Please help! (you guys have been fantastic before, so ... )

[Mad Bill]

My problem: I'm using the headphone jack on my Yamaha R-N2000A receiver to drive a HifiMan Arya Unveiled. The sound is good and it seems to drive them fine -- at first. But the longer I listen, the brighter the sound gets. Seriously bright. This happens every time. I suppose I need a better headphone amplifier? But there's a second problem. I thought I would use the receiver's pre-amp out into a headphone amp so that I could use the Yamaha's tone controls, but it turns out the pre-out bypasses the tone controls. I LIKE tone controls and use them a lot -- I listen to a lot of less than perfect "historical" recordings, and I use them for other reasons too. My DAC has DSP, but I don't want to reset the EQ for each different recording when tone controls are so easy and useful. WHY are tone controls so unpopular (not my main question, which is below)?

Question: If I want traditional (bass, treble) tone controls with a good headphone amplifier, what the hell do I do?

Thank you so much. --Mad Bill

 

[amirm]

Unfortunately the headphone out on these amps/receivers is typically implemented by putting in a series resistor on the output of the amplifier. This causes the frequency response of the headphone to change, assuming it is variable (most are, other than planar magnetic ones). So you need an external amp but I have not seen one that has tone controls. You can put another pre-amp that has such in between: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/fosi-audio-p4-preamplifier-review.61467/

I would first try it without the preamp to see if you find it mostly acceptable.

 

[raindance]

I recommend trying the Syba Sonic headphone amp with 3 band tone control and loudness compensation. It's on Amazon for about $62.

 

[Keith_W]

Unfortunately the headphone out on these amps/receivers is typically implemented by putting in a series resistor on the output of the amplifier. This causes the frequency response of the headphone to change, assuming it is variable (most are, other than planar magnetic ones).

He said that the sound gets brighter over time. What is happening? Does the resistor heat up and change its value?

 

[amirm]

He said that the sound gets brighter over time. What is happening? Does the resistor heat up and change its value?

No. I ignored that aspect.

 

[pinger]

Maybe the interconnect cables havent been burned in sufficiently ?

 

[ZolaIII]

@Mad Bill how bright? Is it a increase in magnitude ringing? Either you try to find such preamp (and additional amp if need be) or you emulate it with PEQ self filters (as that's all they really are) or some other way (good vintage gear with such properly made VTS plugin on a PC). Example of cheap such preamp:

Audiophonics PRE-TC10 preamp with tone controls - review and measurements

I have decided to buy and measure this preamplifier with tone controls, supplied by Audiophonics. It can be ordered here: https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/preamplifier-and-volume-control/audiophonics-pre-tc10-preamplifier-with-tone-control-2x-aop-lm49720na-p-12752.html and it costs 49.92 EUR...

www.audiosciencereview.com

All do performance is only at good enough level it will still be a huge step forward from quasy headphone out on power amplifier.

 

[Vini darko]

Took a look at the measurments for that headphone. Seems to have a bit of wide peak centered around 15khz. That could be fatiguing over time aka increasing brightness. If you can , chuck a PEQ peak filter in there at 15khz -2.5db Q1.5 (guesstimate). See if that helps.

 

[Roland68]

My problem: I'm using the headphone jack on my Yamaha R-N2000A receiver to drive a HifiMan Arya Unveiled. The sound is good and it seems to drive them fine -- at first. But the longer I listen, the brighter the sound gets. Seriously bright. This happens every time. I suppose I need a better headphone amplifier? But there's a second problem. I thought I would use the receiver's pre-amp out into a headphone amp so that I could use the Yamaha's tone controls, but it turns out the pre-out bypasses the tone controls. I LIKE tone controls and use them a lot -- I listen to a lot of less than perfect "historical" recordings, and I use them for other reasons too. My DAC has DSP, but I don't want to reset the EQ for each different recording when tone controls are so easy and useful. WHY are tone controls so unpopular (not my main question, which is below)?

Question: If I want traditional (bass, treble) tone controls with a good headphone amplifier, what the hell do I do?

Thank you so much. --Mad Bill

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