Emotiva Audio BasX A-100 Could be the Best Affordable Headphone Amplifier for the PC

cageymaru

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The 50 watt per channel Class AB Emotiva Audio BasX A-100 stereo amplifier could be the best headphone amplifier out to drive high impedance headphones. The narrator of the following video explains that the average amplifier has some resistors inline with the speaker outputs for headphone operation. Unfortunately the average cheap home theater amplifier lacks high quality circuitry for driving headphones properly. So Emotiva Audio decided to create the ultimate headphone amplifier.

In this basic amplifier design, Emotiva Audio has installed the same resistors inline with the speaker output to drive headphones. But unlike everyone else, there is a way to bypass the resistors so that you can drive your headphones with all of the amplifier's power! Of course this is dangerous for your headphones so the narrator of the video goes into a discussion of great length on how dangerous this is at the beginning of the video and also corrects some aesthetic design flaws near the end of the video to make sure that you don't fry your headphones. If your interest in this amplifier is piqued at this point, I suggest watching the entire video.

He goes on to test various hard to drive headphones and explains how everything integrates with his PC. If someone would make a list of them I would be grateful as I tend to not pay attention to things I have to save for to buy! He was annoyed by the length of time that the optional auto turn on feature took to start the music playing, and he didn't appreciate that it went into an optional standby mode after 5 minutes 30 seconds. I never cut my gear off so this wouldn't affect me in the slightest, but it seemed very important to mention for those that like those types of features.

He uses colorful language so I feel as if I should warn you about that. All in all I found the video very interesting especially since he was showing it in a working PC environment. 50 watts per channel should be enough for the average set of PC speakers and overkill for most headphones. Enjoy the torodial transformer porn at least if you watch it to the 2:15 mark!


 
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Yeah, he's quite the eccentric guy. I've watched some of his reviews for other things. Flamboyant, I guess.

It's a huge amp. But it's definitely more meat than I would want on my desk. Something small like the O2 Amp/Dac would be more favorable. Small footprint and does the job really well. But he mainly purchased this amp for testing speakers, not headphones.
 
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I feel like you'd need some REALLY high impedance headphones before you'd want something with voltage output like that. An O2 or a Fiio E17K can drive even 600 ohm Sennheisers loud no problem.
 
I feel like you'd need some REALLY high impedance headphones before you'd want something with voltage output like that. An O2 or a Fiio E17K can drive even 600 ohm Sennheisers loud no problem.

Well he was demonstrating the power of the device with planar headphones and of course you can use it to drive your regular PC speakers.
 
Oh yeah. He demostrated the power pretty well. He also went into the time to explain how the voltages work to make it louder/softer -- which earned him the subscribe. :p
 
The 50 watt per channel Class AB Emotiva Audio BasX A-100 stereo amplifier could be the best headphone amplifier out to drive high impedance headphones. The narrator of the following video explains that the average amplifier has some resistors inline with the speaker outputs for headphone operation. Unfortunately the average cheap home theater amplifier lacks high quality circuitry for driving headphones properly. So Emotiva Audio decided to create the ultimate headphone amplifier.

In this basic amplifier design, Emotiva Audio has installed the same resistors inline with the speaker output to drive headphones. But unlike everyone else, there is a way to bypass the resistors so that you can drive your headphones with all of the amplifier's power! Of course this is dangerous for your headphones so the narrator of the video goes into a discussion of great length on how dangerous this is at the beginning of the video and also corrects some aesthetic design flaws near the end of the video to make sure that you don't fry your headphones. If your interest in this amplifier is piqued at this point, I suggest watching the entire video.

He goes on to test various hard to drive headphones and explains how everything integrates with his PC. If someone would make a list of them I would be grateful as I tend to not pay attention to things I have to save for to buy! He was annoyed by the length of time that the optional auto turn on feature took to start the music playing, and he didn't appreciate that it went into an optional standby mode after 5 minutes 30 seconds. I never cut my gear off so this wouldn't affect me in the slightest, but it seemed very important to mention for those that like those types of features.

He uses colorful language so I feel as if I should warn you about that. All in all I found the video very interesting especially since he was showing it in a working PC environment. 50 watts per channel should be enough for the average set of PC speakers and overkill for most headphones. Enjoy the torodial transformer porn at least if you watch it to the 2:15 mark!



I like watching his review and cooking videos for the entertainment value as well as good info. Definitely a unique voice on YT.
 
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Wonder if it's enough to drive the Hifiman Susvara, lol. Seems like it's clipping quite a few power amplifiers according to initial reviewers. Then again once converted to 60ohms a 50Wpc amp is now reduced to 6Wpc.
 
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