[stevesolo]

So far I am very impressed with the HD600's out of the box. They are alot more efficient and easier to drive than I had anticipated. My setup is a sony D25s and a portable Meta-42 with a single 9 volt. How significant is burn in, how long?

Those that have replaced the factory cables, how significant is the fidelity improvement by replacing the factory cables with Equinox or Cardas? Anyone have a pair that they would want to part with? Right now it seems hard to justify spending almost as much for upgraded cables as the phones themselves.

I would like to create a better audio source to drive the HD600's. I have older high end components in their day, SAE 2500, 600 watt amp, preamp/equalizer and Ohm F3 speakers. Why is the headphone output jack out of the preamp or a CD changer sound so crappy? There is no punch. I guess there is little amplification. In a component setup like I am describing, is there a dedicated device that can be connected between the amp and speakers with a volume control that is used for headphone listening? What do most folks do to utilize a quality component setup for headphone listening besides getting a separate headphone amp?

 

[kwkarth]

There was a significant (subjective) improvement in performance of my HD-600's when I put the Cardas aftermarket cable on them.

Much better midrange, slightly tighter bass, and if I recall, even the top end seemed smoother and more extended.

YMMV.

 

[JaZZ]

Steve...

...congratulations on your new headphone! The HD 600 is still one of my favored ones, though not my number one anymore...

The sound improved noticeably with my self-made replacement cable, and I expect the same from the few well-respected aftermarket cables. I hope you'll find a used one.

As to your question about burn-in: I don't remember exactly how long it took, but it was certainly several hundred hours. You can't do wrong playing loud bass notes through it during one night or two to accelerate the process of membrane suspension loosening and thus achieving a lower bass resonance. Mids and highs will smooth automatically with normal music material and time. Finally it will sound even clearly better than out of the box in every respect. Enjoy it!

JaZZ

 

[zbuddah]

heh after burn it you notice that the HD-600's feel like it takes alot less effort to make great sound... wait lemme rephrase that hrm... its easier to drive not in the sense of amplification but in the sense of ease ok i'm not good at words lemme try again...

it feels liek theres less strain when its pumping out music... ok i dunno if that did it but yeah you'll notice it and it'll only get better
mine burnt in pretty quickly (I really noticed it after ac ouple days to a week of normal play time like couple hours day

), at first it didn't sound too good but after slight burn it everythign fell into place, like i dunno its just sounds alot better, more fluid, more ease, more better.

 

[lonestar]

SteveSolo,

Glad you're enjoying them already. Mine were pretty bright out-of-the box--intolerable to my jaded ears--but I was breaking in an X-CansV2 at the same time. I let them cook in for nearly a week before listening and found them to be much better. MUCH better. They take on a sense of ease, as mentioned above. Ultimately, they're quite revealing of what's put in the chain ahead of them but on some material they aren't as dynamic in the bass as some folks prefer.

Many components that feature headphone-out jacks utilize cheap (think pennies) op-amps to drive the circuit. Many tweakers swap these out for better op-amps but not being acquainted with your Meta, I'm not certain they'd outperform it. Perhaps others here will address that for you.

Antique Sound Labs makes a couple of doodads, just as you describe, allowing to use your main amplifier's outputs to . You can check them out at www.Divertech.com, just follow the ASL links.

Congratulations on your purchase. Happy listening!

 

[stevesolo]

Lonestar,

Thanks for the feedback. Are you sure that is the correct link for Divertech? I cant seem to connect. Yes, what I am looking for is a device that connects in between the amp and the speakers with volume control that allows for utilization of the amp to produce quality headphone listening.
Anyone have any experiece with such a device and where I might find some?

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally posted by stevesolo Are you sure that is the correct link for Divertech? I cant seem to connect.

The correct link has no comma at the end: http://www.divertech.com

 

[wbjia]

 

[stevesolo]

wbjia,
Yes thats a pic of the monster SAE 2500 amp that I has provided me with many years of reliable service. It powers my
Ohm F3's that at the moment one speaker requires some service due to what I think is a blown tweeter.

I just wonder if there is a good device that will go between the amp and speakers that will provide for good quality headphone listening?

 

[wallijonn]

Stevesolo,

there are probably such devices. but why bother? if it's just a transformer, then you're actually going in the wrong direction. why? well, if your amp puts out 50 watts per channel at 8 ohms, and then you put a transformer, what you'll end up with is 50 watts per channel at 300 ohms. whereas, if you just directly connected the 300 ohm headphone directly to the speaker outputs, you'd have about 1 watt per channel at 300 ohms.

of course, this would have to be the minimum impedance of the headphone.

then there is the actual sound of the amplifier itself. is it good enough? is it too bright, too dark, laid-back, smudgey, noisey, veiling, etc.?

which is why if you just make your own op-amp amp, you can choose which op-amp to install, and like tubes, can fine tune the sound to your preference. you can get into chip rolling. and you can go as crazy as you want in the power supply section. (I prefer seperate power supplies with separate transformers when possible, driving mono channels, for the widest possible soundstage.)

why pay $100 for a transformer when you can build an entry level headphone amp (HA) for the same amount of money. of course you'll hear about $1000 HAs, but these have their own counterparts in the speaker amp world. yes, you could drive your speakers with a $100 receiver, or you could go with a class-A amp, or a class G, class H, etc.

my present headphone amp is a Parasound HCA-1000 THX amp. I've put a 4 pin XLR connector on it and use it to drive my K1000, DT931 and DT880.

if it's a question of money, the Marantz 1060 has a good headphone section, and can be bought for about $75 to $150 used. such an amp can be connected to a computer sound card, and a turntable, cd player and dvd (sacd, dvd-a, hdcd) player. again, it's sound may be slightly warm and laid back.

so to answer your question, yes there are devices which can connect to your amp to drive headphones. look in the amp thread for pointers to such devices. most people just insert a 200 to 300 ohm in series with the hot signal leads and use the amp for that. cost? less than a buck. whether or not you find the sound acceptable will purely be up to you and the inherent sound of the amp.