Dac to Headphone Amp?

[Jking]

    I recently got a Stax SRM 600 LE headphone amp.  I connected a Dac to it and I am not getting a whole lot of volume.  When I hooked up a cheap CD player I got decent volume.  This is my first go around with a headphone amp and assumed they were similar to a preamp.  

  Do people normally plug their Dacs directly in to Headphone amps?  

[WAM]

I have my Stax SRM-006tS directly plugged into my dac (Primare DAC30). The same with my MF MX-HPA and MX-DAC combi. Both setups sound great/work without problems.

[Nordkapp]

15 hours ago, Jking said:

  Do people normally plug their Dacs directly in to Headphone amps?  

Yes. What is your DAC? 

[Jking]

The Dac is a Twisted Pear Buffalo III Se - IvyIII analog section with Cronos reclocker - Hermes Isolator - to Beagle Bone Black running Linux based Botic software.  I did jumper it to be at full volume.

    My other thought was maybe the 007a are less efficient than the Lambdas the amp was designed to drive.  I did order some some new EEC99s and will see what I need to do to get them biased.

   

[Nordkapp]

Ideally your DACS output voltage be 5v single ended and a bit more balanced. I would check the specs on it. 

[buonassi]

On 9/8/2018 at 3:51 PM, Jking said:

Do people normally plug their Dacs directly in to Headphone amps?  

yes, if it sends voltage that meets the specs of the headamp input voltage. Most gear is about (but not exactly) 2 volts SE or 4 volts balanced.  All gear varies a bit, but those are the standards I've seen with most DACs.  

 

somehow, your DAC isn't putting out enough voltage, or doesn't meet the specs of your headamp (or in your case, energizer). 

[Nordkapp]

7 hours ago, buonassi said:

yes, if it sends voltage that meets the specs of the headamp input voltage. Most gear is about (but not exactly) 2 volts SE or 4 volts balanced.  All gear varies a bit, but those are the standards I've seen with most DACs.  

 

somehow, your DAC isn't putting out enough voltage, or doesn't meet the specs of your headamp (or in your case, energizer). 

Correct. I was thinking of the USB standard. Apologies.

[Jking]

Thanks, it output is only 1.2 volts balanced.

[Nordkapp]

That's the problem....

[Jking]

Replaced the Ivy III line stage with the newer Mercury.  That did the trick.  Sounds good.