headphone cue amps?

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theres a few different things out there. has anybody used anything under 200 bucks that works well? i dont need more than 4 or 5 outputs really. any suggestions? anything thats cheap but modifiable to become better?

perhaps i should just build it all myself? are there any decent designs that could run me under 50 bucks a channel?
 
Well, I hate to bring up this name, but B*****ringer makes one for under 200 (actually I think under 100)...I've used it and it's "OK". Like everything else "B"makes, it's nothing to write home about. Carvin makes one too and it's not too bad...better than "B" but a few more $$$....I know Raney makes one but it's quite a few bux...outta my price range.
Good Luck
TP
 
yeah, there are a whole bunch of really cheap ones like bnger, samson, art. im wondering if i can construct something myself that is significantly better for a cheap price, or if their methods of producing stuff for cheap will give me the same or better quality for the same price or less.
 
If you can find one of the older Behringer Headphone amps secondhand they are a real bargain... The older ones - which look nearly exactly the same as the new ones - have near head shattering output levels, the newer ones are slightly anaemic.

Justin.
 
Do you have a spare power amp?

I run a commercial version of what Kev has on his homepage:

http://www.celestial.com.au/7Erosswood/diy/headphonedist/headdist.htm

Regards

ju
 
You could do a bunch of "Gainclones" in a box. Do a google search, they're a chip based amplifier (50W I think) and are supposed to sound quite good. Also do a forum search, I remember some talk about them a while ago.

Justin.
 
i should also have mentioned that the power amp with distro box is not portable enough. i need something easy for location work.
 
Yep,

Stereo Gainclone in a box combined with Kevs resistive splitter/attenuator as posted by fum above.

You could make that nice and small because you'd be getting rid of all the extra bits and pieces- tone controls, input switching etc that makes a standard power amp too bulky.

Mark
 
what about the power supply? all the ganiclones that i was looking at for power amps had the big(and probably expensive) power transformers. what sort of thing would work well for this?

i really dont know anything about the math involved in this sort of stuff...

in the near future i will be only running low impedance phones off this (64ohm). what is involved inmaking sure that the output impedance will be acceptable for these phones?

ive been doing a bunch of searches for other stuff, but theres too much i dont know about(like output impedance). any help is really appreciated.
 
Why don´t you build something cheap and simple similar to the "CMOY" pocket amp as published on the "headwize.com" site? I´ve built a version of this with two paralleled opamps for L/R respectively. My pocket amp is powered by two nine volt batteries and can provide absolutely ear shattering levels both with my Sennheiser MD600 (300ohms) and my Sennheiser MD280 (64ohms) phones. Extremely high volume possible, with low distortion. Using a standard +15/15V power supply will increase volume capability further. (And reduce battery cost!)

My first attempt used old NE5532 with good results but the amp thumps on power-on due to high offset in the bipolar input. I have since changed the opamps to OPA2132 which have somewhat different sound (softer and nicer in my ears) and which have much less offset due to FET input devices. The OPA2132 is more expensive than old faithful NE5532, but still the cost for a complete headphone amp is very low.

The link:

http://headwize.com/projects/showfile.php?file=cmoy2_prj.htm


Klas
 
that sort of plan actually looks better. ill look more into a simple op amp distributor some more...
 
.

FWIW, mine is old Rain HC6 (from the bay, around $33 total).
Lucked out, it works great for a few years now. 6ch, low noise, plenty of gain for many phones (old 400ohm AKG240, older Pioneer 505, Sony7508, Sennheiser 280 580 etc.). 2 out jacks per channel, L/R in master plus separate in for each channel, master vol and 6x ch vol.
Never tried the Bear-injure, my preference is old-used rather than B.

DIY probably more fun than buying, but as mentioned in some other threads here, cost of project case/knobs/jacks could add up, if you don't strip old gear.
If not looking for ultra hi-fi, might be better to spend the DIY money/ time on more critical gear than this. You could get an 'as is' cheapy, then if it sucks, gut it and build in the case. Still cheaper than new Ber.
 

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