[Armaegis]

@montanari The diagram at the top of the page is fine. The one at the bottom with all the switches must be avoided.

 

[montanari]

Do you think he1000 and a tail from a luxman 550ax it s just fine or a l pad like that one is to prefer?
Thanks

 

[Armaegis]

If it's only rated at 20W into 8 ohms, you would probably be fine with a straight pigtail adapter.

I've been using a Bryston B60 which is 60W @ 8 ohms, and have been driving numerous headphone straight from the speaker taps.

 

[Sonic Defender]

If it's only rated at 20W into 8 ohms, you would probably be fine with a straight pigtail adapter.

I've been using a Bryston B60 which is 60W @ 8 ohms, and have been driving numerous headphone straight from the speaker taps.

Same, I have run several headphones right from my 180watt NAD M3 without even a hint of a problem, I'm just careful with the gain and everything has been fine. I will never go back to not using speaker taps, just doesn't make sense.

 

[Matez]

As far as amps and headphones ho, I'd like someone to try FirstWatt F7 by Nelson Pass. Anyone's familiar with this amp?

 

[montanari]

I think it's a great match
Kelvin labs would be another I would like to go cheap but difficult to find
To check the noise

 

[Thenewguy007]

As far as amps and headphones ho, I'd like someone to try FirstWatt F7 by Nelson Pass. Anyone's familiar with this amp?

There is a comparison with the F7 here:
http://theheadphonelist.com/pass-la...ewest-nelson-pass-amplifiers-go-head-to-head/

 

[Matez]

There is a comparison with the F7 here:
http://theheadphonelist.com/pass-la...ewest-nelson-pass-amplifiers-go-head-to-head/

Many thanks, past this lecture I have to say that I agree with most points. F7 is a beast with some speakers and it's good to know that the same story is with headphones.

 

[Clevor1]

It's best to think ahead and get a tube amp designed to work with both speakers and headphones, in my case, I bought a Woo Audio 5SE. I mainly bought the amp since it had the power output to handle any headphone out there, but I did buy a modest set of speakers for $1500 back then in 2010 (Klipsch Heresy IIIs) and Wow! The Heresy IIIs had just come out and now that the dust has cleared, they are now considered terrific-sounding speakers regardless of price and have garnered a cult following. You need high efficiency speakers with the 10 watts output of the amp, which is one reason I went with the Heresy IIIs.

The problem with combination speaker/headphone amps is the switching mechanism going from one to the other, which purists feel degrades sound quality. Woo Audio built this large, unwieldy switch on the WA5SE to minimize this problem. There's a lot of effort and balkiness when you turn the switch, but the design does seem to work.

That being said, I prefer to run the Klipsch speakers with my WA5SE but due to my present living conditions, I have to go with headphones. At least I upgraded to Focal Utopia headphones two months ago to help things out .

With an amp like mine, the tubes help out a lot. IMO, the best driver tubes out there are Tungsol round plates, and I run them with Takatsuki 300Bs and Takatsuki 274Bs. I had inferior tubes when I was running the speakers from 2008-2013 or so, so I can't imagine how good the speakers would sound now . . .

 

[Mheat122134]

Unless you know for certain that the amps have a common ground, do NOT use any adapter that reduces down to a 1/4" headphone connector. Really, the safest thing you can do is use a balanced headphone connector like a 4-pin XLR and built a speaker tap adapter to mate with that.

I found this while doing some searching online for adapters. Would it be ok to use for a standard receiver?

 

[potterma]

I found this while doing some searching online for adapters. Would it be ok to use for a standard receiver?

That looks like a 1/4" TRS on the end. If so, then NOOOOOOOOOO!

 

[Sonic Defender]

That looks like a 1/4" TRS on the end. If so, then NOOOOOOOOOO!

As long as it is a common ground it should be fine. My amp has a common ground and I have a 1/4" adapter that plugs into my XLR 4 pin.

 

[Mheat122134]

As long as it is a common ground it should be fine. My amp has a common ground and I have a 1/4" adapter that plugs into my XLR 4 pin.

How can I tell if my amp is? Thanks.

 

[Mheat122134]

That looks like a 1/4" TRS on the end. If so, then NOOOOOOOOOO!

This cable should be ok to use on any amp then? Thanks.

 

[Armaegis]

Ugh.

I hate those speaker-to-1/4" adapters so much and they should never be made in the first place. It just makes me angry. I don't care if the majority of receivers have shared grounds where technically the cable works. If you get the wrong matchup, things will go boom. Those TRS adapters should just be made with three plugs at the end to protect the end user from stupidity/ignorance, so even if something goes wrong there will be minimized/zero damage to the headphones or amp.

If you're at the point of plugging headphones directly to speaker outputs, then you should be running balanced connectors. Each binding post goes to a separate pin on the XLR4. That's it. No exceptions.