headphone amp for LCD-5

[jae]

If you want a beast amp to drive anything there is this

Ferrum OOR Analogue Headphone Amplifier

OOR, the only headphone amplifier with a soul OOR fully Balanced analogue headphone amplifier Proprietary discrete power amp technology Proprietary 4-pin Ferrum connector for HYPSOS Balanced 4-pin XLR and unbalanced RCA headphone outputs OOR will redefine the category of headphone amplifiers...

audio46.com

1.6 watts 300ohm, insane 8 watts 60ohm. God knows how much in 32ohm.

We beat this horse dead already!

In regards to those external PSUs, you are correct that many of them are snake oil. In some cases they will improve the power handling of the amp which could provide some situational performance with headphones that need to swing atypical amounts of voltage, but in many cases have trade offs. Most modern headphones simply just don't have these power requirements except for a few outliers. The Ferrum OOR and Hypsos you mentioned for example have been measured by goldensound (https://goldensound.audio/2021/10/27/ferrum-oor-and-hypsos-measurements/) and the sonic performance actually goes -down- when using the expensive external PSU in some cases like with low impedance headphones/iems.

 

[MalinYamato]

View attachment 194393
We beat this horse dead already!

LOL expspensive stuff

View attachment 194393
We beat this horse dead already!

LOL, funny, yea, those boxes cost alot and you may not give your wife that diamond ring... the existence of this USD 15 000 amp must indicate that heavier boxes with more expensive components matter ....

 

[tomchr]

This could be an option: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ansen-audio-hpa-1-headphone-amp-review.10416/

Not available in red, though.

Tom

 

[Jimbob54]

LOL expspensive stuff

LOL, funny, yea, those boxes cost alot and you may not give your wife that diamond ring... the existence of this USD 15 000 amp must indicate that heavier boxes with more expensive components matter ....
View attachment 194431

Matter to those folk that are convinced they do. Maybe not those that measure and attempt controlled listening tests.

 

[tomchr]

Pretty boxes sound better in sighted trials.
More expensive boxes sound better in sighted trials where the prices are known.
Heavier boxes are perceived to be of better quality (but only by males - it's one of the few consumer psych variables where there's a gender difference).

On the other hand, blind trials have pretty consistently shown that listeners prefer gear that measures well.

Ahhh... Humans... We don't live in a double-blind psychology experiment. Or maybe we do. Maybe the rats are running an experiment on US!!

Tom

 

[Vict0r]

An amplifier is not a hardware EQ. The best advice you've gotten so far is adjusting your LCD5 to taste with an equalizer.

 

[tomchr]

.... and EQ is easy these days with a plug-in for your media player. In the past I've used Reaper (https://www.reaper.fm) and ReaEQ.

That said, 14 Ω does require an amp with some stones to drive.

Tom

 

[MalinYamato]

This could be an option: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ansen-audio-hpa-1-headphone-amp-review.10416/

Not available in red, though.

Tom

probably very good but that box is for MALES. Burson seems to understand what we ladies WANT. I really loooove the look but it is both heavy and out of my budget -- def a look for other makers to copy. Give this one to year wife and forget about the diamond ring....Imaging this stacked with my litte red Tone Pro 2 DAC -- the same red tone as this one

 

[tomchr]

Yeah... I went the utilitarian route.

That Burson presents some seriously cool industrial design. I wonder if it has an inclinometer inside so the display auto-rotates to horizontal if you lay the amp down. It looks like the legend on the front panel is intended for a horizontal amp.

Tom

 

[MalinYamato]

Yeah... I went the utilitarian route.

That Burson presents some seriously cool industrial design. I wonder if it has an inclinometer inside so the display auto-rotates to horizontal if you lay the amp down. It looks like the legend on the front panel is intended for a horizontal amp.

Tom

I asked and yes, you may rotate the display to portrait or landscape mode.

 

[MalinYamato]

I am really tempted in getting the Soloist 3X GT to pair it with my REL sub for a great bass. What do you think? I got a deal where the supercharger V5 is included as a free upgrade. The level of the sub out is adjusted to suit the bass of the headphones and I guess that you won't get the same coordinated bass effekt if you plug the sub to something like the DAC with DACs with sub outs -- I am guessing here, perhaps dreaming!

 

[deafenears]

YULONG Aurora?

 

[MalinYamato]

I got a deal to buy ifi Pro iCAN Signature for USD 2200 including tax. It's a fun little box where you can crank up the Bass.
Some say it works great with LCD-5 and Susvaras and that they respond well to XBase and Holographic Xspace adjustments.
What do you think?

 

[RHO]

so, an apple dongle is an endgame for you? Does Amir use an apple dongle as his daily driver?

LOL -- everything more expensive than an apple dongle is snake oil --

Straw-man/lady arguments.
Nowhere on this site does anyone say that. Because in some situations the Apple dongle is sufficient and performs adequately for the suggested application does not mean it is absolutely SOTA in all applications.

But your assumption that expensive=better makes no sense either. In most cases the very expensive esoteric products perform objectively worse than more affordable decently designed and build products. <= previous sentence does NOT mean Apple dongle is perfect in all applications.

Thank you so much for your most valuable information based on the expertise and experience that I don't have, and I am now convinced to keep my Singxer SA-1. I am really thankful for your and you guys' efforts in explaining this stuff to me, a lady who does not know the gears but is prepared to invest in the best possible stuff to please my ears more.

I think you made a wise choice there. That Singxer is a great amp. Enjoy it.

 

[RHO]

I got a deal to buy ifi Pro iCAN Signature for USD 2200 including tax. It's a fun little box where you can crank up the Bass.
Some say it works great with LCD-5 and Susvaras and that they respond well to XBase and Holographic Xspace adjustments.
What do you think?

How can you say you are on a budget when on a whim going for >$1k headphone amps, while owning an amp that is perfectly up to the task? You are on a budget. A very generous one.

The tube section on the iFi is a distortion machine.

 

[MalinYamato]

Straw-man/lady arguments.
Nowhere on this site does anyone say that. Because in some situations the Apple dongle is sufficient and performs adequately for the suggested application does not mean it is absolutely SOTA in all applications.

But your assumption that expensive=better makes no sense either. In most cases the very expensive esoteric products perform objectively worse than more affordable decently designed and build products. <= previous sentence does NOT mean Apple dongle is perfect in all applications.

I think you made a wise choice there. That Singxer is a great amp. Enjoy it.

I am very very confused and exhausted in my search for better sound -- one camp is talking about USD 2k to 3k amps as the greatest, another about that chifi at USD 500 will do as well and some say that USD 200 and even 100 stuff are just as fine. then I watched a senior reviewer on the tube saying that an apple dongle is enough... You at ASR are the most reliable but there are tons of opinions out there stating things such as upgrading from a Soloist 3X to a Soloist 3X GT as a great step up in SQ... and so on and there it goes with no end. I need to sit down and listen to my stuff, the stuff I have, and enjoy, instead of searching for better stuff,,, listen to this: a guy on the net said that my Singxer SA-1 is just a toy in comparison to Headamp GSX mini after he replaced his Sing to his new much heavier and more expensive GSX mini --- my nerves cannot deal with such...LOL

 

[RHO]

I am very very confused and exhausted in my search for better sound -- one camp is talking about USD 2k to 3k amps as the greatest, another about that chifi at USD 500 will do as well and some say that USD 200 and even 100 stuff are just as fine. then I watched a senior reviewer on the tube saying that an apple dongle is enough... You at ASR are the most reliable but there are tons of opinions out there stating things such as upgrading from a Soloist 3X to a Soloist 3X GT as a great step up in SQ... and so on...there it goes with no end.

The one camp (>2k$) thinks their ears tell them what sounds best during sighted auditions (which is demonstrably wrong!). The other camp are the ones giving you good advice based in science and objective facts.
Many, if not all, of those vast improvements, reported by subjectivists, vanish completely when auditioned blind.
Don't let subjective stories and voodoo plunder your wallet.
If you don't like the sound of the LCD-5, apply EQ. It is free and works very well on the LCD-5. Or return the LCD-5 and get some headphones that you do like. They do NOT need to be multiple $k to be superb.

 

[MalinYamato]

The one camp (>2k$) thinks their ears tell them what sounds best (which is demonstrably wrong!). The other camp are the ones giving you good advice based in science and objective facts.
Don't let subjective stories and voodoo plunder your wallet.
If you don't like the sound of the LCD-5, apply EQ. It is free and works very well on the LCD-5. Or return the LCD-5 and get some headphones that you do like. They do NOT need to be multiple $k to be superb.

I love the sound of my LCD-5 with my Singer -- I renamed it to Singer because the vocals sound soo good ... good that you guys try to talk me out of all the hype that seem to go nowhere...

 

[MalinYamato]

How can you say you are on a budget when on a whim going for >$1k headphone amps, while owning an amp that is perfectly up to the task? You are on a budget. A very generous one.

The tube section on the iFi is a distortion machine.

yes, tubes are supposed to distort, and if they don't distort they are bad tubes. My budget for audio is big but not bottomless and I sacrifice lots of other things to please my ears. I live in a very small space on a boat in downtown Stockholm right now where there is no space for speakers so my solution is to move over to headphones. Besides, my stuff, my amps and speakers are stored in Tokyo to be restored when I am back. It's cheap to live on a boat and l live there because I cannot find a student room or apartment here in Stockholm. Entertainment during my student time is to sit down have wine and listen to music on this boat...a cabin on this boat is about 5 m2 where, as said, I sit with my headphones and amp and sometimes a bottle red when I am not studying crazily. FYI, the boat goes nowhere.

 

[RHO]

I love the sound of my LCD-5 with my Singer -- I renamed it to Singer because the vocals sound soo good ... good that you guys try to talk me out of all the hype that seem to go nowhere...

Well, if you really like the LCD-5 why change anything. An amp will not change anything for the better when you already have one that is transparent. It can only get worse.

yes, tubes are supposed to distort, and if they don't distort they are bad tubes.

Well, no. There are tube designs that do distort very little. They are not or hardly distinguishable from opamps/discrete transistors ...
Those tube designs that do audibly distort will sound worse. (objectively and AFAIK also subjectively)
So it's the bad tubes that distort.
Generally the noise floor on tube designs is also higher (meaning: the difference between the music signal and the noise is smaller and thus more audible)