Quote:

 
Ah the mysterious "balls".. I prefer eq/dsp to achieve that. Why spend my time looking for colored amps which still won't give me exactly what I want.

Balls here refers to power. They're just not powerful enough to effectively drive the HE-500.

 

[hekeli]

Quote:

Balls here refers to power. They're just not powerful enough to effectively drive the HE-500.

 
Pretty much load of Head-Fi myth bull. They drove my HE-500 and currently my LCD-2 with no problems even with massive bass boost at (crazy) 90dB listening levels. That's still ~20dB of headroom available. I would know if it sounded "thin" or "lacking".

 

[ninjames]

Quote:

 
Pretty much load of Head-Fi myth bull. They drove my HE-500 and currently my LCD-2 with no problems even with massive bass boost at (crazy) 90dB listening levels. That's still ~20dB of headroom available. I would know if it sounded "thin" or "lacking".

You're in the minority here. But I don't own it or the HE-500 anymore, so what do I know?

 

[hekeli]

Quote:

You're in the minority here.

 
I could say something about the "majority" of users here, but I better not..
 
I'm open to hearing some ultra-powerful amps and admitting major differences if I hear it, but acquiring such stuff for testing is hard. I'll try my Yamaha Ax-590 power amp when I get proper xlr-cables and adapters. But I guess if there's no or marginal differences, majority finds something to blame for it..

 

[wje]

Quote:

 
I could say something about the "majority" of users here, but I better not..
 

 
I believe we're mostly adults here, so - by all means, go ahead and say it.  

 
However, we now have a 2nd recommendation for OP who asked the question.  I found this information out from the thread on powering the HifiMAN HE-6 headphones.  Emotiva has their a-100 amplifier on sale for $175.## as part of their summer sale.  I believe that meets the price criteria.  Just have some speaker taps built and you're good to go.  More power than one will ever need.
 
http://shop.emotiva.com/collections/amplifiers/products/a100

 

[Llloyd]

Lots of people claim the HE-500 needs tons of power, but I can use it straight out of my zune just fine.  Usually about max volume.  Less than max from my clip+.  It's not that hard to drive.  I'm scared to know how loud some of you guys listen.  Anyway it does not need loads of power to just listen to it.

 

[wje]

Quote:

Lots of people claim the HE-500 needs tons of power, but I can use it straight out of my zune just fine.  Usually about max volume.  Less than max from my clip+.  It's not that hard to drive.  I'm scared to know how loud some of you guys listen.  Anyway it does not need loads of power to just listen to it.

 
I don't listen loud at all.  It's the quality that I'm after.  Since I don't take the HifiMAN headphones out of the house, unless I were to go on a vacation, I don't see a need to use smaller sources and smaller amps.  In all honesty, the speaker taps are the bomb.  The headphone out stage on my Yamaha is excellent.

 

[Llloyd]

Quote:

 
I don't listen loud at all.  It's the quality that I'm after.  Since I don't take the HifiMAN headphones out of the house, unless I were to go on a vacation, I don't see a need to use smaller sources and smaller amps.  In all honesty, the speaker taps are the bomb.  The headphone out stage on my Yamaha is excellent.

 
Yeah, nearly everyone who has used speaker taps seems to have similar opinions.  If i had a integrated amp / receiver or  something like that I would definitely check it out.  That's what I meant by the fact they can definitely scale.  I think they sound really good out of a portable though, clearly not as good as speaker taps though.  Taps really intrigue me and I think there's a lot of quality to be had in that dept.

 

[ChevymanZL1]

Im not looking to blast my HE-500's to an absurd level i usually listen to them at lower levels when I'm listening for a longer period of time. But i want to send more power to them to gain a wider soundstage then I'm getting on the E11. And from what i was able to audition once through a high powered system. I can achieve a much greater soundstage and a completely different presentation. I wanna say thanks for the help so far I'm really gonna look into the a-100 amp.   

 

[Llloyd]

Yeah if you're willing to tap I think the a100 looks great.  You'll probably get more out of it than any headphone amp in that price range.  I do not know anything about the product other than specs so that's just an educated guess.  Many people have reported great results out of their vintage receivers that can be bought for similar prices.  So that being said it seems like a good buy.  If you do decide to get it please post your experiences with it vs e11.  

 

[hekeli]

Quote:

 
I don't listen loud at all.  It's the quality that I'm after.  Since I don't take the HifiMAN headphones out of the house, unless I were to go on a vacation, I don't see a need to use smaller sources and smaller amps.  In all honesty, the speaker taps are the bomb.  The headphone out stage on my Yamaha is excellent.

 
I've seen no proof that you need any more headroom than O2 offers for normal listening. For all that matters, the same components could be in a huge desktop case with some creative marketing and people would flock for it.. My Ax-590 is pretty old, but not vintage. I guess that's why the normal headphone out starts distorting at moderate levels. So it would be curious to try taps.. but I don't believe any differences would be the result of über-headroom but something else.

 

[ChevymanZL1]

Im not exactly sure but what would i need to hook up the a-100 to my headphones and would be your best opinion for an adapter. 

 

[stv014]

Quote:

I've seen no proof that you need any more headroom than O2 offers for normal listening.

 
More powerful amplifiers tend to be used at higher output levels, due to the more sensitive volume control, and this gives the illusion of "better sound" without accurate level matching. This is also the reason why many people think that higher gain sounds better. Of course, placebo effects likely also play a major role, the association of bigger amp = bigger, more spacious sound is an easy one to make.

 

[wje]

Quote:

Yeah if you're willing to tap I think the a100 looks great.  You'll probably get more out of it than any headphone amp in that price range.  I do not know anything about the product other than specs so that's just an educated guess.  Many people have reported great results out of their vintage receivers that can be bought for similar prices.  So that being said it seems like a good buy.  If you do decide to get it please post your experiences with it vs e11.  

 
I used to be from that same school of thought.  I've owned many vintage receivers in the past.  However, with the HifiMAN, I've really noticed that there can be a lot of noise picked up when using speaker taps on the vintage receivers.  This is what led me to selling off my vintage gear and opting for more modern gear that has tremendous performance for very little cost.  Keep in mind, most vintage gear is now 30+ years old.  The eBay prices are starting to reflect that there is an interest in this market.  People on eBay are charging crazy prices for vintage pieces that have not had any restoration done on them.  I would think that if I were to plop down $500 for a vintage piece, it should have had some work done (e.g. - at a minimum, the caps should have been replaced).