Headphone Amp for Sennheiser HD800

[jabbr]

I recently got a Sennheiser HD800, and am now hesitating between these thwo options that would be easily available locally as headphone amp.

 

...

Any recommendations?

 

I have a Bottlehead Crack + Speedball. Can't recommend more highly. I've upgraded volume pot, caps etc. In any case it does well with the Senns.

[musicresearch]

The SPL has to be one of the best looking pieces of equipment around.

[rodrigaj]

I think you will quickly get 283 posts again.

 

I wonder if someone here could cite some specifications that you need to look for for the HD800. For example, they are 600 ohms, but does that mean you need a high voltage?

 

That would make a discussion like this more meaningful.

[Kelly]

The HD800 is difficult to pair. The absolute best I have ever heard the HD800 was through a Cavalli Liquid Glass. That is a damn incredible amp, as it should be for over $3k. I like it a lot through my Red Wine Audio Cassabria, but that brand is sadly discontinued.

[Jabs1542]

I tried the HD 800 with my Benchmark DAC2 as well as with my Little Dot Mk III headphone amp/preamp (<300 USD) and MUCH preferred the sound with the Little Dot (with Raytheon driver tubes) No VU meters, though, but you get to look at tubes ;-).

 

Ultimately, I returned the HD 800, but I may go back to them at some point in the future.

 

Regards,

 

Guido F.

 

I agree. I used my Lynx Hilo for a while but went back to the Little Dot (mine is a Mk II), I think the HD800's paired better with the tubes.

[ALRAINBOW]

This thread is funny. The hd800 are not hard to drive . But they are very transparent. So what ever you give you get. This is everything from source on down. You want for the most part a neutral amp. I owna hdvd800. As an amp it's very good with them.

But many Amps are fine. Forget the phonitor inown one and heard the 2 . It's flat not worth the listen unless ypu like that soind or the Imaging control .

Warm amps are fine for those who do not have a good dac. Remember transparent like no other except a stax 009 . The hdvd600 can drive many headphones fine . But not a he6 type this is just thin sounding with them.

Hope this helps .

Al

[Musicophile]

This thread is funny. The hd800 are not hard to drive . But they are very transparent. So what ever you give you get. This is everything from source on down. You want for the most part a neutral amp. I owna hdvd800. As an amp it's very good with them.

But many Amps are fine. Forget the phonitor inown one and heard the 2 . It's flat not worth the listen unless ypu like that soind or the Imaging control .

Warm amps are fine for those who do not have a good dac. Remember transparent like no other except a stax 009 . The hdvd600 can drive many headphones fine . But not a he6 type this is just thin sounding with them.

Hope this helps .

Al

 

Thanks, that helps a lot. I've read the idea that tubes are recommended many times now, unfortunately where I live not many are physically available. The only one I've found is the Pathos Aurium. Unfortunately only available at a place 200 miles away and which doesn't feature any of the other brands.

[alice]

No no no the headphone out on the integrated. Some integrated amps like my Marants 2230, the Leben Cs300x and others take the speaker out put and run it through a resistor to the headphones.

 

 

That is not true, atleast for Leben the headphone output is drawn directly from the transformer - that's the whole point why they sound so good.

And yes I do use my HD800 with the Leben, can confidently say I haven't heard HD800 sound any better.

[cgiammona]

I have been using them with my Decware Taboo MKIII and they pair nicely

 

[AudioDoctor]

That is not true, atleast for Leben the headphone output is drawn directly from the transformer - that's the whole point why they sound so good.

And yes I do use my HD800 with the Leben, can confidently say I haven't heard HD800 sound any better.

 

Oh really? Now that is news to me, nice. I demoed the leben and really liked it.

[burnspbesq]

I agree. I used my Lynx Hilo for a while but went back to the Little Dot (mine is a Mk II), I think the HD800's paired better with the tubes.

 

I had a Schiit Vali parked on top of my Hilo for a while. Drives the 800 beautifully. Looks funny. I have the front of my Hilo elevated for better access to the touchscreen, and the Vali liked to surf down to the back of the Hilo, which was a bit of a nuisance.

[Musicophile]

I had a Schiit Vali parked on top of my Hilo for a while. Drives the 800 beautifully. Looks funny. I have the front of my Hilo elevated for better access to the touchscreen, and the Vali liked to surf down to the back of the Hilo, which was a bit of a nuisance.

 

Unfortunately Shiit is hard to find in Europe. And shipping from US would double the price of the Vali. That said, it would still only be 20% of an HDVA600...

[Musicophile]

I have been using them with my Decware Taboo MKIII and they pair nicely

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17630[/ATTACH]

 

There are so many nice looking tube amps out there. A pity they are so hard to come by in Europe.

[ALRAINBOW]

That's a pitty I'd did not know this about Europe.

If you seek the most details from the headphones get the hdvd600.

Tubes do add some magic and they can help tailor the sound for you.

One last thought stay away from modding the headphones. As the mods do work they take way air from around the music. Making it less dementional.

You might try to find fhe senn amp used

Also a very good tube amp is the woo wa22.

But it must be driven bal not SE

and tube upgrades.

[Musicophile]

That's a pitty I'd did not know this about Europe.

If you seek the most details from the headphones get the hdvd600.

Tubes do add some magic and they can help tailor the sound for you.

One last thought stay away from modding the headphones. As the mods do work they take way air from around the music. Making it less dementional.

You might try to find fhe senn amp used

Also a very good tube amp is the woo wa22.

But it must be driven bal not SE

and tube upgrades.

 

Yes, Woo gets mentioned a lot also on headfi. But when you check out their distributors, again, nothing in Europe. And I'm not daring enough to order one blindly.

 

I probably should be starting a side business importing tube amps into Europe, looks like there is some money to be made.

 

I'll audition the Sennheiser next Tuesday, will report back.

[ALRAINBOW]

Europe has the best charge and this makes it get expensive so hard to find buyers.

I owned a few woo Amps including that one.

Try to find one used but tube rolling is expensive but very worth while. Buying used saves you big bucks and vat if the other party is willing to help.

Of not get a SS amp. What dac do you use ?

[Musicophile]

Europe has the best charge and this makes it get expensive so hard to find buyers.

I owned a few woo Amps including that one.

Try to find one used but tube rolling is expensive but very worth while. Buying used saves you big bucks and vat if the other party is willing to help.

Of not get a SS amp. What dac do you use ?

 

I'll be using my Exposure DAC which also feeds my main system.

[One and a half]

This thread is funny. The hd800 are not hard to drive . But they are very transparent. So what ever you give you get. This is everything from source on down. You want for the most part a neutral amp. I owna hdvd800. As an amp it's very good with them.

But many Amps are fine. Forget the phonitor inown one and heard the 2 . It's flat not worth the listen unless ypu like that soind or the Imaging control .

Warm amps are fine for those who do not have a good dac. Remember transparent like no other except a stax 009 . The hdvd600 can drive many headphones fine . But not a he6 type this is just thin sounding with them.

Hope this helps .

Al

 

Going to have to disagree with you, the Phonitor 2 is not flat (implying boring), the crossfeed system using analog devices and not DSP can create a true space that mimics real speaker positioning. There's no colouration at all, if you prefer the harmonics of tubes, go right ahead, or adjust the EQ to suit. If you feed crap to the Phonitor 2 that's what you receive in your ear. The SPL can drive any HP, it was designed to overcome the limitations of the original Phonitor, and it did with another decimal less of distortion.

[One and a half]

There are so many nice looking tube amps out there. A pity they are so hard to come by in Europe.

 

Makes you wonder why the tube HP amps are not so plentiful in Europe, ROHS maybe, physical space, inefficiency causing compliance issues? The deterioration with tubes starts the moment they are powered on, I don't know why people bother with them tbh.

[Musicophile]

Makes you wonder why the tube HP amps are not so plentiful in Europe, ROHS maybe, physical space, inefficiency causing compliance issues? The deterioration with tubes starts the moment they are powered on, I don't know why people bother with them tbh.

My assumption is that it is just the fragmentation of 28+ markets, each with their own VAT rules. If you're a US or Asia based manufacturer (and this is where most of the tube guys originate), you'll obviously be covering the US; but Europe is just more complicated to handle. You usually don't have pan-European distributors, you'll need to get one for each country.

[mkrzych]

What about Metrum Aurix: 6moons audio reviews: Metrum Audio Aurix

[Musicophile]

So, patience is not one of my virtues, so I ended up going to a local shop that features a relatively wide range of (all solid state) headphone amps.

 

I ended up listening to: Lehmann Black Cube Linear, Burson Soloist, Sennheiser HDVD800, and Auralic Taurus.

 

I actually went there with the pretty clear idea of getting either the Soloist or the Soloist SL after reading great reviews like this one:

 

6moons audio reviews: Burson Audio Soloist

 

and I just love the entire concept of all discrete components, the stepped volume control, etc. etc. Would have been the perfect fit to my Exposure 3010S2 amp, which has a very similar concept.

 

As you can see from the conditional, I didn't end up buying the Burson.

 

After 5 min A/B between Burson and Sennheiser, it became very clear I like the Sennheiser much more. The Burson was very organic, but just lacked the perfect clarity and transparence of the Sennheiser. The two Sennheisers were just synergistic in reinforcing the already great strenghts of the HD800. If you don't like the HD800 sound, you'll like it even less with the Sennheiser amp (one French review by Qobuz described the combination of HD800 and HDVA800 as "soulless").

 

After that, I compared the Senn to the Auralic. Both have rather similar qualities, but to my ears the Sennheiser was slightly better and the Auralic was significantly more expensive at this dealer, so there wasn't a lot of incentive to go for the Chinese product.

 

Finally, out of curiosity I asked the dealer to connect the Lehmann (the dealer had already said that he didn't think it was on par with the others, although being in a similar price range). Unfortunately, he turned out to be right, the Linear lacked any form of sparkle that all the three others had plenty of.

 

So I just walked out of the store with a new HDVA600 (plus an Audioquest Golden Gate to connect to my tape out of the Exposure amp).

 

I really look forward when I get home to see how it sounds with my Exposure DAC (the dealer was driving the Sennheiser with an Auralic Aries/NAD M20 combo playing Qobuz lossless streaming).

 

Overall, I was really surprised how relatively big the differences were between the different amps. You always think delivering a couple of milli watts shouldn't be so much of an issue, apparently it's harder than you think.

 

Thanks to everybody for your great input here!

 

P.S. the dealer also had Audez'e on display, so out of curiosity I tried an LCD3 for the first time. I had previously discarded the LCD2 in my headphone search for being too heavy and uncomfortable, however, the LCD3 with the leather pads is significantly more comfortable. And sound-wise I was really impressed. I only spent 5 min on it, but there is no denying this is a really impressive pair of cans.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Very exciting!

[mkrzych]

So, patience is not one of my virtues, so I ended up going to a local shop that features a relatively wide range of (all solid state) headphone amps.

 

I ended up listening to: Lehmann Black Cube Linear, Burson Soloist, Sennheiser HDVD800, and Auralic Taurus.

 

I actually went there with the pretty clear idea of getting either the Soloist or the Soloist SL after reading great reviews like this one:

 

6moons audio reviews: Burson Audio Soloist

 

and I just love the entire concept of all discrete components, the stepped volume control, etc. etc. Would have been the perfect fit to my Exposure 3010S2 amp, which has a very similar concept.

 

As you can see from the conditional, I didn't end up buying the Burson.

 

After 5 min A/B between Burson and Sennheiser, it became very clear I like the Sennheiser much more. The Burson was very organic, but just lacked the perfect clarity and transparence of the Sennheiser. The two Sennheisers were just synergistic in reinforcing the already great strenghts of the HD800. If you don't like the HD800 sound, you'll like it even less with the Sennheiser amp (one French review by Qobuz described the combination of HD800 and HDVA800 as "soulless").

 

After that, I compared the Senn to the Auralic. Both have rather similar qualities, but to my ears the Sennheiser was slightly better and the Auralic was significantly more expensive at this dealer, so there wasn't a lot of incentive to go for the Chinese product.

 

Finally, out of curiosity I asked the dealer to connect the Lehmann (the dealer had already said that he didn't think it was on par with the others, although being in a similar price range). Unfortunately, he turned out to be right, the Linear lacked any form of sparkle that all the three others had plenty of.

 

So I just walked out of the store with a new HDVA600 (plus an Audioquest Golden Gate to connect to my tape out of the Exposure amp).

 

I really look forward when I get home to see how it sounds with my Exposure DAC (the dealer was driving the Sennheiser with an Auralic Aries/NAD M20 combo playing Qobuz lossless streaming).

 

Overall, I was really surprised how relatively big the differences were between the different amps. You always think delivering a couple of milli watts shouldn't be so much of an issue, apparently it's harder than you think.

 

Thanks to everybody for your great input here!

 

P.S. the dealer also had Audez'e on display, so out of curiosity I tried an LCD3 for the first time. I had previously discarded the LCD2 in my headphone search for being too heavy and uncomfortable, however, the LCD3 with the leather pads is significantly more comfortable. And sound-wise I was really impressed. I only spent 5 min on it, but there is no denying this is a really impressive pair of cans.

 

Congratulations and enjoy! Keep up posting us what do you think with the pair when burnt-in.

[Musicophile]

Congratulations and enjoy! Keep up posting us what do you think with the pair when burnt-in.

Right now right out of the box the sound is amazing. Didn't know my Exposure Dac could be that good.