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Headphone Heights Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion |
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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: I'm a newbie, prospective headphone user... posted by e-newt on August 25, 2011 at 11:54:21:
The Grace amps have a good reputation and have balanced in. I haven't auditioned personally however. These don't have balanced out, unfortunately. So this will only work if your headphones are wired single-ended.
You might want to evaluate if (since you have a balanced system) you want to get your headphone re-wired with balanced cable. A nice article exploring the difference that makes is at 6 moons (link below). They mention the balanced Headroom amp in that same article. Headroom offers an amp with balanced in and balanced out operation: i.e., HeadRoom Balanced Ultra Desktop Amp (BUDA). I haven't heard this particular amp but I've heard some of their line and I've got the impression that their upper level amps are very good performers.
If your budget allows, consider the Apex Pinnacle Headphone Amplifier which has fully balanced operation. It's been getting superlative reviews at the headphone meets. It's a bit of overkill for you since, it is configured as a full stereo preamp... which obviously you don't need.
A very good option, which I heard at a meet about a year ago, is the Eddie Current Balancing Act. This is a pretty wonderful amp and might be my first choice recommendation (I've actually heard it) for your system. Like the Apex Pinnacle it has multiple inputs so it can function as a preamp.
Another thought is to ask one of the smaller vendors if they would add balanced inputs. For example Red Wine Audio has a (recently released) battery-powered balanced-out desktop headphone amp; you could inquire if they will deliver with balanced-in. I've heard their headphone amp at a Head Fi meet and it was quite memorable. And very quiet.
Edits: 50/70/01 50/70/01
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- RE: I'm a newbie, prospective headphone user... - flatmap 16:14:00 08/25/11 (0)
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