[insanefred]

Hi all,
My local hifi shop is trying to sell me an Audio Innovations 300 valve amplifier to use as a headphone amp. It's rated at 10 Watts, and my cans are Sennheiser 580s, about 150 ohms. Is this going to work, or will it fry my phones?! He's selling the amp for a bit less than a new headphone amp like the MF X-Cans... is it worth it?
Thanks
Andrew

 

[Tomo]

Hello,

I have tendency to mistrust any hifi venders or even manufactures now. You must understand they have to sell their amp for them to eat. So their main concern is not necessarily your well being.

Buying an integrated amplifier to driver a HD580 is not a good idea. You only need about 1W!! You are paying extra for 9W which you will never ever use. Besides, speaker amplifier generally have higher noise and distortions since they have lower tolerance/standards.

Unless you want to drive speakers too, you are better off getting a premium grade headphone amplifier. Some headphone amplifiers can drive speakers also. (McCormick or SDS) Choosing these is a good idea also.

Note Speaker amplifer with headphone out is not the same as a headphone amplifier with speaker out. The latter has higher standards and will outperform the former.

Tomo