I could be an audiophile.
These are my new headphone amplifiers. A month ago I did not even know why would one use a headphone amp and now I own two of those and can even head the difference in how they sound. But from the beginning.
A month ago my Bose headphones physically broke and couldn’t be taped up anymore. I decided to replace them with something better – Sennheiser’s audiophile model HD-595. I ordered them but a friend at work mentioned that he got nice professional reference headphones beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 80Ohm. I listened to them and was shocked how much more detail I could hear. Once my Sennheiser showed up I compared both and immediately ordered a pair of beyerdynamics. HD-595 are great headphones but DT 770 has more to offer in the lower and mid range of frequencies. Sennheisers are also open, so using them at work would mean that all my co-workers have to listen my music with me.
I am very happy with the headphones and listened to all my favorite songs always finding new sounds I’ve never heard before. I also started reading audiophile blogs and found out that all bigger headphones sound better with an amplifier. I was skeptical. I never believed audiophile BS and still think that gold speaker cable filled with some gas will not bring any improvement to the reception – but I can’t tell until I have a chance to compare that.
I read about headphone amplifiers and decided to get one. I was about to order once from Practical Devices until I read I could easily build one. Since I have the background to build stuff I decided to go that route and put together a CMoy amp. I built one according to schematics from Tangentsoft website with some modifications in the power supply circuit. The photo above shows my amp on the left side. Nice, huh?
I also remembered that vacuum tubes make great amplifiers with low noise and sweet sound so I started researching. Boy, those are expensive. But I found this guy on ebay who sells cheap vacuum headphone amps. I researched it here and immediately got it (right on the photo above). It came after two weeks (shipped from Hong Kong). I used it for a week before my CMoy was completed. I have to say that there is a difference between listening with and without the amplifier. The music sounds full.
Once I finished putting CMoy together I started comparing both amps side by side. Bravo seems better after 15 minutes. CMoy sounds flatter. I tested both with my wife and she picked CMoy on one song and Bravo on another. I will have to give both amplifiers many days of testing. My idea is to listen to my favorites pieces for a week on each amp to get used to each sound. I hope to hear the difference when I switch from one to another.
I enjoyed building the CMoy and I will be building a better one soon: PIMETA2 or PPA. I also found out that my ears are capable of hearing the differences between headphones, and even amplifiers.