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A decent, cheap, headphone amp?

C

Cyrilix

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 21, 2005
Messages
2,188
What would be a good headphone amp to drive the Alessandro MS-1 and be useful for future higher impedance headphones as well? Something preferably in the $50 range. Also, if there are some good suggestions, would I be able to commission anyone to make me such an amp?

I'm really quite inexperienced with amps, but if someone can tell me what are the main things to look for, then I'd be quite thankful. I've heard terms like pocket amp, cmoy, etc. being thrown around, but I don't exactly know what they are. I also suspect that a good amp depends on the type of music that you listen to as different ones are suited for different tastes.

In general, though, what would a person in my situation be looking for?
 
MisterX (above) builds the highest-quality headphone amplifiers available, at the best prices. ;)

He has built several for me and I could not have been more pleased with the audiophile quality they produced.
 
Mister X said:
More money. :)
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So $50 wouldn't do for an amp at all? Considering that the Grados aren't too difficult to drive, I might save up some money, but what would you recommend as the minimum, mister-x for a fairly decent quality amp (nothing too expensive -- remember I'm new to the high-quality scene here).

Personally, I think soldering would be completely out of the question. I just lack that kind of ability and patience. It would have to be something that I develop from experience.
 
Soldering isn't all that difficult. I don't have very steady hands, yet I'm still able to make simple soldering joints. Get a PCB board from radioshack for a couple of bucks, a Weller soldering iron (you don't want the crap radio shack ones...I'm already on my third one) and some solder and just practice. After an hour or two you should be more than ready to make a CMOY.

Soldering is an excellent skill to have...it comes in handy for all types of repairs and DIY projects. For example, my USB key drive suddently stopped working a few weeks ago. I keep all my school work and just about everything I've written since the freshman year of high school (I'm a second year student in college now) on that drive, and since I'm stupid, I don't backup. I popped it open though, and found that a component had fallen off. I grabbed my soldering iron, and in 5 minutes, I had a working key drive again. In fact, I'm still using it =)
 
Eric1285 said:
Soldering isn't all that difficult. I don't have very steady hands, yet I'm still able to make simple soldering joints. Get a PCB board from radioshack for a couple of bucks, a Weller soldering iron (you don't want the crap radio shack ones...I'm already on my third one) and some solder and just practice. After an hour or two you should be more than ready to make a CMOY.

Soldering is an excellent skill to have...it comes in handy for all types of repairs and DIY projects. For example, my USB key drive suddently stopped working a few weeks ago. I keep all my school work and just about everything I've written since the freshman year of high school (I'm a second year student in college now) on that drive, and since I'm stupid, I don't backup. I popped it open though, and found that a component had fallen off. I grabbed my soldering iron, and in 5 minutes, I had a working key drive again. In fact, I'm still using it =)
Click to expand...

Again, I think that sometime, this would be something good to practice and try but currently, I'd definitely have to settle for something "prebuilt", so to speak.
 
Cyrilix said:
So $50 wouldn't do for an amp at all? Considering that the Grados aren't too difficult to drive, I might save up some money, but what would you recommend as the minimum, mister-x for a fairly decent quality amp (nothing too expensive -- remember I'm new to the high-quality scene here).

Personally, I think soldering would be completely out of the question. I just lack that kind of ability and patience. It would have to be something that I develop from experience.
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Get a Pocket Amp V2 from www.electric-avenues.com , $60 shipped, I use mine everyday at work. Lasts forever on 2 AA batteries :)
 
Svperstar said:
Get a Pocket Amp V2 from www.electric-avenues.com , $60 shipped, I use mine everyday at work. Lasts forever on 2 AA batteries :)
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Thanks, is it powerful enough to drive Sennheiser 580/600s well?

Edit: I read up some good stuff on this amp. I may very well give it a try. Once again, thanks for the suggestion. :)
 
I am curious as to what good things you read about that amp.
Was it the hissing with low Z phones?
Was it the clipping with high Z cans at 1/4 volume?
Was it hissing when using alkaline batteries?
Or was it the washed out details and rolled off bass that you read about? ;)
 
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120708
I have for sale a mint amp built in a small hammond aluminum 1455 series case(size 3.15" x 2.125" x 0.91") . This is was not built for portable purposes, so it does not have the ability to carry a battery. The amp was made with a 1/4" switchcraft output, 1/8" switchcraft input, opa2228 opamp, 330uf capacitors, vishay dale resistors, belden silver coated cabling, blue LED, black aluminum knob, a wallwart power input, and biased into class A. The amp does not come with the A/C adapter, but you can pick one up at any radioshack or electronics store, you should choose one between 5v(min) and 36v(max). Asking 59$ shipped, feel free to ask me any questions~
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http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120794
I bought this pimeta from Ivan Constano awhile ago. I have upgraded and now its time to sell it. I have the original paypal invoice and it was $160. I bring that up only because I have forgotten what components were used. If you know what they are, here are some pics.

I used it with an elpac, however NO power supply is included.

Selling for $80 Paypal and shipped to CONUS.
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http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120818
FS: META42 in serpac h65
I recently acquired a DAC1 and use the XLR outputs to drive my HD650. As such, I'm selling off my Tangent built META42 to help finance the incurred debt. I am the original owner and have owned the amp for around 2.5 years. The amp works great and has 300 hours on it from mostly listening on weekend nights.

Features:
-socketed AD8620 opamp
-stacked EL2001CN buffers on left and right channels
-WIMA MKS-2 10uF capacitors
-330uF power supply capacitors
-class A bias through 4 2N5484 JFETs
-white LED
-vishay dale 1% resistors matched to within 0.1% of each other
-Crowbar diode reverse power supply voltage protection
-Panasonic potentiometer
-1x 3.5mm stereo input
-2x 3.5mm stereo output: 0 ohm and 62 ohm. The 0 ohm output was what I used to drive my HD650 and HD580. The 62 ohm output was used to drive my Etymotic ER4P while giving it some of the ER4S character. (At the time, Tangent could only find 62 ohm resistors available.)
-Includes 2 Plainview 9.6V batteries.

Asking $90 shipped anywhere in the continental US. PayPal and money orders accepted. I don't have much feedback anywhere other than Amazon Marketplace. If you search heatware.com for laevi, you'll find a previous sale of my HD580. Please feel free to PM me for any further questions.
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Mister X said:
I am curious as to what good things you read about that amp.
Was it the hissing with low Z phones?
Was it the clipping with high Z cans at 1/4 volume?
Was it hissing when using alkaline batteries?
Or was it the washed out details and rolled off bass that you read about? ;)
Click to expand...

I don't get it...I'm not experienced at all in what's a quality amp and what isn't.

Is there something particularly horrible about the Pocket Amp 2?
 
For around $70, the Audio Technica HA-2 amp is fairly good. I had one a year or two back powering some Senn HD580s, and it was a fairly decent little amp. Nowhere near a PIMETA, but decent nonetheless. I dont know anything about the technical side of it though.

http://www.audiocubes.com/product/Audio-Technica_AT-HA2_Headphone_Amp.html

(I got mine for $50 off Ebay :) )

Oh, and the MS-1s really shine with a nice PPA or Dynahi :D
 
Is there something particularly horrible about the Pocket Amp 2?
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Other then the things I pointed out? :confused:

We seem to be going around in a circles here so let me explain.
I suggested you should be looking for more money because IMO there is nothing in your price range that is gonna do your cans justice.
Even a well built Cmoy does not offer enough output current to effectivly drive the MS-1s. ;)
 
Mister X said:
I am curious as to what good things you read about that amp.
Was it the hissing with low Z phones?
Was it the clipping with high Z cans at 1/4 volume?
Was it hissing when using alkaline batteries?
Or was it the washed out details and rolled off bass that you read about? ;)
Click to expand...

Well of course the Pocket Amp isn't anywhere as good as my Gilmore Lite for the money it isn't bad. It brought out details in my music I hadn't heard unamped.

As for the bass, that is one of the main points, on my work computer headphones have like minimal bass, it sounds pretty terrible, but with the pocket amp the bass is more defined and present in places it wasn't

Not saying it is a great amp, just that it is good for $60.
 
I agree that you should probably spend more money now, especially if you want your amp to last a while. While the Pocket Amp is a decent starter amp, you'll probably be bitten by the upgrade bug pretty quickly especially if you plan on adding more headphones to your collection. In my opinion, spending more now so that you can get an amp that can last a while will be a better solution than getting an amp that'll just hold you over until you can upgrade to a newer one.

Of course, this is just a suggestion. However, it's something I can kinda speak from experience about. I have a Pocket Amp that I bought for my cheaper lower impedance phones. However, I didn't anticipate buying Sennheiser HD600s soon afterward. Although it can drive the 600s, I have no doubt that the amp isn't suited for these high-end cans. Now I'm using the PA2 to tide me over until I can scrape up a few hundred for a better amp; which I probably should have bought in the first place. It's a decent starter amp, but higher end cans deserve better.
 
Not saying it is a great amp, just that it is good for $60.
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To you.... but not to me.

Of course I can grab the parts out of the bin and build a better amp in a half an hour for half of what the PAv2 costs so my perspective is kinda messed up. ;)
 
Mister X said:
To you.... but not to me.

Of course I can grab the parts out of the bin and build a better amp in a half an hour for half of what the PAv2 costs so my perspective is kinda messed up. ;)
Click to expand...

Thats an idea, do you make any value amps?

Could sell a better amp than the PA for the same cost or lower, a lot of people would go for it in a heartbeat :)
 
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