Looking for new headphone amp

[DW...]

Good morning all

My name is Drew Hardy am from Nottingham.

Been into music my hole life.
my system is on the slightly older side but will be updating in the next year or two.Just wondering if anyone on hear will be going to the wigwam show in march?

Just taking delivery of some HD800 and was hoping for some good advice on a head phone amp.

[DaveK]

Good morning all

My name is Drew Hardy am from Nottingham.

Been into music my whole life.
Just taking delivery of some HD800 and was hoping for some good advice on a head phone amp.

Drew,
I can personally recommend the HA10 from here: -

http://www.custom-hifi-cables.co.uk/home/hifi-components/ha10-se-headphone-amplifier

If the SE is 'too rich for your blood' try the more basic model. Nice guy to deal with too.
Dave.

[daytona600]

HD800 do need some driving and a good front end to get the best out of them
if you have £600 i drive mine with a graham slee Solo Ultra-Linear Diamond Edition

[Thing Fish]

I have been very pleased with my Neco soundlab headphone amp, I have used it for over a year now and it never fails to please. -

http://www.necosoundlab.com/portable_V3/

[Rare Bird]

Drew:
Since you have an all Digtal system why not Beresford 'Bushmaster DAC as an headphone unit!

[DW...]

Drew:
Since you have an all Digtal system why not Beresford 'Bushmaster DAC as an headphone unit!



grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

Not got good reviews

[Rare Bird]

:lol:

Doubt that

[synsei]

grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

Not got good reviews

:lol: Well that doesn't describe the DAC I am listening to. Wait, what could it be? Oh Yeah, it's a Bushmaster. If I were you Drew I would take a listen to a BM before you comment any further, there's a good man ;)

[DW...]

:lol: Well that doesn't describe the DAC I am listening to. Wait, what could it be? Oh Yeah, it's a Bushmaster. If I were you Drew I would take a listen to a BM before you comment any further, there's a good man ;)

http://www.homehifi.co.uk/products/TC-7530DC.html

[synsei]

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18278

[Rare Bird]

http://www.homehifi.co.uk/products/TC-7530DC.html

Way i read that review is those problem you outlined are what the design is overcoming not suffering from!

[The Grand Wazoo]

I second that, Andre!
So is it just us two then?

The Bushmaster was designed to overcome a number of technical challenges that DAC designers have been faced with for years, but without coming to a satisfactory or affordable solution. Some of those problems have been:

grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

[synsei]

The Bushmaster was designed to overcome a number of technical challenges that DAC designers have been faced with for years, but without coming to a satisfactory or affordable solution. Some of those problems have been:

grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

The bit in bold kinda explains it I feel... :D

[Alex_UK]

That would be a quite spectacular own-goal for Stan, I have to say, if he was "dissing" his own product... :lol: As it is Drew, does Nottingham have a branch of Specsavers? ;)

[The Grand Wazoo]

Did you not notice that the 'review' is on Beresford's own website?

[synsei]

:lol: We must have posted at the same time Chris ;)


I second that, Andre!
So is it just us two then?

The Bushmaster was designed to overcome a number of technical challenges that DAC designers have been faced with for years, but without coming to a satisfactory or affordable solution. Some of those problems have been:

grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

[vouk]

Lehmann Audio - the Linear, in my mind, is a default recommendation and at less than half price, its cheaper sibling, the Rhinelander, is an absolute cracker.

[Yomanze]

NVA AP10H at £290 is awesome. It brought my Grados up there with my STAX setup in terms of detail, but with more attack and dynamics. 30 day sale or return, if it were my money I would get at least 3x amps on 30 day home trial & work from there. The NVA is literally a slimmed-down version of their power amps (same boards I think) & can will also be 'matched' to your headphones by NVA.

[Cans]

Hi I have hd800s. I have used the following to run mine - bushmaster , mdac, slee novo , rsa the hornet, fidelity audio hpa 200 , headphone out of my laptop , ipod, phone , cd player , colorfly c3.
The hd800 sounds good through all these. In a quiet environment the headphone outs are more than enough power for it. If you want to drown out the outside world you need a bit more power.
Under blind listening tests testing the mdac slee and novo against the laptop I favoured the novo as top all rounder and the bm as the best bass.

[StanleyB]

grainy treble,
Excessive sibilance
weak and floppy bass,
reliance on muting transistors or relays to mask signal noise when no music is playing.
poor power supply noise rejection.
high jitter
Listening fatigue

Not got good reviews
You are either a shill or you are mixing up the comments of a different product with the Bushmaster. I won't waste my time going through each item on that list of yours, but I shall nonetheless provide evidence of your misguided attempt to discredit the Bushmaster.

The Bushmaster does not use any sort of muting transistor or relays. So there. In fact the Bushmaster is so super quiet (which blows your comments about poor power supply noise rejection out of the water) there is not even any jitter noise audible when the Bushmaster is fed with a quiet music signal. High jitter and poor power supply tend to make such noises very obvious. In conventional designs they put relays or muting transistors in their design to hide those noises when no music is playing. But you can bypass the muting circuit by feeding a DAC with a quiet test signal that has no musical content. In the super low jitter and low power supply noise Bushmaster such tests show how quiet the Bushmaster really is. That's one reason you can hear so much more detail and separation in the music.
How many far more expensive DACs can boost of such a low noise performance if their muting circuit is desoldered and then compared to the Bushmaster? Anyone care to name a single one, irrespective of cost?

But an ill informed set of comments by you is bound to raise questions about the reason you signed up on AoS. You just did it to heap scorn on a product and its design that you have no idea about.

[Rare Bird]

Good on you Stan.

[archiesdad]

C'mon Stan, don't beat about the bush(:lol:) say what you mean!