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Amp for HD485s?

R

ralfyboy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
211
Once Newegg gets some more in, I'm going to order myself a pair of Sennheiser HD485s. I will be using them with my Audigy 2 ZS. My question is, do I need an amp? I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of amps is or what they really do. Will my headphones sound better with an amp? If so, what is the price range of a good, solid amp? I've seen what looks like home-made amps around here, and if that's all I need, I would be more than willing to purchase one from someone here. Thanks for the help.
 
no amp needed for the HD485. They are efficient enough and people over at head-fi.org already tried them with amps and the sound difference is TINY... enjoy them... I know I am.
 
The difference, to me, is huge on the DT880s, unamped vs. amped, but once you start climbing the amp scale, going from a good amp to a better amp yields smaller differences, imo.

That said, with cheap phones, forget about the amp, unless they're particularly hard to drive, which is not usually the case or the design intent with cheaper phones.
 
One concern of mine is volume control. Would an amp be handy just for volume control?

And even though HD485s are not top of the line, might they still be worth the purchase of a very cheap amp?
 
ralfyboy said:
One concern of mine is volume control. Would an amp be handy just for volume control?

And even though HD485s are not top of the line, might they still be worth the purchase of a very cheap amp?
Click to expand...

Sure, they're handy for volume control, if that's what you're looking for. If you want a cheap amp, look for someone to sell or build you a cmoy.
 
ralfyboy said:
One concern of mine is volume control. Would an amp be handy just for volume control?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. If you are running your headphones directly off the sound card volume control can be a pain, you can assign hotkeys but sometimes certain programs might block those hot keys, and if your computer is spiking up to 100% cpu/multitasking then the hot keys might be slow to respond. A cheap amp is worth the money just to avoid that.

ralfyboy said:
And even though HD485s are not top of the line, might they still be worth the purchase of a very cheap amp?
Click to expand...

They might, I know my lowly Senn 457s had better bass with an amp(before I gave them away). I think the Pocket Amp V2 from www.electric-avenues.com is a fantastic starter amp. Only $60 shipped. They made my 457s and 595s sound better. The only "problem" with the PAV2 is you have to use rechargable batteries for it to sound its best. The electroinics in the PAV2 are designed to run off of the lower power rechargable. With regular batteries or just running off the AC there is an annoying noticable hum. With rechargable batteries there is no hum at all.
 
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