I have today to myself at home - the first one in a year, so obviously been putting it to good use and playing tons of music L O U D ! ! ! As nearly all my regular listening is done at low volume I'm realising just what I've been missing out on. What a blast! :P

So, whilst some music might not suffer too much at low volume, much of what I really enjoy is most definitely better suited to some serious welly. Therefore, I've decided that I really need to get myself a headphone amp for the KK so I have the option of headphone listening once again.

Any suggestions on products to dem? My headphones are dead easy to drive, so no issues there. I was hoping not to spend too much, under £300 perhaps. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

back to business..... :twisted:

I find the Graham Slee Solo sounds very good, and you should be able to find it for about £325 (UK).

Thanks dlorde. I have heard the name and will add it to my shortlist (if I buy brand new).

However, a friend came up with a good suggestion of picking up an old Majik amp for around £150 and use the headphone amp in that. Any thoughts - anything I should be wary of if I buy one? I was happy with the one in my Majik Kontrol before upgrading BTW.

I haven't listened to a lot of headphone amps as I don't do much headphone listening and the headphones I own are Stax Electrostatics which need an amplifier output to drive them.

We carry inexpensive to moderate priced headphone amps from Grado, Rega and ProJect. Of those I like the Rega the best and it only runs $295US so it should be well under your price point. I haven't really heard anything much over that price range.

Thanks Thomas - I'd forgotten that Rega made one.

I've since accepted an offer on a 5-year old Kolector in good. I've played with the idea of an inexpensive second system so this could end up in that one day as an alternative, so I was happy to accept.

Please do report on your headphone amp experiences, Charlie. I have been tempted to do this for a long time, but time is limited and I'm not super thrilled myself about headphones, so it hasn't been a priority. I do have a draft that I think could be tuned to sound really great, though.

The main problem as I see it is whether a volume control is necessary or not. I know from experience this is a difficult part to optimise and if the headphone amp really needs one, it will become rather expensive. Like a Kikkin with a powerful output stage.

If an internal volume control is not necessary and the headphone amp is connected to the pre out of the power amp, then the cost will be much less. It would essentially be a tiny power amp intended for headphones. When you use your headphones, you would then have to turn off your power amp(s) and use the volume control in the preamp. This reduces flexibility, but also the price.

What option would you prefer?

Please see this thread on max Headroom Max
http://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=464

I listen with it very often.

Thanks for the link Per. I will see how the Kolektor goes as my headphones are extremely easy to drive and were quite happy on my old Majik Kontrol. I used to own HD650s and they were not very well suited to the MK and no doubt needed a dedicated amp to shine.

Charlie1 wrote:I used to own HD650s and they were not very well suited to the MK and no doubt needed a dedicated amp to shine.

You may be right, but I'm not so sure. I've bought/tested the HD650's and they where very unmusical to my ears, even on a "good" headphone amp. Even worse than my 20 year old Sennheiser 540 reference. The best headphone amp I have tried is the Linn Line receiver (1, not 2).

The best reasonably priced headphones I have tried is the AKG K420. Definitely better than my previous favourite the AKG K24P/K412P. I'm unsure if my K420 is better than my AKG 501, but without testing I think so. Especially if the headphone amp is not a very good/high power one. They really are a fabulous upgrade (from K24P) for my Sandisk Sansa M250, HW Gen 2.x. They also sound reasonably good on a Sansa CLIP Mp3/FLAC player.

Hey, when did you find this headphone??

Last time you shared a headphone tip I followed your advice and got a pair of AKG K24P. Still like them, and for the money they're a steal.

Now it seems both the K24P and the K412P have been discontinued! If the 420's are a lot better, I really want to try them. And they seem inexpensive too, could they perhaps fit into the Absolute Bargain list?

lejonklou wrote:Hey, when did you find this headphone??

A few weeks ago. My original and well used K24P had one of it's hinges broken off. It was a sad moment and I went out to buy a pair of new K412P's. Hoping they would be as good as the K24P. When tested I actually think that they are the same headphones, just a better colour on the K412P, I was happy with that. But then I tried some other models in the 400 series. First the 450/430 and was not surprised, it was a lot worse than the K412P. But then I tried the K420 and could not believe my ears! It was a definite improvement from my beloved K24P. They where so good that I bought them on the spot for 600 SEK. They also run in a lot faster than the K24P. After just a few hours they are better than K24P and they just grow from there. I'm very pleased with them! They are also much more comfortable to wear than the K24P. Today I'm very happy my K24P snapped in pieces. :D To make a headphone that is really better than the K24P is an achievement. I give them my best recommendations. Especially now that I know they can be bought for 399 SEK at cdon.com. ($46 USD, £32 GBP)

lejonklou wrote:Last time you shared a headphone tip I followed your advice and got a pair of AKG K24P. Still like them, and for the money they're a steal.

If K24P was a steal, K420 is a robbery! :D

lejonklou wrote:Now it seems both the K24P and the K412P have been discontinued! If the 420's are a lot better, I really want to try them. And they seem inexpensive too, could they perhaps fit into the Absolute Bargain list?

Yep, they do, I'll put them there. Almost as fast as you place your order for them! :mrgreen:

Can you recommend an mp3 player Iinnofil I lost my old sansa

Thanks for all that Linnofil. The one issue I have with the K24P is comfort so I will check out the K420s asap.

As a general update, I connected up the Kolektor to KK last night. Works fine and drives the K24Ps no problem. Couldn't say weather it's more tuneful than the old Majik Kontrol as it was too long ago and other things have changed in the system since then. Certainly plays music though and kept me up to the early hours :D I had to turn them down for continually waking my daughter even though the listening room door was shut and her bedroom door nearly shut! Probably best though otherwise my ear drums will be shot within the year. My 6100/Ninkas are great and much more tuneful than phones but being restricted to low volume really doesn't suit all music, so the compromise is worth it for me - but then I've never minded headphone listening - quite like it in fact.

Lego wrote:Can you recommend an mp3 player Linnofil I lost my old sansa

To bad! I really feel sorry for you. I don't know anything on the market that is as good as the old Sansa 2.x. But I have recently bought (and sold) a Sandisk Sansa CLIP 8 Gb. I wanted to test it, since I heard some Linn guys like it. It was good, a lot better then most (all I've heard) other Mp3 players. But it was not as god as my Sansa 2.x, so I sold it to another Linn user on the Swedish forum. He was really surprised about the performance, since he was used to iPods. It's a lot better than the iPod Touch and Sansa M250 of gen 4.x.

I liked the small format, the low weight, the rechargeable battery, the clear display, the 8gb, the clip and the fact that it can play FLAC files directly from my DS library. Other features I liked was the ability to delete a file directly in the player. But I'm a performance guy, especially for sources, so it had to go! It didn't think it sounded much better with FLAC than with 320 Mp3's. So if I still had it I would probably fill it with Mp3's rather than with FLAC. (For more music!) I still recommend it for all that can't get hold of a Sansa 2.x. (It's still worth looking for as used. Look for a 4 Gb M260, it's supposed to be sold only with the 2.x HW, but check first if possible!)

Charlie1 wrote:The one issue I have with the K24P is comfort so I will check out the K420s asap.

I'm sure you'll like the K420. I can have them on for hours at work, with no discomfort at all. With better music and a more discrete look! The first days after my purchase my colleagues asked me why I keep wearing headphones all day, had anything happened? Yes it had! :mrgreen:

Charlie1 wrote:I had to turn them down ... Probably best though otherwise my ear drums will be shot within the year.

Take care of your ears Charlie! They are your best and most important interface for communicating with other humans!

Sorry about all the OT stuff...

Linnofil wrote:Take care of your ears Charlie! They are your best and most important interface for communicating with other humans!

Very true. I would rate the importance of my ears in terms of communicating with others as 8/10, just behind text messaging and a raised eye brow I have one or two useful hand signals as well but only for emergencies :mrgreen:

What other headphones have you tried Linnofil, other than HD600s? I could at least rule them out if I find a store that lets me dem various models. I wonder what Grado's sound like or the cheaper Senn's. For the price, I'll probably just order a pair of K420s anyway, but I might persue this further in the future depending on how much listening I do.

I will also try the Kolektor directly connected to the Linto (maybe this evening) and compare against it going via the KK and outputs on my 6100. What's do members expect to be the better? I'm presuming that the direct link to Kolektor will be better, and if so, I can use the 2nd pair of outputs on the Linto, but you get weird things happen at times and we know how good the KK is - perhaps it will do its majik somehow.

For testing I'll use the same Linto outputs in case one set is better than the other.

The thing with headphones is that even if you buy a good amp and heeadphones you get a lot of fun for a lot less money than amps and speakers. And I find listening to my Linn sources as fun with both and of course source rules here to. Now that the new Sennheiser HD800 are causing a stir in me I have to remind me that a better DS than my Sneaky or an LP12 upgrade may come first in line.

When I compared headphone amps I concluded that a simple portable Headroom Total Airhead was better than Musical Fidelity's Xcan or a tube amp costing three times as much!

The other night I listened to a classical recording Charles Ives 4th symphony. This is very noisy music but with lots of quiet passages quite impossible in a flat with your family. With headphones I could raise the the volume to get a real kick out of it. And this kind of music is meaningless if you can't hear the quite parts.

Anybody that bought a Linn knows that quality costs. Sennheiser are building their new top model by hand in Germany. 40 or 50 pairs a day.

Per A wrote:The other night I listened to a classical recording Charles Ives 4th symphony. This is very noisy music but with lots of quiet passages quite impossible in a flat with your family. With headphones I could raise the the volume to get a real kick out of it. And this kind of music is meaningless if you can't hear the quite parts.

I agree!

Per A wrote:Sennheiser are building their new top model by hand in Germany. 40 or 50 pairs a day.

Sound expensive! I'm happy being a cheapskate and am really pleased with the AKGs.

Charlie1 wrote:

Per A wrote:The other night I listened to a classical recording Charles Ives 4th symphony. This is very noisy music but with lots of quiet passages quite impossible in a flat with your family. With headphones I could raise the the volume to get a real kick out of it. And this kind of music is meaningless if you can't hear the quite parts.

I agree!

Per A wrote:Sennheiser are building their new top model by hand in Germany. 40 or 50 pairs a day.

Sound expensive! I'm happy being a cheapskate and am really pleased with the AKGs.

That's good.