[CRNA2B]

I'm currently a grad student, althought not quite starving. I have a Penguin CMOY amp which I enjoy using with my laptop stock sound card system and my Grado SR 80i, Sennheiser HD 202, Audio Technica ATH-ANC7b, and Sennheiser PX 200's. I've always wanted to have a tube amp, but have never realized they were so within budget range.

At some point, I will probably pick up a DAC of some sort, but until then I'm wondering if I will be able to enjoy any of the Whiplash Starving Student Mini-Millet Tube amps warmth and good musicality with the aforementioned headphones, and my as stock laptop HP G60-235DX?

I listen to Pandora approximately 95% of the time and some CD's (via laptop). The other 5% of the time I listen to my iPod Nano.

What say you? Will I be able to enjoy the tube sound without the DAC for now?

TIA

 

[Happy Camper]

Oh yeah.

Whatever you feed through the amp will have the tube influence.

 

[az2123]

If you're doing the majority of your listening through Pandora, you will be wasting your money.
Get some 320kbps MP3s or FLAC before you buy anything.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by az2123 /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you're doing the majority of your listening through Pandora, you will be wasting your money. Get some 320kbps MP3s or FLAC before you buy anything.

Silly advice IMO. I do see 2 potential problems. If your laptop has the potential for noise, you may hear it with the amp when you don't hear it with headphones directly from the laptop. The other potential problem is the gain of the amp may be too much for your headphones. A stock MHSS amp will have to much gain. I believe the Whiplash amp has a gain switch so you might be OK on low gain. My MHSS is stock and it has too much gain for most of my headphones, most of which are a lot harder to drive than yours.