Quote from: pp312 on March 09, 2013, 09:04:22 AM

Quote from: purrin on February 06, 2013, 05:01:03 AM

Modern integrated amps take the internal pre-amp output and throw it to an op-amp for the headout.

I'd dispute that. It's come up before in other forums and one member even went to the trouble of emailing various manufacturers, who for the most part replied that their headphone jacks were connected to the power amp through resistors. I currently have two integrateds, a NAD C326BEE and Cambridge C340A which both use that approach.

My bad. Although I'm not sure multiple gain stages (for speakers) and a 68ohm output z at the headphone jack (e.g. the NAD) is anywhere near ideal.

In theory. In practise it often sounds way beyond what theory suggests. In fact there's virtually no way to predict the synergy or otherwise of various phones and amps. I just did an A/B/C of three amps with my DT880 Pro: the 326BEE, Cambridge 340 and a Marantz SR4200 HT receiver. Weirdly, the SR4200 won. Sweeter, less harsh on the highs, just a friendlier sound with no loss of detail. Would never have predicted it from theory as the 4200 has way more electronics to go through. Strange hobby.

I have a Marantz 4xxx series AVR as well & it indeed made the DT880/600 tolerable by rolling off the highs. But I won't agree that there is no loss of detail since I thought that it sounded considerably more congested than my headphone amps.

You'll love it if you like adding a little color to your rig.  IMHO, most of these old amps are not completely transparent, by any means.  That said, I love the sound of my SX-950 (Full recap of course Anal!)... but that's just it, it does have a "sound".  And all that headroom does have a magical effect! 

If you're after a highly resolving and neutral rig I don't think this is the route to head down.

depends what amp. there were a lot of transparent amps back then. yamaha and select few of harman kardon japanese made stuff were known to be pretty darn accurate(harman kardons were known for their very low negative feedback designs). pioneer had select few of power amps and sansui as well. lot of them weren't considered monsters though but had tons of reserves for 2ohm nominal loads.

I still think driving headphones from speaker outputs is idea. Very low output imped, endless damping factor/power, very low distortion/clarity.

Power amps can easily deliver low level detail extraction and endless dynamics and transients if needed but of course if it was well developed amp in the first place. Noise is not an issue at all with most full sized headphones unless they have very high sensitivity.  Even then, some power amps have independent left and right input level gain so you can lower the noise floor even more if you need to.

To be honest it probably be much cheaper route too most of the time if you have simple diy skills. I mean show me where I can I get a real dual-mono toriodal transformers, high current outputs, low nfb(negative feedback) design for under 60 bucks? Probably won't find it. So it all depends really what you want, what you have, what you're looking for but, to be honest I do still find it a waste if you're just gonna use a very nice power amp to drive headphones. The amp is gonna never be used to even fraction of it's given power so it'll just be a very heavy, power sucking, heater(due to dissipation of unused current).

I use power amps as choice cause I have them around for driving low impedance speakers that can easily handle 2ohm nominal loads all day cause I tend to gravitate to speakers that end up having low impedance curve or something (don't know why). But, yea. I see nothing wrong using power amps at your disposal if only best option.