Home Headphone Heights

Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion

You need to decide which headphones you will buy...

There are lots of headphone amps to choose from and not each of these is a good match for each headphone.

If you are going to choose a high impedance headphone (example: Sennheiser HD 600) you will need an amp that can power that higher load with a large voltage swing. Some headphone amps can power lots of headphones great but sound terrible with high impedance loads.

For 300 or 600 ohm headphones you will usually find a tube based amp as the best solution. These amps are not great choices for many low impedance headphones because many low impedance headphones require larger current demands. A Bottlehead Crack is a great choice for Sennheiser HD 600 headphones but sounds lousy with Audeze LCD-X cans.

If you concentrate on Schiit headphone amps (a great choice for reasonably priced American made headphone amps) you will find that the Valhalla 2 is a great match for the Sennheiser HD-600.

As an alternative choice, the HiFi Man HE-400S, is a headphone that some reviewers prefer to the Sennheiser HD-600. For that headphone the Lyr 2 is a great choice that can drive almost any headphone made.

The Lyr 2 is a hybrid tube/Mosfet amp that has 6 Watts per channel at 32 ohms which is very high power. That sounds like an amp that could handle anything but the Valhalla 2 is a better choice for high impedance headphones.

You have to first choose the headphone you will use and then check its impedance. If the impedance is 300 ohms or higher, you will need a headphone amp like the Schiit Valhalla 2. If its a lower impedance headphone you will benefit from an amp that has high power like the Lyr 2.

Good luck with your choice,
Ed

NOTE: An amp that has 6 Watts/channel is very high power for a headphone amp and you will usually not need an amp with that much power. The Lyr2 is an example of an amp that has very high power, is very reasonably priced and is made in the US. A lower powered amp could do the job with most headphones but having a lot of power on hand is not a bad thing to have.
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof



Edits: 06/22/17 06/22/17

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  The Cable Cooker  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • You need to decide which headphones you will buy... - EdAInWestOC 05:52:09 06/22/17 (0)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.