Anyone out there know of a good headphone amp,and are they worth it. Any feedback would be great thanks.

MF X-Can v3, top with decent headphones.

The best information and product about headphones and amps to drive them come from Headroom. I have their top of the line amp (fully balanced) driving Senheiser 650's using the Cardas wire balanced upgrade. Sounds real good to me... Do not go through the headphone out from a receiver since it uses an inexpensive op amp to drive the phones, not the regular amp section of the receiver.

PENGUIN AMP,Buy off ebay under cmoy headphone amp,if you are using portable mp3 players including ipods the difference is unbeleivable.i paid about £36 and worth every penny.Neilo

I like the pocket Headroom ones, the Rega Ear and the World Audio Design valve headphone amp (the latter if you can cope with kits).

My personal view is that for headphone listening, choosing the right headphones is 90% of the job done and then the amp is the next 10%. Others may disagree.

I agree entialy with Chistopher Harnett, why have a special 'headphone amp' when you'vr spent good money on a power amp.
Just plug your phones into the speaker sockets and keep the volume down. If that is not as good as it gets, then find a new power amp and enjoy the improvement on speakers as well !!

Actually, I didn't quite say that, John although I can see your point. Have you actually done this?

A little while ago I was reading a description of what someone had done to a Sonic Impact T amp to make it compatible with headphones. I don't think it was immediately directly compatible but it only took a simple mod to do it. You also need entirely separate leads for each side as you shouldn't generally common the earth on a digital amp.

Of course AKG do a pair of headphones that are so insensitive that it's best to power them with a normal amp.

Yes I have on a conventional amp, and yes you are quite right re the Sonic T amp or any other that works in H bridge mode. But proberly with one capacitor and maybe a res you can use one half of the output. Funny you should mention T amps as I have just completed construction of a 100W per channel version from AUDIODIGIT, an Italian company, although not used on phones, but on speakers a new sound expirence that transends almost anything to date, including Leak, Quad and Radford valve amps of their time

I'm using Digital amps myself (Nuforce 9.02) and have auditioned Tripath amps.

They're terrific things for the money but they can be bettered IMO by really top quality valve amps but not at remotely the same price. Valves really pull ahead if you prioritize imaging over bass control.

The nice thing about them is that they're cheap and easy to build. I suspect that in all practical applications, we only have a few years of transistor amplifiers left to endure.

Can you clarify a few points, the meaning of IMO, and 'we only have a few years of transistor amplifiers left to endure'. I bet that in ten years valve amps will die a natural as class D and maybe newer technologies will emerge that are even better.
I have last night written to a fellow enthusiest re: the quality of class D and some reasons for the theory. So if I had an E-Mail address I will forward it to you !!
Also the reason I beleive that the ultimate reproduction at this moment in time is from vinyl despite being some 70 years old !

If you want to find out my background and maybe why I am so insistant on certain points then by all means visit my site at 'www.fisherproducts.co.uk' and you will find my history and life laid bare for all to see.

Here are the salient points of a letter to a fellow enthusiast:

A couple of points I have realised at this ungodly hour are what may be the significant differences between conventional amps and class D.

1] A class D system has no 'cross over' ambiguities, it does not know the difference between a zero crossing and any other change of level, and therefore has none of the problems that class B transistor or even class AB valve amps have, there is no middle point, no decisions of which transistor is conducting and therefore no discontinuities unlike most designs. I think that explains the inherent warmth and breath of sound.

2] Because at all times one or the other output transistor is conducting and connecting the speaker to a zero or supply rail the damping factor is enormous, way beyond any standard transistor or valve amp whose damping factor may be 30 - 100 a class D amp is more like a 1000 and that would explain why even a reflex speaker sounds tight and totally controlled.

I could go on but not now.

A couple of points on the perceived differences between CD and Vinal:-

1] CD has an absolute top end level and absolute minimum level, being limited to 16 bits linear coding, and an absolute frequency range of 20KHz at best and can never go higher than 22KHz due to the Nyquest limit. These are the media limits so even a £10000 player can not extract information that is not on the disc.

2] Vinyl on the other hand, has no absolute top level, as a good cutting engineer will 'spread the grooves' to make room, and no absolute bottom level being only constrained by background noise, disc condition, pre-amp noise etc. I also does not suffer the 'brick wall' filter effect of a CD and can go to 40KHz., so it does make sense, if you desire ultimate Hi Fi nirvana, to go for vinyl also the build and engineering quality of the product was directly related to it's performance.

That appears to now be applied to many other products, from power amps to cables where it is no longer applicable ?


It is properly this reason that the Hi Fi aficionados relate build quality of an amp or even a cable to performance.

IMO means In my opinion - I'm stressing my subjectivity. I'm not a fan of conventional transistor amps which is why I use the word 'endure' although I would really like to hear the Dartzeel.

There's a lot left in valve technology that PWM amps simply don't do. Last year I did an A/B with a pair of Audionote Conquest and the Nuforce amps that I now have which, at the time, were the state of the art in digital amplification. The imaging of the Audionotes was clearly ahead and the midband marginally ahead. For that reason, I think that valves do have a future in the high end but transistors days are numbered because there's almost nothing that a conventional tranny a/b amp can do that a digital amp can't do cheaper.

My Leak amp also images better but lacks the control in the bass of the digital amps.

The main problem with digital amps is that they bleed RFI/EMI to such an extent.

As I have said on this forum a few times before, class 'D' is not digital, as it does not convert analogue levels into numbers.
This is an important and crucial differencs, class T treats all values as a time thing but not as a number and therefore does not have discreet steps as in a digital representation.
I only say these things because I understand the technology and appreciate the results, not through any allegence with the manufactures. and anything I may say comes only from my own personal experiance. I am after all only a radio amature G8TAU and enjoy Hi Fi for a hobby !!!

Please clarify what you mean by 'digital' as class 'D' and class 'T' are no more digital than FM broadcast is digital. However some amplifiers do take a digital string in and convert that into analogue sound levels, and yes they are digital. But class 'D' and 'T' are not, so lets be clear on the distinctions and know exactly what we are talking about !!!

Sorry to be so pedantic about the digital bit, but I think in terms of understanding this is important, no very important, I earn a living from electronics design, and if I get some minor point wrong in a design, it may not work and I may not get paid for it, therefore I cannot skirt around the minor points, it has to be right, yes completely right or I would never meet that customer again. In my buisiness words like 'I think' or 'maybe' are not going to cut the mustard, they have to be more like 'yes no problem I understand', or 'I can do that, no problem' etc. a large part of that means knowing the problem and understanding it, and I do understand most aspects of audio reproduction, and maybe this UNDERSTANDING of electronics is why I have customers going back twenty years and why I can earn a decent living from it. After all when you build an oscilloscope at the age of thirteen you've proberly learnt a lot by the age of fifty nine !!!

Back to the original query. I have a Graham Slee Solo headphone amp and use Sennheiser HD600's. To my ears this is great with no headphone out socket from any power amp, receiver etc coming close to the Solo.

In reply to Steve Davis, yes I remember the HD600's to be a great sounding h'phone.

But in all fareness getting a few hundred milliwatts to headphones is really not a great techical feat, weather be by valve, IC or transistor.

So what ever can accomplish this is no feat of engineering or audio wizardry compared to creating a realistic soundstage to a difficuld load like a speaker.

So I would expect any compently designed amplifier, weather it be descreat, ic, or valve to achive this without much expence or difficulty.

Maybe no help but an opinion !!!