Headphone Amp Wanted
Haywood
I have recently ordered Sennheiser 580 HD headphones via mail order.
I would like the The Home HeadRoom amp but can't get my wife to go for
$600 for a headphone accessory. Looking for suggestions or ideas,
without compromising sound quality, if possible.
Daniel Baker
Why are you considering the headphone amp an accessory? Is your regular
amp or CD player an accessory? If you want good heaphone sound and do
not have a high quality headphone amp built into one of your components
(like the Melos SHA-1 or AI Mod 3A), then you need two components -- the
headphones and the headphone amp, plus cables from source to headphone
amp. Accessories to me are things that may improve performance, but
without which the system will still work. (Hopefully this will not start
a new round of the cable wars, but this means that cables are not
accessories).
Perhaps if you present it as an important and necessary component, your
wife might be more accepting. OTOH, it could make her more upset if she
thinks you're getting yet another component if she thinks your audio
system is already excessive. ;)
Anyway, you're unlikely to get as good sound as the Home HeadRoom if you
spend less money -- it's a good unit. But I would take a look at a lower
HeadRoom model, the Little, or the headphone amp from Audio Alchemy
(which uses the HeadRoom processing circuit). I have found that
HeadRoom's processing circuit definitely improves headphone sound over
non-processed; this might be especially true for lower priced headphone
amps.
Hold you head up,
--Daniel Baker
Adam Kimball
From what I have heard, the new Audio Alchemy Headphone amp is
supposedly great. I heard a "story" (i.e. take it or leave it) that
Audio Alchemy licensed their amp technology for a few years to
headroom. Not that few years have elapsed, and AA can make the unit.
Zip might know something about this. Anyway, it seems like a nice
unit, outboard power-supply, good power, etc.. Not to mention the
price - right around $250.00
Good luck,
Adam Kimball
Andy Trafford
In article <4okjdh$4...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Haywood <kmp...@fls.infi.net> wrote:
>I have recently ordered Sennheiser 580 HD headphones via mail order.
>I would like the The Home HeadRoom amp but can't get my wife to go for
>$600 for a headphone accessory. Looking for suggestions or ideas,
>without compromising sound quality, if possible.
The three that I considered were the Little Headroom, the Audio
Alchemy, and the Creek OBH-11. These are all around the $200 mark.
I was leaning towards the Alchemy as I like their design philosophy,
but I was a bit wary of the Headroom circuit that both the Headroom
and Alchemy products incorporate.
My mind was finally made up at the Waldorf this weekend. Music Hall
was selling the Creek for $150. (my mind is usually made up by being
able to take it home immediately :).
The Creek is great. I have it hooked up to the tape outputs of my
Acurus DIA100 and it makes my 580s sound gorgeous. It'll probably sound
even better when I cut out the Acurus and plug it straight into the
VITB. Just gotta get a decent quality headphone extension cord now
(Headroom - 10ft of Kimber for 70buck or so).
Get the Creek.
Incidentally, the Music Hall guys get my vote for best budget sound
at the show. They were using Creek electronics (CD-42? and 4240SE)
to drive Epos ES-12 speakers. Less than $3K for the lot and it sounded
better than a lot of the mega-systems.
--
* Andy "Traff" Trafford Work: traf...@pathfinder.com *
* Sybase dude. http://www.pathfinder.com *
* Music lover. Play: tr...@interport.net *
* Photoshop dabbler. http://www.interport.net/~traff *
Scott Drysdale
[ quoted text deleted -- jwd ]
for father's day, i'm thinking of getting my dad some good headphones
and a headphone amp. he's got a degenerative bone disease in his ears
that gets progressively worse with age. as a result, when he watches
TV, he's got the volume at stupendous levels. he doesn't like to wear
his hearing aid at home. mom has convinced him that he should use
headphones when watching TV.
do any of these headphone amps have balance controls? this would be
good, since one of his ears is worse than the other. how about tone
controls? how much $$$ are they, roughly?
can anyone comment on the comfort of the etymotic research in-the-ear
'phones?
has anyone run into "wireless" headphones that actually sound good at
higher volumes?
--
Scott Drysdale // Scala Inc. // sc...@scala.com // Sanitation Engineer
1960 HD FLH (being restored) & 1957..69 HD FLH (da chop) // AMIGA!
Farzan S.
On 5 Jun 1996 20:05:56 -0400, sc...@scala.scala.com ("Scott Drysdale")
wrote:
>do any of these headphone amps have balance controls? this would be
>good, since one of his ears is worse than the other. how about tone
>controls? how much $$$ are they, roughly?
Of all the headphone amps I've seen or read about, none had balance or
tone controls (there might be a way around this..see below). The
cheapest ones I've seen run $200 for the small units..$600 and over
$1k for the home units such as Melos, etc. Some of the ones which
have excellent reviews from stereophile and other mags are the
Headroom units. I would suggest you give headroom a call and ask them
to send you an information package--it's put together very well. Also,
they have a nice web site at http://headroom.headphone.com that you
might want to try. The other unit (which uses a headroom processor) is
made by Audio Alchemy. It is also supposed to be good, although I have
heard very little about it so far.
>can anyone comment on the comfort of the etymotic research in-the-ear
>'phones?
According to an article I read on the Etymotic ER4S, they are amazing
headphones, with the ability to reduce ambient noice by around 20db!
I don't know how comfortable they are right out of the box, but you
can get custom molds made for them from a hearing-aid company (they
will tell you who can make them in your area) for roughly $100 extra.
This is supposed to make them extremely comfortable.
>has anyone run into "wireless" headphones that actually sound good at
>higher volumes?
Most wireless headphones I tried sounded pretty bad..or were extremely
bulky. However, if I'm not mistaken Sennheiser has a pair of digital
headphones which they claim are "high-end" similar to their
580s...also, they have seperate volume controls on each side (a
balance control, of sorts). My guess is that they are very expensive.
Your best bet would be to get a pair of headphones which he finds very
comfortable and get a nice quality extension cord which reaches his tv
viewing position. For extremely light headphones (other than the
in-ear Etymotics) try Grado. Personally, I like them a lot.
Also, instead of a headphone amp, you might want to consider a mid-fi
receiver with decent headphone output (is there such a thing?) which
has tone and balance controls. It might serve his needs better.
Hope that was of some help.
FSS.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Farzan Saleem far...@ix.netcom.com
"If trees could scream, would we still chop them down?
We might-If they screamed all the time..for no reason"
Steven Gladstone
Scott Drysdale wrote:
> for father's day, i'm thinking of getting my dad some good headphones
>
> do any of these headphone amps have balance controls? this would be
> good, since one of his ears is worse than the other. how about tone
> controls? how much $$$ are they, roughly?
In addition to Farzan's suggestions you might consider an old preamp
with a headphone jack. Some of them were pretty good. I heard a
Marantz 7T (transistor) that was very nice. There are zillion others.
Probably better than a modern receiver. TV remote controls line vol
into preamp.