Beyer 80Ohm - best amp?

mcgriffo

mcgriffo

mcgriffo

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I have a set of Beyer 770 80Ohm on the way....

....what will I need an amp for and can anyone recommedn a good one, kind of "as cheap as poss" - but still good!!!!

Preliminary investigations show that I shouldn't need one for the PC (X-FI card) and TV etc - but may need one for the Ipod
 
Don't forget you'll need a lineout dock for the Ipod for optimum usage.

As for a cheap amp (I assume you meant portable here) any Cmoy of ebay will probably be pretty good, means you can also swap out opamps if that takes your fancy. Also maybe a c&c box or a ibasso t2.
 
Yikes... that could be a prob... I have a Bose Sounddock - which as I recall doesn't have a line-out, I don't think.

Are there still alternatives?

What are opamps, c&c boxes and ibasso t2s?
 
When I say dock, I mean its a cable with a dock connector on which gives you a real line out, they're quite cheap but of course you can use the headphone out but that means its going through the rubbish ipod amp, then though the good external amp. Best it just goes through just the external amp hence the lineout.

If you check ebay you will find a lot of diy built cmoy amps, nothing wrong with these at all, and a bonus is (although I doubt this will interest you) is you can swap out opamps to change the sound to your taste.

As for the others I menationed they are inexpensive good solid amps, check them out on google and have a search/browse at the amp forum on headfi: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/

EDIT: Good thread here: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/best-bang-buck-amp-under-100-a-281537/ (Although I'm not sure you can still buy the govibe v6)
 
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HeadRoom do quite a nice range, should be picking up a Headroom Total Bithead for PC and portable usage for around £50 second hand soonish.
 
If you're after the best performance from your 'phones you'll have to seriously have to think about getting an amplifier. I have a set of Sennheiser HD650s that have an impedance of 300ohms. I can run them from an MP3 player without an amp but they sound no better than a much cheaper set of cans. I use a Graham Slee Solo amp which I enjoy and which has a formidable reputation amongst audiophiles, cost something over £300, but without knowing your budget or requirements I wouldn't recommended you to buy any particular product.

Perhaps you chose the Beyers before you had fully thought out your intended use. You could for example bought a set of cans with a lower impedence, e.g., Grados, some Sennheisers, AT and others, that don't require the power of an amp to drive them. However, you are where you are so I suggest you browse a more specialised forum for advice and information on getting the best out of your new 'phones. Have you tried the forums on headfi.org.

I have a Prelude Xfi and I must say that I've been less than impressed by its headphone output. My Solo amp has two inputs, of which one is connected to my Denon AV amp, which in turn is connected via a coaxial digital connection on the Prelude. The other is connected to the headphone connection on the Prelude. Thus, I am able to switch my headphone amp between the two merely by flicking a switch. I notice a distinct drop in quality and volume when I switch my headphone amp to the Prelude headphone connection.

I have a spare headphone amplifier, designed and built by Alex Nikitin, formerly the chief designer at Creek audio. See this thread for a discussion of its merits

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/n-t-amber-impressions-113912/index2.html

This cost me over £200 three years ago and I reckon it's worth about £50.00 now. If your interested get back to me. If not, enjoy your Beyers.
 
Don't go spending potentially big money before first assessing how capable your phones/iPod combination is.

Headroom recommend these phones over the higher-impedance DTs for this very use, don't forget. Yeah, of course they're also recommending that they'd sound even better still through one of their amps, but (a) they're trying to sell you an amp, and (b) what phones wouldn't sound better when more cleanly driven?!

So have a listen to the DT770-Ms when they arrive [don't forget to allow some burn-in time before coming to any conclusions], and then determine whether you'd need an amp. If you think you do, the Cmoy amps that Bigsy recommended would appear to be an easily affordable way for you to see what even a cheap amp can do to improve audio. They're wonderfully ghetto, too :)

Above all, though, let's not lose sight of the fact that we're talking about listening to predominantly lossy audio through consumer-level hardware here. I'm not slighting your setup, I'm just trying to temper Leporello's enthusiastic and experienced audiophile point of view with a bit of reality :)
 
thanks for some great tips here.....

I'll probably try them without an amp first... not sure how BAD I'm going to have to find the experience to think I need an amp though... I might think it's fine and it'd be 10,000 times better amped, or I might get the amp and find it wasn't that bad without it!!!

I think the jury is out still as to whether 80ohms is perfectly acceptable to be driven without the amp (from what I've read) even by an iPod / X-fi card etc.

I've recently put up a separate post asking people's advice on the Project Headbox Mk2 - although I'll hold back on that (you've reined me in there, simisker) until I've explored the headphones in all their "naked" glory.

I'd still like opinions on that or alternatives though.

I'm not bothered about portability, although aesthetics and desk-space-conservation would be a nice touch. I'm going to be using them with PC (X-Fi card), iPod and maybe TV. AND my max budget is £70.
 
simisker said:
I'm just trying to temper Leporello's enthusiastic and experienced audiophile point of view with a bit of reality :)
Click to expand...

Your advice is to Mcgriffe is perfectly sound. I hadn't intended to appear over enthusiastic or necessarily get Mcgriffe to buy my used Amber ANT. I tend not to recommend purchases as such. I described my setup merely to provide a baseline for Mcgriffe to judge the merits of my comments in the light of his own needs, resources and interests. My headphone equipment cost at least as much as my PC which reflects the priority I give to music and sound. I don't expect him to follow my example or share my enthusiasm.

The link I posted in my earlier reply directed Mcgriffe to a thread on headfi.org where he could browse for information on his Beyers, with and without an amplifier, and user experiences of a number of amps, one of which was the Amber ANT. Had he been interested in auditioning the ANT prior to purchase, that could have been arranged. I have no need or wish to dispose of it. My offer was a friendly gesture nothing more.

Mcgriffe may find that his Beyers suit him fine un-amped but they are of relatively high impededance and conventional wisdom would be that in order to drive 800ohm headphones at anywhere near their potential would require an amp. People often make the mistake that buying an expensive set of cans will improve their listening experience with no thought for the other links in the chain, where in reality their expensive high impedance 'phones may sound worse than a cheaper low impedence set of cans on a low end source.

I'm sure that there's very little that you and I would disagree on in these particular matters.

Have a good 2008.:)
 
Thanks to you both - I think you both offered detailed and useful advice and didn't find it contradictory at all.

One quick question... when using an amp, I've heard a dedicated line out is better than the iPod's headphone socket.

Could I just use the usb dock I use to connect the iPod to the PC and not worry about any other connection?

So, it would be headphones ----> amp (powered by mains or battery) ----> little white dock with line out that doesn't need any other connection...(apart from the iPod sitting on it!!!) ?

Is that right?
 
I'm not sure that I've grasped exactly what your are trying to clarifiy. Are you wanting to upload or play the music from your Ipod to your PC? I don't own an Ipod but I can see no advantage in terms of the audo performance in routing the reasonable sound output from an Ipod through an electronically noisy PC sound system. You'd simply be adding an unnecessary link in the chain between your music and your ears.

Were you to decide on getting an amp you could use it with both your amp and your PC sound by using a 3.5mm stereo jack to 2x phono/RCA connection. The 3.5 miniplug would go into the headphone socket on either the PC or your Ipod. Your amp. should you buy one will have one or two pairs of phono connectors, one white, one red which match the two similar plugs on the cable. It couldn't be simpler.

If you want to easily switch between the PC sound and the Ipod using a portable amplifier there may be some sort of switching connector which would allow you to do this, or you could buy two 3.5 stereo jack to 2x phono cables, a short one for your Ipod and a longer one which could be left permanently plugged in to your PC soundcard and left on your desktop. The only reason I use PC sound is in games where EAX comes into the picture.

I'd suggest that you get used to your new headpones and allow them some time to burn in. They will improve in time and you may decide that you're satisfied with them and decide that an amplifier would be unnecessary. If after a few weeks or months you decide you'd like to upgrade your audio setup you could save yourself a lot of time and potential disappointment, by clarifying what sort of sound your want or what specific issues you wish to resolve before buying.

Good luck.
 
Leporello - I'm probably best just saying what I want to achieve and seeing what you think. With regards to the PC, I think I am like you and see the headphones being used mainly for gaming. My X-fi has the EAX choice so that would feature too. Although all my music is on the PC, gaming is the main reason I want the headphones FOR the PC.

Now, I have the iPod, containing all the music on the PC, sitting downstairs, in the living room, in the Bose sounddock. The headphones would also be used to listen to music from the iPod - far away from the PC - in the comfort of the living room - like you would plug them into a stereo hi-fi system.

So, although I want to use them in both the PC and the iPod, they are not related in the sense that the iPod need "talk to" or "be near" the PC in either case.

Portability isn't a major issue as I could use the mains upstairs or downstairs depending on which of the two I was using.

(Just to mention that I may use them for a new TV which is yet to arrive too)
 
Leporello said:
If you're after the best performance from your 'phones you'll have to seriously have to think about getting an amplifier. I have a set of Sennheiser HD650s that have an impedance of 300ohms. I can run them from an MP3 player without an amp but they sound no better than a much cheaper set of cans. I use a Graham Slee Solo amp which I enjoy and which has a formidable reputation amongst audiophiles, cost something over £300, but without knowing your budget or requirements I wouldn't recommended you to buy any particular product.

Perhaps you chose the Beyers before you had fully thought out your intended use. You could for example bought a set of cans with a lower impedence, e.g., Grados, some Sennheisers, AT and others, that don't require the power of an amp to drive them. However, you are where you are so I suggest you browse a more specialised forum for advice and information on getting the best out of your new 'phones. Have you tried the forums on headfi.org.

I have a Prelude Xfi and I must say that I've been less than impressed by its headphone output. My Solo amp has two inputs, of which one is connected to my Denon AV amp, which in turn is connected via a coaxial digital connection on the Prelude. The other is connected to the headphone connection on the Prelude. Thus, I am able to switch my headphone amp between the two merely by flicking a switch. I notice a distinct drop in quality and volume when I switch my headphone amp to the Prelude headphone connection.

I have a spare headphone amplifier, designed and built by Alex Nikitin, formerly the chief designer at Creek audio. See this thread for a discussion of its merits

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/n-t-amber-impressions-113912/index2.html

This cost me over £200 three years ago and I reckon it's worth about £50.00 now. If your interested get back to me. If not, enjoy your Beyers.
Click to expand...

Hi, is this still for sale for £50?
 
Leporello said:
[...] I hadn't intended to appear over enthusiastic or necessarily get Mcgriffe to buy my used Amber ANT [...]
Click to expand...
I could have worded myself better, as I certainly didn't mean to imply that, or anything else negative or contrary. I totally understand and sympathise with the desire to introduce the joys of higher-end audio hardware to those with less experience; this was a rare moment of cautious level-headedness for me!

Anyway, it's a moot point now, judging by mcgriffo's other thread :D

Have a good 2008 yourself :)
 
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