Can a Porta Corda amp drive a Beyer Dt880?

[Blacknight 0]

Can a Porta Corda amp drive a Beyer DT 880 for both indoor and outdoor use? For outdoor use, most probably be powered by batteries but when indoors, it'll be powered by a power adapter!

 

Can someone provide me some input on this (hint hint : Rameish?)

[matbon0013 0]

I suppose you can!

Read the 7th post in this thread.

It seem fine with him.....!!

Regards

[Blacknight 0]

Thanks! But I hope Rameish would be able to give his 2 cents on this matter though......

[Blues 0]

of course you can

[Rameish 0]

Blackadder,

 

The short reply is you'll hear it for yourself at the SG Heaphone Meet.

 

Most portables have an output of around 0.6 Volt as compared to 2 Volts of a home CD Player. So I would say without reservations, if you hook it up to a home CDP definately. If you hook it up to a Portable, it depends on the output.

In portable headphone setups, it's usually the portable player that is the bottle neck. That is, differences between amps and headphones become less noticable. Sheer driving capability, no problem - just don't expect the headphone and amp to perform as well as a home setup. It never can as the Portable Player (even the best of them) are worse than the worse home CDP (even at the same price or less (for a home CDP). A simple test is to hook up the Porta Corda to a home CDP and suddenly it is transformed from portable class to a lot better. However, do note the higer gain of portable amps may make them unusable as home amps IF you listen at very low levels (I have only come across one person so far). The is because all carbon vol pots from the cheapest to the Alps "Green" used in the Porta Corda II to the Alps "Blue Velvet" or Black Beauty have channel imbalance at very low volume levels. Hence I like amps where the volume pot is turned up somewhere between 11 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions for normal listening volumes as thats the region where carbon vol pots are very well balanced.

 

The alternative is to use a stepped attenuator like the DACT for home amps but the cost of over S$450 for the vol pot alone makes it the suff of dreams.

 

There are no stepped attenuators in portable amps ;-)

 

In short, use a home amp at home and a portable amp for portable use. If you can't budget for both, then get a portable amp first and "make do" with it as a home amp (you can attenuate the source signal).

 

Also, Dr. Jan Meier's favourite headphones are the Beyer DT-931, Beyer DT-831, Senn HD-25 and then a sort of tie between the Senn HD-600 and Beyer DT-880, then the Beyer DT-990.

 

The very short answer - yes.

 

[Blues 0]

lol.. rameish. I think he is 'blacknight' .. not to be confused with blackadder in the grado thread

[Blacknight 0]

Thanks Rameish....very informative...as always.... You've cleared up some of my doubts...

 

From what I've read so far, with regards to use of battery or ac adapter for portable amps, there would be a slight diff, am i right on this?

 

I can't make it to meet as I'm meeting a client on Sat.....

[Blues 0]

ah that's a pity man, blacknight.

The meet, is what I am looking forward too..

with many good equipments making their 'debut' and headphones too!!

nevermind, you can always attend the next meet

[Firefox 0]

Hehe.. Talking about me, Rameish? I reckon I would even need a custom built attenuator. One that increments in 0.2dB rather than the normal 2dB.

Edited June 15, 2003 by Firefox

[Rameish 0]

Blacknight,

 

Well I do have a Beyer DT-880 and other cans for you to try (not just grados).

 

The Grado's being somewhat easier to drive out of Portables (both amps and players) need only be cranked up to 11 o'clock while the DT-880 need to be cranked up somewhere around 2 o'clock (7 o'clock being zero volume and 5 o'clock being max volume).

 

Bring your portable over and you will be able to tell for certain if your portable provides enough juice to the porta corda amp which then drives the Beyer (or other cans).

 

Beyer DT-880 are nice can IMO.

 

When you switch the Porta Corda MkII to class A (by a simple flick of a dip switch), a 9-volt alkaline will "only last abt 50 hours instead of 100 hours) and there is a slight improvement in sound. Increasing the voltage by making a battery pack (I made one out of fisherman's friend tin box) improves sound yet again. But both improvements are significantly less than switching from a portable player to a home player. Listening is you only real answer. Do give me a call - 97762087. BTW the Beyer DT-880 is not an ideal portable headphone - it's big, can't fold either flat (like the Grados) or into a ball (like Sony V6), doesn't provide attenuation from ambient noise (just like Grados). I would go for either a Beyer DT-250 (get the 250 ohm version), Etymotic, Sony V6 (aka 7056), probably Eggos (haven't heard this either). The Beyer DT-831 are nice as well but on the big and are on the can't-be-made- compact side of things.

 

Guy, I know he's not blackadder. Just need to make sure Blacknight needs to know the limitations of both portable players and the Porta Corda MkII amp, portability issues, and isolation issues. The tiny volume pot (although being an Alps "Green") is not equivalent to an Alps Blue Velvet (found in your HA-1 for instance) and is not in the same class as an attenuator. I feel that in headphone listening this balance issue is very important (see my discussion in the Total Airhead topic). That's why I also get concerned when I know there's a tiny vol pot (of any quality) in a home amp.

 

Size and quality just don't seem to go together sadly (unless you pay a huge premium like in the Etymotic 4 series).

 

Among portable amps the Porta Corda MkII has - thankfully - vol pot made by Alps - but it's still a tiny one.

 

 

[Blacknight 0]

So, Rameish, you would suggest/prefer to have a Beyer Dt880 for home use only due to bulkiness right?

[Rameish 0]

Blacknight,

 

basically yes. I can try the Beyer DR880 with a portable source tonight and get back to you by tommorrow. BTW my portable source output 0.6 volt (so if your's is lower or higher you need to adjust what I say accordingly to get a better picture).