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Headphone Heights Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion |
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In Reply to: RE: Pass Labs should have a headphone amp available by the end of the year. posted by Frihed89 on October 8, 2014 at 02:03:50:
A resistor or transformer based adapter might work but it's not the best or most elegant solution, IMO. Dedicated headphone amps exist for a reason.The typical lo-fi stereo receiver or integrated amp with a headphone jack tacked onto the faceplate uses a resistive adapter in most cases. The results are less than optimal, muddy bass being one of the most obvious colorations in resistor setups. A transformer-based adapter could sound slightly better than a resistor-based one, but as long as the signal is being routed through any adaptive device it is probably being diluted and degraded to an unnecessary degree. The only advantage to using an adapter is low cost.
OTOH, a good dedicated headphone amp draws directly from it's own transformer and provides the cleanest, clearest signal transmission possible. A dedicated headphone amp sometimes provides the user with an adjustable impedance switch too, which is great because some headphones like to be current-driven while others like to be voltage-driven.
While it's true that a good speaker amp used in conjunction with a headphone adapter might sound better than a very cheap dedicated headphone amp, the best results are going to be had with a good, dedicated headphone amp. Good headphone amps are "voiced" to sound good when driving headphones, while an adapter tacked onto a loudspeaker amp is likely to sound like the compromised setup it actually is.
Edits: 10/08/14 10/08/14 10/08/14 10/08/14
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- RE: Pass Labs should have a headphone amp available by the end of the year. - genungo 03:40:22 10/08/14 (0)
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