Headphone-only hi-fi - who's taken the minimalist road?

Heck no. Give me a man room and speakers over headphones please.

 

Here's what I would call an example of a "minimalist" setup:

• iOS device running iOS 7 or higher
• Software that enables digital output of high resolution audio (e.g., Onkyo HF Player)
  
• Apple Camera Connection Kit for device above
• Short USB 2 cable
• iFi iDSD Micro
• Sennheiser HD600 (or better) headphones

Granted, this setup lacks a dedicated headphone amp, but I've listened to a friend's setup like this and it sounds pretty darn good.

 

I've been a headphone fan going back over 40 years when I bought my first pair of lovely green Koss Pro headphones. These days I use a Grado RA-1 high-gain amp connected to my McIntosh C29 preamp and AKG 701 headphones. I love my B&W speakers but there are times at night when it's nice to have the headphone option.

 

hehe, I know the feeling. It's not really bad at home, but when out in the world, I find the isolating effect very unnerving... (perhaps the caffeine doesn't help). However, I find that open headphones like Grados are much more natural and since outside sound gets in, it's easier to hear the guys creeping around with cutlery...

 

Yes, I think I'd feel much happier with open headphones than closed. I'd even prefer on-ear to over-ear if such a thing were possible but I don't know if on-ear exists at the audiophile end of the market.

There are some really interesting suggestions for amps here. A lot of the makes I haven't even heard of - there's a lot of homework to do. I think the reason why I wanted very small size was because it seems a pity to replace big, immovable loudspeakers with small, portable headphones only to find you're still tied to a hi-fi rack full of amps and DACs and CD players and so on. It seems feasible to combine amp and DAC in fairly small size but I guess the source will still have to be separate, even if it's high res files.

 

Grado phones are considered to be on-ear, with the exception of the 2 highest models which use pads that enclose the ears. All of the models are open.

 

My father; From 8' tall electrostatics (Acoustat), Audio Research power amps, Sota TT, Spectral pre-amp and every tweek imaginable, to mothballing all of it for a dedicated headphone setup. His headphone setup with weights on the headphone amp, his 'preffered' 9-volt batteries, home-wound wires/interconnects etc is really a sight to see. Quite impressive looking. He has some high-end Grado headphone that he uses and as expected it sounds amazing. Having said that, the wow factor of how precise and revealing it sounds wears off for me after a couple songs and I'm bored. As mentioned earlier in this thread it lacks the impact and energy of loudspeakers. I want to be pushed over.

 

I've been headphones-only since a flood three years ago destroyed my sound room. Since then, I've converted it to a media studio for my blog, and since I write most of the time, I have simply practiced the time honored redemptive suffering act of listening to headphones. As redemptive suffering goes, it's not bad, considering I have a good selection of phones, media (mostly CDs, but LPs as well) and hardware, including a Lampizator DAC. Right now, I've been using my Beyer DT990 600 ohm phones. It all sounds wonderful. It's music after all.

 

I do like how with headphones you can hear every detail, esp with the hi-rez files I've heard. But whenever I listen via headphones I have a nagging feeling that I am getting a lesser experience than the fully 3D experience of my main system. Kind of like going to a minor league ballgame -- it can be a lot of fun, and it's great that tickets are $5 and you can park right next to the entrance and sit wherever you want, but it's still not the big leagues.

 

That's an interesting point. I have had the feeling, yes. I've also had the reverse, where I can't wait to hear into as recording a little bit more. They are definitely different from each other. I should say there are phones (my AKG k501 comes to mind) that offer a very good approximation of out of head experience at least.

 

There's a big difference between your typical lower end headphone listening experience and the higher end headphone listening experience. The lower end experience has no depth, no layering, you get the blob of sound in your head effect. As you move up in gear performance the blob in your head experience becomes less and less, you get more depth, you get more layering. Till finally things come together and and the blob in your head style of sound disappears, you get full depth and layering, and the headphone cups themselves seem to disappear. It's that better headphone listening experience that makes the higher end gear worth the cost and the effort to discover.

Getting that blob in your head to disappear is not common with compact multi-function gear that combines a DAC amp and other features. Tends to require the larger dedicated gear. And not all larger dedicated expensive gear will do it. But when you get it the headphone listening experience becomes completely different. It seems that some of the compact gear is trying to adjust and better escape that blob in the head sound. Adjusting by implementing newer DSP digitally enhanced crossfeed (like what the Light Harmonic Geek products and doing with the 3D Awesomifier and what iFi is doing with their 3D HolographicSound). I expect that more headphone gear is going to implement similar headphone processing to give a better headphone listening experience. But the thing is, it's all a hack to some extent. The good high-end amps don't need that sort of processing to escape the blob in your head style of sound and to get depth. So the DSP processing to do crossfeed is more of a crutch to compensate for smaller and less high-end amp designs. Will that crutch be enough to get the less expensive amps to compete with the listening experiences of the more expensive high-end amps? I don't know. If it does it will bring a better headphone listening experience to more people for less money. I hope it happens, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. There's going to be sonic tradeoffs to achieve that, if it happens. I expect much of the future advancement in headphone amp/DAC combos to be in the DSP area for special processing for crossfeed and HRTF (head related transfer function) processing.

 

I've got a little Beaglebone Black feeding a Wavelength Brick DAC into a Woo WA22, typically using Audez'e LCD3 for some digital+tube goodness.

This is in my bedroom. In my previous apartment, I was able to hook my TT up as a source (bedroom and living room were on either side of the same wall and I could pass a cable through a door) - and THAT was extra uber awesome!

 

Headphones are an unusual and unique listening experience, while I can appreciate the detail I hear, it is not my first go to for listening, rather an alternative for comparison, or a forced issue when the sound levels need to be kept to nil.

I have some Rarely used AKG K301 and some old classic Koss ESP 950 electrostatics I use.

 

This is interesting. So the higher end headphone amps implement crossfeed in the analog domain or you're saying they're so good they don't need crossfeed?

 

NAD HP50 here as well. Fantastic headphones.

 

Some of the nicer headphone amps use crossfeed and others do not. SPL has a couple of models with analog Crossfeed control.
-Bill

 

Simple, compact, and audiophile quality? That's a tough crowd to try and get to release their most geeky of toys and to choose only two or three tiny compone ts to get the job done. My guess on what might be the smallest and coolest rig would be the new Pono player and a set of Grado cans: two compact items and done!
-Bill

 

iPhone 5s + JH13-frequency phase

Does not get much simpler. Does not get much better.

 

Bill,

confirmed. I use a SPL Phonitor 2 and would not want to go back to “conventional” headphone amplifiers.

Werner.

 

I love my big system. But I could imagine going headphone only in a condo sometime in the future. Get a Heed or a Creek integrated to run maybe a pair of Peachtree's or LS-50's, or LS3/5a's (nostalgia) for background music.

Get a nice big comfy recliner next to the headphone setup.

Yeah, that could work.

 

I think there is two categories here for minimalistic digital headphone system. They overlap but are distinct in sound quality and options. One category is mobility, the other portability. Mobility is a different animal in that you need to be self sufficient on the move, yet small enough for easy of carry.
Portability in the sense that you are not interested in playing on the move but only in stationary positions.
I myself am only interested in portability. Thus I shoot for something of greater quality of sound with the most format options.

 

I'd never heard of crossfeed till I read this post! (I had to look it up.) Things are a lot more complicated than I thought. So are you saying that, if you have a good enough DAC amp, you don't need crossfeed, whether analogue or digital?

Are there many DAC amp manufacturers who make a virtue of the fact that their amplifiers are as close as possible to "straight wire with gain"? Meaning they don't alter the sound in any appreciable way other than to amplify it?

 

I'm saying they're so good that they don't need crossfeed as much. The better amps can have a more open sound. As the sound of the amps gets more and more open the need for crossfeed becomes less. An open style of sound means that the driver and headphone cups begin to disappear, become less localizable. The soundstage (or what some call the headstage) becomes deeper and it begins to sound like you are sitting farther back from the stage, the source of the sound begins to appear to be coming from in front of your forehead rather than trapped in your head between your ears.

In speaker terms it would be like amps that create a deep soundstage that extends behind the speakers and fills in the middle between the speakers. A soundstage that is not forward. An amp that allows the speakers to disappear rather than be localizable.

Very few higher end headphone amps implement crossfeed. Not all expensive amps do the open style of sound with the deep soundstage. It's the style of sound where tubes tend to be involved, but solid state can also do it.

If anyone is going to RMAF and Can Jam, try the Cavalli Audio amps, the bigger Woo Audio tube amps, and Red Wine Audio amps. If there is an Eddie Current tube amp there try that too. Those amps can do the open style of sound I'm describing.

 

Headphone crossfeed is a good thing. A good option to have available to use. Can help with some headphones, some amps, and some recordings. And in general can help make headphone listening more enjoyable and less fatiguing. Crossfeed can be beneficial with all headphone amps.

I don't think the straight wire with gain ideal is the best approach for headphone amps. I'd rather go with the "does it sound good with headphones" approach. I suspect that the headphone amps I most like would be considered colored and not "straight wire with gain" if used as a pre-amp in a good speaker setup. Crossfeed certainly colors the sound and would deviate from "straight wire with gain".

There's a couple of ways to do crossfeed.

A simple analog filter as described here: http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/crossfeed.htm
Most headphone amps that have a crossfeed option do some flavor of this style of analog crossfeed. It works OK. Not great. It causes changes in tonality and lessens the treble. I generally don't like this style of crossfeed.

A complex analog implementation like what the SPL Phonitor headphone amp does. Here's two reviews
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/canjam-rmaf-outstanding-product-spl-phonitor
http://www.innerfidelity.com/conten...4-award-most-cool-buttons-and-knobs-headphone

A combination of analog circuits and DSP (digital signal processing). Like what Light Harmonic is doing in their Geek products. I believe that the crossfeed used by iFi is also a mix of analog and digital processing. In order to do this sort of processing the device needs to be a combination DAC and amp so it controls both the analog and digital portions. I expect to see more amp/DAC combos doing this sort of crossfeed processing in the future. It's a natural progression.

If you're doing computer as source you can have the computer do digital processing on the audio to do crossfeed. JRiver Media Center includes a headphone crossfeed option. It works pretty well for a crossfeed. I use it at times. There are also plug-ins that you can use that do crossfeed. The Redline Monitor plug-in by 112dB is a neat one. It can be used in any media player that supports VST plugins. Like Foobar2000 or JRiver Media Center. There's other similar VST plug-ins available. Some more complex. Some not as complex. Computer as source gives you lots of options for different crossfeed processing. Another option on the computer is Out Of Your Head by Darin Fong Audio. It can be run as a plug-in or as an iOS app on an iPhone or iPad.

My preference is to do computer as source. Using either JRiver Media Center or Foobar2000. And use the various crossfeed plug-ins available. However, most of my headphone listening is without any form of crossfeed.

 

A free AU crossfeed plugin (works in Audirvana): http://larsggu.me/crossfeedcomponent

Personally, when headphone listening to material that is panned hard to one channel or the the other, I get a sensation that's almost like vertigo. In my opinion, having a crossfeed option is mandatory for headphone listening.

And I agree with @Ham Sandwich that the Redline plugin ($69 U.S.) is great in terms of sound quality and ease of use. One issue I have with it is there's no "bypass" button on the plugin so it's not really possible to A/B test in Audirvana. Unless your material is panned hard to the sides, the crossfeed effect can be subtle.