General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: Headphone amp

Posted by dbphd on December 1, 2024 at 14:04:00:
Since no one responded to my question, I resorted to reviews. A Stereophile reviewer thought the Ayre QX-5 Twenty drove the Audeze LCD-X very well. It also drove the Sennheiser 800 well, but with a bit of harshness in certain regions. The Mcintosh headphone amp may mask that harshness.

Given I already have the QX-5 Twenty, I may pick up used Audeze LDC-X to try with it. Source would be Ethernet from Roon Nucleus and Blue-ray from Ayre DX-5 DSD.

I've been very impressed by how big my KEF LS60 can sound when playing large orchestrations loud, but I'm an 88 year-old recent widower who's planning to move to a very deluxe life-care community, and no matter how good the sound proofing is said to be, loud music is unlikely to be tolerated. I need headphones for that. Fortunately my preference in music is baroque chamber and jazz trios at low to moderate sound levels. The LS60 does that splendidly.

I'm toying with the idea of replacing my Ayre KX-5 pre and VX-5 amp with an AX-5 integrated, all Twenty series, to use with my KEF Reference 1s, but that seems overkill given my future living arrangement.