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New headphone amp recommendations

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safulop

Member
I've been using my Headroom Little amp since 2002. It's still going strong but I know it can't last forever. It has the left-right mixing circuitry that nobody does anymore, so in that sense it's impossible to replace. But I bought a Schitt Magni a little while ago and found it to be absolutely fatiguing, I sent it back after testing it for one day. Sounds like "schitt" after all. The Headroom Little only cost about $300 back in the day. Are there any lower priced headphone amps that are as good anymore? Obviously the Schitt doesn't measure up and is not even usable.
 
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Since I'm using unrestored power amps from the 80s for my speakers, I'm figuring my Headroom Supreme should be good for at least another 20 years.
 
For under $300 you can get about 100 different amps ranging in price from $23.99 to 299.99 Please provide info about:

Do you like your music loud? If so have a look at USB powered amps, many aren't cheap attempts at sucking power from the USB because in reality most USB powered HPA's deliver "only" 2 to 3 watts to the HP jack (in HPA parlance 2 to 3 watts is powerful) with only a tiny voltage requirement they "steal" from the PSU and it has no untoward effect simply because the HPA simply doesn't need as high a voltage as a mouse does. My mouse is well fed.

Standalone perhaps? Sometimes low-cost standalone amps can't handle the load presented to them, that depending mostly on HP impedance. I use my standalone amps (Marantz D-DAC1 and Hifiman L-100) only with low-impedance planars and a select few low-impedance dynamics. My USB powered amp can handle anything you throw at them provided the PSU is 600w or above. The amount of power delivered to the USB port on which is connected the HPA is sometimes massive. Guys at Tech Radar (iirc) reviewed one and measured the input and output at the USB port and the headphone jack on the HPA. They wrote no self-powered unit could deliver that much, ever. At the port on the motherboard USB controller's attempts at taming the tigress were useless but don't worry all USB-compatible HPA's have their own USB controller (duh!) and those have operating power limiters built in. Nevertheless some will let 5 watts to the headphone and you don't want that. I have such an HPA and always turn the volume down when I leave them even when they "fall asleep" within 5 minutes of not detecting user activity. But most USB powered HPA's deliver "only" 2 to 3 watts which is similar to the more powerful of standalone HPA's

Do you have a vintage amp or receiver? If so if and it's before 1979 you probably don't need a headphone amp unless your receiver is less than 20wpc. 70's vintage receivers were wired in parallel and could deliver ample voltage swing to the headphone jack. There will be way enough (too much) wattage through the jack so you can listen as loud as you wish, just like a USB HPA. Because of this the latter (USB-powered) HPA's are considered to reside in the upper tier of voltage capacity despite their low cost (great ones sell for around $200). You can get some for 25 bucks as well but I wouldn't trust those. I ordered one once and all the friggin' documentation that came with it was in Chinese (I think), French and German only. It worked for less than a week but sounded surprisingly good.

There was a USB stick included in the box which contained the PDF's written in chinese and a few files that may or may not have contained drivers because so I had Win10 look for them on the web and it found and installed drivers but there again everything was written in Chinese/French/German only. Although I do understand written French when I try real hard I couldn't decipher the documents, which were more than certainly trslater through Google and made no sense. When I submitted the French version to Google the results were absolutely, positively without making sense that it was useless. There was something about a horse... Anyway because of this I couldn't manage to install the DSP that was supposed to be included. Maybe that's why it died on me who knows. But this sort of situation doesn't happen with USB-powered HPA's selling for $200. There you'll find everything you'll need written in plain English and perhaps more importantly the DSP software instructions witten in English dammit.
 
I can't vouch for manufacturer claims of circuitry designs, i.e. class A. I can say that the Canary is an excellent sounding HPA/DAC. My reference is the Melos Sha Gold.
 
safulop said:
I've been using my Headroom Little amp since 2002. It's still going strong but I know it can't last forever. It has the left-right mixing circuitry that nobody does anymore, so in that sense it's impossible to replace. But I bought a Schitt Magni a little while ago and found it to be absolutely fatiguing, I sent it back after testing it for one day. Sounds like "schitt" after all. The Headroom Little only cost about $300 back in the day. Are there any lower priced headphone amps that are as good anymore? Obviously the Schitt doesn't measure up and is not even usable.
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Interesting. Your Headroom Little amp from 2002 would cost over 600 in 2020 dollars, but it sounds like you're not interested in spending that kind of equivalent money. And, quite frankly, you don't need to. I've had 2 of the recent Magni's and wouldn't call them fatiguing, but if you don't like the resulting sound with your gear, then that's the bottom line. At $99, the Magni offers good bang for buck, but can't hang with Schiit's Asgard or even Vali.

I will say that what you feed the headphone amp with is as important as the amp itself. Also the formats you own, etc. I would hesitate recommending anything for you until we know the rest of your equipment in the chain, formats and sound preferences you have. There's a lot of good stuff and crap out there.
 
bbqjoe said:
Not USB powered though
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That's fine, some USB DAC's have their own source of power. Those that I've used do not provide the same SQ or volume as a "true" USB DAC bridged to a full-size amplifier can but they still have access to computer resources such as DSP for EQ. At least some of them do, others use their USB (or SPDIF or optic) connection solely for access to content (like music) stored on a computer drive. These can be quite powerful on their own but with my own equipment (Marantz HD-DAC1, Hifiman L-100, Creative Labs X-Fi HD USB) it's the lowly Creative Labs that provides the most volume for music... provided it is connected to an external amplifier because its own HPA can only go up 500mv or so which is only suited for very low impedance headphones like certain planars or earbuds. But hook it to an external amp or receiver and i'll play just like a standard source (CD player, phono, etc.) and the sky is the limit.

When you use a "true" USB DAC you must make sure the computer's own audio is turned off otherwise you get mixed signals so to speak, and it greatly affects SQ. Another factor is the external amp. Obviously it has its own power source but most post-1980 amps are not able to power the headphone jack properly. Ideally you should use a vintage receiver. I know they're not easy to find and can be quite expensive when restored but you don't need a $2,000 monster receiver like a Pioneer SX-1250, many more modest restored receivers are available. But $500 is a minimum. If you're handy in basic electronics you can buy a non-restored but well working unit for $50. You must be able to diagnose minor problems though, because charge a small fortune for repairing vintage equipment. You should at least know how and where to spot a blown fuse (the most common issue) and to Deoxit screeching controls.

One thing to look for in any USB DAC is output connectivity. Many ones have it all: RCA (very important), SPDIF, optic, etc. Mine had RCA and optic. I use RCA because that's what my vintage receivers like, optic and SPDIF are mostly for connecting to AVR's. When you have a choice pick RCA because it provides the cleanest sound.
 
Just want to add because some have asked me why not connect the computer out directly to the amp bypassing any external DAC. The answer to that is 1) most computer on-board sound is designed for gaming and does not provide good SQ for music. 2)a computer's DAC is very basic, it resides on the audio chip and is exposed to noise 3) an external DAC has its own dedicated chip which is much less exposed to noise (on a USB connection) 4) It just sounds so much better.

This applies to most home computers, office computers have tiny motherboards that will sound bad no matter what DAC you use on them. Secondo, I know some people have $1000 motherboards that have excellent audio. Those can do without an external DAC
 
I like the idea of the DAART because I could use it to simultaneously upgrade my DAC and my computer connection to the home system, killing several birds with the one stone.

I currently use an Onkyo integrated amp just as a pre-amp, which is what I have my Headroom amplifier plugged into with analog lines. I don't see what other data matters here, I listen to a wide range of music from classical on vinyl to modern pop on CD and digital streaming. I never listen to mp3 or lossy formats. The schiit was unlistenable, and so is the headphone jack in my Onkyo. The ear fatigue is instantaneous, like driving rods into my ears.
 
I mean, to be incredibly specific, the fatiguing playback that made me realize the Schiit was unusable came from a CD played in my TEAC professional CD player/recorder, and put through the Onkyo pre-amp DAC to the headphone amp. What difference could this information make?
 
runnin' said:
Interesting. Your Headroom Little amp from 2002 would cost over 600 in 2020 dollars, but it sounds like you're not interested in spending that kind of equivalent money. And, quite frankly, you don't need to. I've had 2 of the recent Magni's and wouldn't call them fatiguing, but if you don't like the resulting sound with your gear, then that's the bottom line. At $99, the Magni offers good bang for buck, but can't hang with Schiit's Asgard or even Vali.

I will say that what you feed the headphone amp with is as important as the amp itself. Also the formats you own, etc. I would hesitate recommending anything for you until we know the rest of your equipment in the chain, formats and sound preferences you have. There's a lot of good stuff and crap out there.
Click to expand...

You need to consult a proper inflation calculator, which tells me that $300 from 2002 is equivalent to $435 today, which is a far cry from $600.
 
Well I stand corrected, I’d forgotten about the low inflation we’ve been enjoying, low these many years.

Thank you for being so specific about your setup. It sounds like you might be employing two volume controls, which is not ideal. Hopefully you’re not also employing two dacs(digital-analog and then redigitizing it again in your integrated, depending on the model), also not ideal. I had an Onkyo integrated, and it was quite bright sounding, I’m not surprised the head phone jack was unlistenable.

Other than that, I’m afraid I can be of little help, my experience in headphone amps is limited to Schiit Audio models, the Magni and the Vali.

Still, I wonder if a headphone amp with two analog and a digital input might be a good fit for you, allowing you to get the onkyo out of the chain?

I’m surprised you haven’t had more responses, I’m sure there are good options that tilt to the warm sounding variety. You might find more help reading Super best audio friends forum or Head Fi forum. They are nuts about headphones over there.
 
I really like my JDS o2, it sounds much cleaner than my headroom cosmo.

But I listed it for sale because I'm finally tired of its poor ergonomics with all connectors and controls up front. I've been researching budget replacements as well.

I've narrowed down my replacements to JDS Atom and Geshelli Archel2.
 
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