With my suggestion given above, I would like to add that my main headphone amp is a Dennis Had Inspire headphone amp that I purchased new from Moon Audio and it is marvelous with Shuguang 6SN7 WE Plus replica tubes and a round bottom Brymer rectifier tube but over $2,500.00 and am very satisfied with it especially when the xtra power is needed for the more power hungry cans, WTS the little Yamamoto will never be sold. Enjoy the music
ISO: Tube headphone amp for Planar headphones
Hello everyone. I recently purchased set of Audeze MM-100 headphones.
https://www.audeze.com/products/mm-100
At 18 ohms and 98 dB/1mW sensitivity they shouldn't be difficult to drive. I'm currently driving them with a beyerdynamic A20 Headphone Amplifier that I was using with a pair of beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 cans.
While the new headphones sound okay with the A20, I can't help but feel that the current amp isn't driving the MM-100s to their potential. Granted, the MM-100 are analytical as they're meant to be studio monitors but I'm thinking that perhaps a decent tube amp would warm them up a bit.
So I'm looking for a tube headphone amplifier that will work well with the planars.
Budget is $800-1100. Thanks in advance!
Happy listening.
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@freediver Thank you for the info regarding OTL designs. I was not aware of that being an issue. Because it's the internet I had to look it up myself and lo and behold you are correct. Please don't take it personally. My digital front end is Bluesound Node2 into a Border Patrol DAC then into an ARC SP-11 Mk2. To drive the HPA, I have leads coming from the tape out on my SP-11. This allows me to use my headphones for all sources including my California Audio Labs Aria CD. The problem I'm seeing with the APPJ PA1502A, Cayin HA-1A and the Yamamoto HA-2 that @tooblue was recommending is that there are no US dealer/distributors. Not even AMZN and they carry everything. And not that I have anything against "Chi-Fi" but the Cayins I find are 100VAC for Japan. I also looked into the Auris Euterpe but alas, as it's 4+ years old, there are only close out/used examples available from Serbia. So the search goes on but at the very least the OTL thing is a very valuable lesson. Thanks folks. Happy listening.
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I've owned both the HA-1A & the CS-55A integrated amplifier..Both were SUPERBLY built & in 5 total years of ownership never a single problem or hiccup.. |
@freediver Thanks for the info on the Cayin. I finally found an image showing the internals and was impressed with how it looks. https://cf.shopee.co.th/file/40719695d2fd237fd6c597227d88277f And it is pretty outside as well. The other candidate is the Quicksilver HPA suggested by @larsman. What I like about it is it's simplicity and rugged build. And it's JUST a HPA; No extra electronics to drive speakers that I won't use. It's not as pretty as the Cayin but it gets rave reviews and it's built just down the road in Stockton CA. It is however almost $300 more... I've pinged Quicksilver to see if there's a dealer in the Seattle area. Decisions decisions... Happy listening.
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