Post by strindl on Aug 5, 2019 15:29:29 GMT -5
I haven't done much headphone listening in the last ten years or so, but have started to get back into it. I do have some portable headphones that I use for my iphone and ipad, but for use at home in a high end audio system, the portability factor is not a trait that I need.
I recently set up a dedicated addition to my main system listed below in my signature, especially for headphones. It involved an smsl SU-8 remote control DAC, along with an smsl SH-8 remote control headphone amp. My signal source is the digital output of a Lexicon Squeezebox Touch into the digital in of the the su-8 DAC, with the xlr balanced output going to the sh-8 headphone amp. That allows me to have as direct of a signal as possible to a use headphones. Most of the headphones I've tried plug in directly to the quarter inch plug on the headphone amp. Since the headphone amp has a remote control to use for volume, and the dac has a remote control to switch between 10 different equalization curves available on the dac, that is all the equipment I need to listen to music or any streaming source with headphones.
I do have one electrostatic headphone, a Stax srx mark III, along with it's srd-7 energizer. I bought them in 1979, yes they are 40 years old. They still work perfectly and look like new. They don't plug into a normal headphone plug, the srd 7 energizer needs to be plugged into an AC outlet, and hooked to the speaker terminals of a power amplifier. The earspeakers plug into the energizer.
The home use headphones I have now, besides the Stax, are Koss Pro4AA, and the Massdrop version of the Sennheiser hd-650.
I recently set up a dedicated addition to my main system listed below in my signature, especially for headphones. It involved an smsl SU-8 remote control DAC, along with an smsl SH-8 remote control headphone amp. My signal source is the digital output of a Lexicon Squeezebox Touch into the digital in of the the su-8 DAC, with the xlr balanced output going to the sh-8 headphone amp. That allows me to have as direct of a signal as possible to a use headphones. Most of the headphones I've tried plug in directly to the quarter inch plug on the headphone amp. Since the headphone amp has a remote control to use for volume, and the dac has a remote control to switch between 10 different equalization curves available on the dac, that is all the equipment I need to listen to music or any streaming source with headphones.
I do have one electrostatic headphone, a Stax srx mark III, along with it's srd-7 energizer. I bought them in 1979, yes they are 40 years old. They still work perfectly and look like new. They don't plug into a normal headphone plug, the srd 7 energizer needs to be plugged into an AC outlet, and hooked to the speaker terminals of a power amplifier. The earspeakers plug into the energizer.
The home use headphones I have now, besides the Stax, are Koss Pro4AA, and the Massdrop version of the Sennheiser hd-650.