Forums - Headphones

Matchstikman Seasoned Member Posts: 759	Headphones 01/11/17 at 16:24:09 So, I'm in the office, on a break, listening to JAZZRADIO and all I've got are these generic headphones. Help me out. What can I do to improve my music time at work? Headphones? Etc.?
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Jeff of Arabica

Seasoned Member

Name the greatest of
all inventors...
Accident.

Posts: 968

Re: Headphones
Reply #1 - 01/12/17 at 06:31:42

Onkyo DP-X1 DAP and a pair of ZMF Ori's. Or your DAP of choice (whether a dedicated player, smartphone, etc.) going into a ZenHead and out to your ZMF's. Or if you want something more portable on the headphone side, some CIEM's could be a nice alternative. I love my Unique Melody Miracles.

I have auditioned many other headphones and a few amps/players if you had a certain price in mind....

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Canary Audio Grand Reference Monos//ZMA//Zen Ultra//Taboo MKIII//Waversa DAC3//ModWright Oppo UDP-205// PS Audio P20//Canary Audio MC-10//Van den Hul Colibri "Stradivarius"//FFYX T1803 TT//SonoruS Reel-to-Reel & tube playback preamp//Tannoy Westminster Speakers

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mark58 Seasoned Member Posts: 5647	Re: Headphones Reply #2 - 01/12/17 at 17:03:47 For Headphone listening, that I rarely do now, I use a Taboo III amp and a pair of Audeze LCD 2.2 with Toxic Cables, White Widows balanced cables. I also have the Sennheiser HD 800 but wouldn't recommend them. They are too bright for my tastes. There are mods that attenuate this trait though I haven't done them. Mark.
Back to top	"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with the concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, deceptions, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Hell. Let no such man be trusted." William Shakespeare IP Logged

Jeff of Arabica Seasoned Member Name the greatest of all inventors... Accident. Posts: 968	Re: Headphones Reply #3 - 01/12/17 at 17:18:49 +1 on the Taboo. I've had mine over a year now and love it! ...if you have space on your desk
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4krow Seasoned Member IMAGINE WHIRLLED PEAS Posts: 1607	Re: Headphones Reply #4 - 06/11/17 at 00:22:02 I have a chance to use the Rachael amp with the ORI cans. Gotta brace myself here. Made a voltage divider box to compensate for the amps output.
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Steve Deckert Administrator If the 1st watt sucks why continue? Posts: 6246	Re: Headphones Reply #5 - 06/11/17 at 05:47:23 We just run a series resistor with the headphones. If you want to divide the voltage we do it externally on the speaker binding posts by placing resistors across them. Anxious to hear about your results. A guest last week choose the SE34I.5 with headphone jack over the Taboo while using the ZMF dynamic headphones. (300 ohm)
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4krow

Seasoned Member

IMAGINE WHIRLLED
PEAS

Posts: 1607

Re: Headphones
Reply #6 - 06/12/17 at 15:55:51

I don't have a photo of the voltage divider that I built. It does work very well, and I have used both sets of my planar headphones with it. The voltage divider has a 33 ohm resistor in series with the output of the amp, and a 10 ohm resistor After the 33 ohm resistor that goes to ground. The outcome is that I can use almost all of the volume controls (I have mono controls) so that is exactly what I wanted from this arrangement. The ZMF ORI headphones are 50 ohm IIRC, and seem to be quite happy having power that they want at hand. Interestingly, in this arrangement, they sound a little more laid back than usual, but the other planar set (Hi-Fi Man HE400S, 22ohm) sounds a bit forward compared to how it sounds on other amps. I am thinking that this may have something to do with the resistor values chosen.

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Decware 34I.3 integrated amp/Forte' 3 bass amp/Velodyne SMS-1 bass mngmnt system/Decware ZOB speakers/Audio Nirvana 8" bass drivers/Xiang Seng DAC/ LR Audio Computer/Rega Apollo R CDP/Emotiva ERC3 CDP/BPT 3.0 power cond.

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Steve Deckert

Administrator

If the 1st watt
sucks why continue?

Posts: 6246

Re: Headphones
Reply #7 - 06/14/17 at 04:58:27

Indeed, one of the untold secrets of these amplifiers is the ability to tune the amplifier for a specific headphone by varying the resistor load across the speaker terminals. BTW, on all Decware Amplifiers that have a headphone jack, none of them have a grounded output stage where the negative speaker jack is connected directly to ground. So we just buy a bunch of different values of 5 watt ceramic resistors, between 4 ohm and say 1000 ohms in an exponential increment off 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1K. Then just install and remove them from the binding posts while you listen to find the best value for a given phone.

We usually use around 150 ohms or higher for the series resistor with the positive headphone terminal, which we wire internally to the headphone jack.

Steve

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4krow Seasoned Member IMAGINE WHIRLLED PEAS Posts: 1607	Re: Headphones Reply #8 - 06/14/17 at 21:13:54 AHA! Sooo, I own one of the best headphone amps available already! Heh, heh, chances are folks, that after some experimentation, the hidden resistor values will be discovered for the headphones that I now own(ZMF ORI), and then, yes, there will be sale of the other contender headphone amps. Yup, it sounded as though I were onto something.
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Rcrfq Verified Member Posts: 4	Re: Headphones Reply #9 - 07/05/17 at 19:39:35 Sure, you can use headphone on the working place!
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