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Futterman headphone amp

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Posted on November 26, 2019 at 10:48:32
throwback
Audiophile

Posts: 762
Location: Colorado
Joined: December 8, 2003
 Back in oh about 1978, I bought a set of Stax SR-X headphones and contacted Julius Futterman to make me a direct-drive amp for them. They sounded great then and last time I listened to them (10 years ago) they still did. The amp looked like it was built in Julius' bedroom using spare parts - - and it probably was. But I remember some magic in them at the time.

It won't be long (sigh!) before I have to abandon my large, wonderful, vinyl-heavy floor-standing system (thanks, Ralph, for the wonderful Atmasphere amps) for a digital-based (ugh!), streaming desktop system.

I'm sure the amp (and maybe even the headphones) could use some updating (caps, of course; maybe even some better wiring??).

I don't do much with my old (steam-powered) soldering gun any more. I'm wondering who I could trust to take a look at the amp and bring it up to modern standards without screwing it up. Ideas anyone?

I'm also wondering how my old earphones hold up against the newer ones (and whether the amp would have to modified to accept the new ones), but that's another topic for another day.

 

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RE: Futterman headphone amp, posted on November 27, 2019 at 07:54:55
rogerh113
Audiophile

Posts: 508
Location: San Francisco South Bay
Joined: October 20, 2014
 If you have a couple of pics of the Futterman, including one of the innards, I would enjoy seen them !!

regards -- Roger

 

If you have Stax headphones you are in good shape., posted on November 27, 2019 at 08:53:49
Ralph
Manufacturer

Posts: 4774
Location: Minnesota
Joined: April 24, 2002
 I doubt the headphone amp would be hard to sort out!

BTW we've seen a number of people go into downsized living conditions (senior living communities, condos and the like) and IMO you don't have to give up loudspeakers and good quality sound!

But everything does have to be smaller. One problem in apartments and the like is the bass going all over the place, but if you eliminate standing waves in your room you have less troubles with that. The Swarm subs by Audiokinesis are a good solution- they are small and meant to be right against the wall so they are out of the way and easy to place. So if you have a set of those your main speakers only have to be good to 80Hz (80Hz is where bass becomes omnidirectional). This really opens possibilities- LS35as for example, which are pretty easy to drive as they only can take 35watts or so. Or you could run a higher efficiency full range speaker and at that point might only need a few watts to drive them.



Something to think about...

 

techs, posted on November 28, 2019 at 10:00:44
Bill Way
Audiophile

Posts: 1884
Location: Toms River NJ
Joined: May 28, 2012
Contributor
  Since: December 14, 2012
 Ben Jacoby at High End Audio Repair in Brooklyn is superb. Call him (don't email) to set it up. His queue is always *very* long. highendaudiorepair.com

Blackie Pagano, also in NYC, is great as well. While his first love is guitar amps, he has been doing more hifi work lately. blackiepagano.com

They have both done good work for me.

WW
"Put on your high heeled sneakers. Baby, we''re goin'' out tonight.

 

RE: techs, posted on December 9, 2019 at 13:30:04
throwback
Audiophile

Posts: 762
Location: Colorado
Joined: December 8, 2003



Thanks for the inputs, guys. I had not listened to my headphones in a number of years. My headphone amp was pretty dusty, so I cleaned it up before I turned it on for the first time. It worked fine before, but now all I get is very low volume and a fair amount of hum. Dang!

I am in touch with George Kaye to see about getting it fixed along with perhaps some upgrades, but we'll have to see.

I took the top cover off, but there's not much to look at.

 

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