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Showing 1 of 348 conversations about:
Little Dot MKIII & MKIII SE Tube Headphone Amps
bilditup1
80
Jul 5, 2013
As a practical matter, anybody want to sort out the difference between a good headphone amp and a great one - assuming the headphone in question need be amped at all?
mathnerd
28
Jul 5, 2013
bilditup1@bilditup1 Audio is very subjective. You might prefer the sound of a $99 amp to something that costs 5x as much, especially since headphones have different sound signatures. So that's a tough question.
Some people say that an ideal amp should be completely transparent. The amp's job is to amplify the signal and shouldn't color it in any way, or introduce distortion or other kinds of noise. However, people like tube amps because they sound "warmer" and generally distort in a way that sounds good to many people.
Depending on your budget, a $200 tube amp is a pretty decent price to get your feet wet with the tube amp sound. I bought a Rolls HA540 for $300, but I ended up selling it because I preferred the sound through my DT770s straight from my DAC. I have HD650s now and a lot of people think tubes complement the sound signature of those, so I might just jump in on this to check it out.
bilditup1
80
Jul 5, 2013
mathnerd@mathnerd: Ha, I supposed that the answer would come to 'ya just have to try it'; the issue is I wanna try everything :) So lemme try to ask a more specific question. My go to 'phones are HD598s, and surprisingly enough even though they are easy to drive, they have benefited from the Aune T1 I just got (perhaps because of the tube preamp section more than the amp?). But, later today I should finally be receiving the DT990 600ohm I ordered from that drop over a month ago, and that could well replace them. Hmph. Decisions, decisions...I suppose I've done enough audio experimenting for now and need to go back to counting pennies, but lessee. I still have a week to decide...any case, thanks for replying!
A community member
Mar 8, 2018
bilditup1@bilditup1 Is Little Dot good with DT990? Thanks
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