Recommendations for headphones under $400?

May just give the Hegel h160 a try as it definitely has a great built in headphone amp and majority of the features of the 300 although down in power from 250w to 150w per channel.
However with the 300 i have rarely ventured above 50 on the volume for my listening levels and I really do like what I hear so more of the same vein might work well with the bonus of the headphone amp built in...which obviously the 300 should have had right from the start!

Hi uberwaltz,

      As long as you like the sound of your system with the H300 and your speakers don't need more than 150 watts to perform their best, swapping for the H160 seems to be your best solution. 
      You're likely to have a very similar system sound through your speakers while gaining the ability to conveniently listen through your headphones when you wish.
      The H160 is the first Hegel integrated amp to have a headphone jack.  It's not actually a separate and discrete headphone amp, but a voltage divider appended to the H160's output section.  The circuitry around this divider is very low noise and, according to all the reviews I've read (Stereophile and Novo Press), the headphone section is very good.        I still don't understand why Hegel didn't include something similar on your H300.

Good luck,
    Tim      



















i

Headphones really like a dedicated headphone amp

@stringreen
Probably cannot disagree there but as have no way to get a line out signal to a dedicated headphone amp for now AND that just means another box and power supply, not too likely too happen right now, although I was going to go that route if the h300 would have played nicely!

@noble100
I do have an offer to trial a h160 from another member here in my own system and am most likely going to take them up on that, worst I would be out is shipping if there is not enough OOMPH for my Wilsons.

However I still am mulling over options.

1/ I still could have my h300 internally modified to convery the existing pre out to a full line out independant of music through the speakers.
2/ Buy the h160, sell the h300
3/ buy a dac/preamp to use with my BAT VK600SE that I still have lying around ( i know nice for it to just sit gathering dust!) and used to use with Exogal Comet plus until I found I wanted more than one analog input. Options here with 2 or more analog inputs are limited so far. Mytek Manhattan ( 3 to 3.5k used!), PS audio Stella Gain cell dac ($1700 new).

Lots to consider......

Finally had a reply from Hegel themselves.
It seems that EVERY integrated they make or made has either a headphone out or a true line out EXCEPT the H300.
Go figure.........