[icebear]

... For normal listening the meters on the front ride around 0.002 watts. Loud stuff pumps it up to 0.02 watts. I have yet to get it loud enough for the meters to register 1 watt of output.
... What I appreciate the most is the "granularity" of the sound. I can easily pick out individual instruments. In an "earlier life" I did a fair amount of work with a 50 piece amateur orchestra (conductor, player, and "sound engineer"). The Sennheisers driven by the MC2205 give me the individual instruments that I have not heard since my days in the orchestra pit. That level of detail is very much worth using the MC2205 (even though it is probably overkill).
My background is acoustic music - both classical and jazz. For that genre, I could not ask for anything better.
If your tastes run to other types of music, it might not work as well for you.
... Based on my (rather limited) experience, I would not hesitate to recommend driving headphones with a speaker amp to anyone AS LONG AS balanced wiring is used for the headphones - AND - you do not get carried away with the volume levels.
Thanks for listening.
Jim

 
Hi Jim,
 
great post, pretty much in line with my experience given the same musical preference.
The power you actually use is in most cases below 2% of the max. rating of the power amp. This is like slow moving traffic with 5.6 liter V8 pick up truck

.
It doesn't really make sense but these are the most popular cars type in the US...
 
The First Watt stuff from Nelson Pass is exactely based on what you need allowing for much simpler and efficient circuits.
I am driving a HD800 with balanced cable out of a First Watt M2 (about 20 Watts into 8 Ohms) and I love it

.

 

[Rossliew]

  I am using a McIntosh MC2205 (rated at 200 wpc) to drive Sennheiser 600s through a balanced cable from the 8 ohm speaker output tap.
The McIntosh uses an output transformer (they call it an "autoformer"). On the MC2205 you have a choice of 2 ohms, 4 ohms, or 8 ohms. I chose the highest output impedance.
I know the Sennheiser's are much higher impedance, and that probably results in some loss of power. But, with 200 wpc to work with, there has not been a problem.
For normal listening the meters on the front ride around 0.002 watts. Loud stuff pumps it up to 0.02 watts. I have yet to get it loud enough for the meters to register 1 watt of output.
The secret of not burning up the headphones is just be reasonable on listening levels.
Withe 200 wpc, there is plenty of headroom. The cannons in Wellington's Victory or 1812 Overture come through very cleanly.
What I appreciate the most is the "granularity" of the sound. I can easily pick out individual instruments. In an "earlier life" I did a fair amount of work with a 50 piece amateur orchestra (conductor, player, and "sound engineer"). The Sennheisers driven by the MC2205 give me the individual instruments that I have not heard since my days in the orchestra pit. That level of detail is very much worth using the MC2205 (even though it is probably overkill).
My background is acoustic music - both classical and jazz. For that genre, I could not ask for anything better.
If your tastes run to other types of music, it might not work as well for you.
I do not know enough about the internal circuitry of the MC2205 (or any other "speaker" amp) to say whether it would hurt to use a normal headphone jack type arrangement, sharing the "negative" sides of the two channels. I know I did that with an old Roberts 1040 tube tape recorder in the 60s driving Koss Pro4s, but I do not think I would recommend trying it now.
Also - everyone seems to say that driving headphones in balanced mode gives a cleaner signal.
Based on my (rather limited) experience, I would not hesitate to recommend driving headphones with a speaker amp to anyone AS LONG AS balanced wiring is used for the headphones - AND - you do not get carried away with the volume levels.
Thanks for listening.
Jim

Jim, with the McIntosh amps and their auto former set-up, do you require any resistors across the speaker taps before plugging the 'phones in? TIA

 

[deadie]

Jim, how does the sound differ b/w the MC2205 speaker taps and its front TRS output?  

 

[Chris J]

Can anyone point me to the "Headphone Amps for Speakers" thread?

 

[icebear]

LOL, I didn't know that there is also the "opposite thread" to this one.
Maybe you take a look a the Sh... Ragnarok thread which supposedly can do both.

 

[Chris J]

LOL, I didn't know that there is also the "opposite thread" to this one.
Maybe you take a look a the Sh... Ragnarok thread which supposedly can do both.

But it's not a dedicated headphone amp so it doesn't count! :wink_face:

 

[preproman]

Can anyone point me to the "Headphone Amps for Speakers" thread?

 
I'm guessing you don't think speaker amps should be used with headphones?

 

[Chris J]

I'm guessing you don't think speaker amps should be used with headphones?

I don't think speakers should be driven from headphone amplifiers!

 

[preproman]

I don't think speakers should be driven from headphone amplifiers!

I'm with you on that one...

 

[icebear]

I listened to this one Saturday night :
 

 
Marantz SA11s3 -> Luminous Audio Axiom II ->First Watt M2 -> HD800
 
The illusion that she is playing right there is close to perfect. I saw her live a couple of weeks ago and she's a mover, meaning she is not fixed in one position with her feet and also with her violin in height and in position to the mic. First this seems odd when you can clearly hear it but I think it heightens her expressive nature in producing the sound. Every delicate nuance is there how the bow is touching the strings and the notes floating off, mmmh musical bliss to my ears

 

[ljbrandt]

  Folks:
 
Just a quick note to let you know that my experiment with my Nikko NA-890 continues, and I love this thing.  Periodic age-related noise aside, I think it is actually better than the Odyssey Cyclops in driving the LCD-3s. I'm running it through my Mills resistor box (another source of periodic noise, as the connectors aren't real tight), and it is a perfect match.  Better attack than the Odyssey, particularly on the high end, with no harshness and no loss of warmth.  Incredible for an amp I bought 35 years ago.  I did recently try the HP jack on it, and it is harsher than my box/tap setup, so I'm sticking with the main connections.
 
The only problem is that now I'm hunting eBay for vintage Nikko amps, particularly the Alpha series, which are supposedly a big step up from mine.  I don't need another amp.  I already have 2 that I'm not using right now (Cyclops and Millenia).  I am writing to urge/beg/plead with all of you to please buy every Nikko amp on eBay and Audiogon IMMEDIATELY, so that I cannot act on this temptation. 
 
Thanks in advance for your help in this matter.... 
 
And happy holidays to all.

So...
Any update?
Will you sell your Cyclops or Millenia integrateds?

 

[Eddyfcknp]

Needing a little help if possible.  Accidentally won a bidding on a SMSL Q5 for the bedroom and was trying to get this to run my headphones.  I made the adapter and I'm getting a hiss from the headphones.  To test to make sure it wasn't something I did wrong with the adapter I connected a speaker (+ to R and - to L) and a hiss will occur from that too.   I've tried changing sources from optical to usb and the hiss is still there.  Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[davidsh]

Resistors are likely the only solution

 

[Eddyfcknp]

Resistors are likely the only solution

 
Appreciate that.  Doesn't look like I'll have it for much longer as I've received one of the earlier versions with issues, so a refund request as been started.  Thanks though!

 

[HiFiRobot]

So, thinking of trying out this speaker tap thingie with my balanced LCD-2, HE-500, LCD-XC and maybe HE-400. I can build the 4-pin female XLR-Banana adapter quite easily, might use speaker cable if anyone does not advise against.
 
This is the amp I plan to use. Whats the risk of headphones or something else going boom?
 
Musical Fidelity M6i
http://www.musicalfidelity.com/support/discontinued-products/m6i/
http://www.musicalfidelity.com/uploads/catalogerfiles/m6i/4_M6i.pdf
 
Output
Power 200 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms (23dBW)
Voltage 45 Volts RMS, 20Hz to 20 kHz; onset of clipping
(126 Volts peak-to-peak)
Current peak-to-peak 45 Amps
Damping factor 170
Output devices 2 pairs per channel
 
Line input
THD+N <0.01% typical, 20Hz to 20 kHz
Signal / noise ratio >100dB ‘A’-weighted
Input impedance 38k Ohms
Frequency response +0, –0.1dB, 10Hz to 20 kHz
 
Power requirement
Mains voltages 115/230VAC 50/60Hz (factory pre-set)
100VAC 50/60Hz (alternative)
Consumption 680 Watts maximum
 
Weight
Unit only, unboxed 16.6 kg (36½ lbs)