Who Created First Head Amp?

[krmathis]

Not sure if its the oldest, but I guess its a good candidate.

Stax SRA-4S, which was introduced in 1960:

 

[Carl]

The Stax SRA-4S and SRA-6S from 1960 were the first true headphone amps as far as I'm aware, but even they were designed for the dual preamp/headphone amp role.

 

[KurtW]

My dad subscribed to Audio magazine starting in 1948, and fortunately he kept them around and my interest in audio came from reading these old issues. I continued the Audio subscription until it went under a few years back. It was HeadRoom that first got me interested in headphone amps, since they did (and still do) quite a bit of advertising in magazines to get the word out about why a headphone amp is needed. So Tyll deserves a lot of credit for this. The HeadRoom Supreme amp was my first headphone amp.

Local Headphone meets have played a strong role getting people interested. A little before Head-Fi came on-line, the first headphone meet listed at HeadWize was in San Jose hosted by Wing, and attended by 3 or 4 people including myself. The Northwest one mentioned by Tyll in August 2001 is the first one listed on Head-Fi and came a few months later. I hosted one at my house a few weeks after this one and it was probably the first one to have pictures posted of the event, but unfortunately these were all posted at HeadWize (but the pictures hosted by Jude as I recall) and these files were later lost. By the way, Tyll was kind enough to send me a bunch of his stuff to use for the meet. By December of that year meets were starting to happen all over the country.

Does anyone have a feel for how many headphone amps are sold yearly?

 

[Thelonious Monk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens /img/forum/go_quote.gif Stax was around before HeadRoom, and they did make electrostatic headphone amps. Geaorge Bishoff who started Melos built the SHA1 also prior to HeadRoom, but George really wasn't interested in headphone amps very musch. He built the SHA1 as a pre-amp, but many people told him it worked so well as a headphone amp that he change the name to a headphone amp---but it wasn't very interesting to him. His real interest was big, BIG tube power amps. About the time HeadRoom started, Corey Greenberg had a 1991 artical in Stereophile called "Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamplifier" that would act as a headphone amp, and went on to review the Grado SR60s with such enthusiasm that audiophiles began to pay attention. HeadRoom incorporated in 1992, and our first amps were portables similar to todays Desktop Portable. Our first home amps were a couple of years later. Shortly thereafter, Audible Illusions built a pre-amp that had a great headphone jack on it, Sonic Fronteers built a pre-amp with our crossfeed in it, and Audio Alchemy followed suite with a headphone amp that also had our crossfeed in it. Also early on, the EarMax came out and was probably our strongest competitor for quite a while. Once Head-Wize appeared things started rolling a little faster, mostly on the DIY side, but certainly marked the beginning of small DIY operations becomming a market force. Meta42 and Gilmore amps started popping up all over the place. Jan was the first powerhouse player to come along, he predates Head-Fi and was a strong contributor to HeadWize activity. By the time the community had largely shifted over to Head-Fi (due to the inconsistant bandwidth at HeadWize and the ever growing community's voracious posting appitite) the DIY market had significantly gelled into a virtual power house of small amp manufacturing ability. It was the age of the mint tin amps. Ray, Mikhail, JMT, and Justin at Headamp had also gathered steam and they started really comming on strong with quality offerings. I think it's fair to say the HeadRoom was the center of the headphone enthusiasm world early on, of course that world was about 7 people at first. I had the first headphone meet at Lonnie Brownells house, it was organized on "The Audiophile Network" a dial-up bulliten board in the days before the internet. But that event didn't lead to any meet momentum; it was a pretty isolated event and doen't really count. The first meets really started as I prepaired for the "World of Headphones Tour". I did a dry run to the Northwest about 6 months befor the tour, and the folks in Texas couldn't wait so they self-organized their own meet. That was the first real meet. I'm sure there were some other worthy benchmarks that don't come to mind, but that's pretty much how I remember it.

tyll, i thought that the sha-1 was designed specifically for the hp1000. i'll check my references but i think that it was, and the preamp was the add on. the only reference i can remember right now is corey greenberg's review in stereophile a while back. he describes that it was specifically made for the hp1000s, and if it's faulty information i guess stereophile should watch what it publishes :x

john atkinson's follow-up also refers to it as a headphone amplifier w/ line stage

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thelonious Monk /img/forum/go_quote.gif tyll, i thought that the sha-1 was designed specifically for the hp1000. i'll check my references but i think that it was, and the preamp was the add on.

Well, my impressions of why the amp was built is direct from George Bishoff's mouth .. and the best of my recollection (which is always suspect). As I remember it, he was pretty surprised and somewhat stumped at the number of people who were buying it; and lamented that more weren't buying his bigger stuff. He might have said something like, "I can't believe how many of those damn things I'm selling."

 

[DannyB]

According to Joe Grado he states he built the first high end/ high quality headphone amp. The reason is that there were no amps available to properly amplify his HP1000 series headphones.

His response was to initially assist studio engineers using his HP1000 series earphones by developing the HPA1 along with Sid Smith in a collaborative effort. The rest is history with may other's jumping on the bandwagon and producing so many nice products for our hobby. That is according to Joe.

 

[Hirsch]

This may not be the oldest, prettiest, or best sounding, but it's a dedicated stereo headphone amp. Note that the primary input is for phono. As with all products of its time, it's got a phono stage built in.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Somewhere I may still have a mono Solo-phone. My late father was an engineer at Shure Bros and bought it for me to monitor my Fender Jazz Bass practices without rattling the windows. I suspect not many mono models were made. It may have been a prototype. This was all in 1965.

Somewhere I also may still have a prototype V15 III cartridge he gave me. The case is different. He said the case cosmetics were more troublesome than the cartridge design. (Shure used to be very, very good at phono cartridge design.) The design was changed in mid stream prior to release, by the way. Trackability and compliance were major design goals for Shure in those days and stylus forces were targeted at half a gram. Among the prototypes was one which was probably the most compliant phono cartridge ever designed. Electrically it would not have been the equal of a modern moving coil design, like say a nice Dynavector, but it was the compliance champ and might still be.

It was not selected as the final design because it lacked one needed trackability characteristic. If the disk was not very, very flat - warp free - it would launch the cartridge and arm into space at half a gram. Like speaker, headphone, and amplifier design, it has always been all about compromises. The money is no object approach still involves compromises. Those pesky laws of physics keep complicating things.

Sorry about the off topic, but someone mentioned an affinity for history lessons and this bit is probably remembered only by me at this point.

Clark

 

[achristilaw]

Military applications of the late 30's. Marine hydra-phones and early echo reflection (Sonar) and "Radio-Men" of Radar for the things that are lighter than Air...

 

[pabbi1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Somewhere I may still have a mono Solo-phone. My late father was an engineer at Shure Bros and bought it for me to monitor my Fender Jazz Bass practices without rattling the windows. I suspect not many mono models were made. It may have been a prototype. This was all in 1965. Clark

WAY more interesting would be if you still have the Jazz bass? Stackpot, per chance?

 

[estreeter]

Let there be amps (AC-DC, 1978)

In the beginning
Back in nineteen fifty five
Man didn't know 'bout a rock 'n' roll show
'N all that jive
The white man had the schmaltz
The black man had the blues
No one knew what they was gonna do
But Tschaikovsky had the news, he said

Let there be light, and there was light
Let there be sound, and there was sound
Let there be drums, there was drums
Let there be guitar, there was guitar, ah
Let there be amps

And it came to pass
That rock 'n' roll was born
All across the land every rockin' band
Was ampin' up a storm
And the guitar man got famous
Ray Samuels got rich
And in every bar there was a superstar
With a seven year itch
There was fifteen million fingers
Learnin' how to play
And you could hear the tubes rollin'
And this is what they had to say

Let there be light, sound, drums, 'n guitar, ah
Let there be amps

One night in a club called the Shakin' Hand
There was a 42 decibel rockin' band
And the music was good
And the music was loud
And the singer turned and he said to the crowd

Let there be amps

 

[boomy3555]

Nice to see an old thread resurrected


I picked up a Vintage KOSS A1220 Headphone amp at a recent Denver meet for 5 bucks. Included in the box is an original scematic. It uses a single 12AU7 tube and catalogs list it from the early 60"s. I checked the Koss website museum but found no reference to it there. Here are a couple of PICs

 

[Clarkmc2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pabbi1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif WAY more interesting would be if you still have the Jazz bass? Stackpot, per chance?

I still have it. Purchased new in late 1965, it is a "pearloid" dot neck. Not stacked, but a desirable bass none the less. By late 1966 the dot neck was gone (preceded by the "clay" markings, it lasted maybe a year). A few years ago I looked up values on the web and a by comparison ratty example - mine is clean - was going for $9000. The dot necks are known for their great sound and playability, not for a collectible cosmetic feature. I will never get rid of it.

I also keep an old Precision fretless around for no good reason. It just sounds so cool. That Jaco sound jumps right out of it, despite his being a Jazz bass (with the frets yanked out).

The only other bass I wish I had bought was a Les Paul Triumph low impedance. See & hear it on "One" from Achtung Baby. It sounds like a pipe from an organ. It was a companion to the Les Paul Recording low impedance model guitar.

Clark