Let's start with the amp.. It had no where near the volume i needed to enjoy any ting at all, even my wife who hates loud music had it turned up to the max and was still wanting more.. i could see her pressing the cups to her head for more volume, i couldn't believe what i was seeing..
The Amp was very clean sounding, ill give it that much, but for me, that's not enough, i like loud! and no distortion, were it's not called for anyway!
I had emailed the ppl at Vincent .. they assured me it had loads of volume, i couldnt find it. and i was using a very good headphone. the Grado's GS 1000's admittedly before the entire 100 hour burn-in time they say is needed.. it never came close to what i require in a set of headphones.. i guess it may have been the open ear thing.. That being said, i returned the Grado GS 1000's I just dont think you need to spend 1000 bux US on a set of headphones.. Prove it to me first, but they couldnt do that considering the "burn-in" test!
i like isolation when under the cups.. its how i escape, thats sorta hard to do with the noise of screaming dogs and kids outside thinkin' their funny, so i got no escape at all .. just some music with the unwanted noise ALL still there! If you're looking for a very good HP amp stick with the American company ray samuels audio

"http://www.raysamuelsaudio.com/index2.html
not cheap, but get what you pay for!

Nibbler

NIbbler

They are great amplifiers, but if you like headphone amps, make the effort to find a Hong Kong distributor on the internet and I'll bet you can find it for 200 dollars or less.

As far as I know, Vincent makes NO modifications to these ShengYa products, they just change the name and mark them up. I don't think they even design them...

As for the tube versus solid state debate, besides the tube issue, these amps tend to be handmade, and therefore of a better quality(debateable), and the TRANSFORMERS are typically of a higher quality, helping to stabilize the signal. Thats why they are so heavy...

agedrien

Got round the impedence problem by building a little headphone amp in an altoids tin. Runs out of the line out on the iPod (bypassing the crappy internal amp with its badly chosen, high-pass filter inducing capacitors), and sounds wonderful. Cost me about £30 in total!

budward

Roxstar, saying that tubes are not good for fast, bass-driven, or rock music is silly. Take a hard look at most of the bands recording this music- the majority of them use tube amps, and the studio they recorded in more than likely used tube preamps as well.

The difference in sound isn't an "ear" thing, it's a physical and sonic reality. Tubes don't "clip" like MOSFETs do. For example, my 130 watt Fender Ultimate Chorus guitar amp is solid state, and will only put out a max of 130 watts continuous, no matter how high I have the volume. If my guitar signal is really hot, the master volume stops working at about 8 on the dial, raising the volume from 8 to 10 makes no difference at all. This is why solid state amps (and preamps) sound harsh......the sound wave is clipped off at the extreme ends, resulting in an almost square wave pattern.

My Mesa Boogie Lonestar, however, does not clip. In fact, when the volume is up at full blast, and I'm running a hot signal, the amp is actually putting out MORE than the 100 rated watts. This headroom and lack of clipping results in a pure, round waveform, which is much more pleasing to the ears. It doesn't "gate" itself, or distort unpleasantly at higher volumes......it just gets louder. MOSFET amps cannot do this, ever. There are some designs that sound close, but it's a feature of the circuitry and associated software, not of the MOSFETs themselves.

While I agree, a tube-driven headphone amp is sortof like a fish with legs (and his own model of Nike sneakers), the reality is the sound will be much more pleasing, even if it is coming off of a solid state preamp, and even more so off of a digital connection.

I use not only tube guitar amps, but my home studio also includes several tube mics, tube mic preamps, and tube-driven direct boxes. This is not because "tubes are cool", but because they sound better, react better to audio signals, and record like butter. And yes, this is on (sometimes) fast, heavy, bass-driven music.

I use solid state headphone distribution amps, though, since I only do it for monitoring purposes. This would be nice for a serious vocalist, though, who wanted to use it as a headphone monitor preamp for recording.

fussnfeathers

Headroom sells a hybrid tube headphone amp, but their $3000 and $4000 headphone amps (!!) are solid state.

I'm not sure any Gizmodo editor cares about ultimate sound reproduction, it's just tired non-interactive mono-media that lost its cool in the 80s. C'mon, post your system components!

skierpage

Not good on rock, bass, or electronic music? Must be listening to crappy and/or poorly matched gear. Anything that can faithfully reproduce the scale, subtleties and dynamics of large-scale classical music can do anything, thank you very much.

HiFi

You left out the part about how this can be used as a Preamp in a larger system and that it's not a true tube amp. It's a tube/transistor hybrid and has class A circuitry.

Roxstar

Intestingly, the ER4 (in ear canal) headphones are too hard to drive for an IPOD as well. I believe an IPOD is about portability so rather than buy an amp, I bought the ER4P which are lower impedence and designed for portable devices.

FWIW, tubes are not considered better by anyone. They are considered preferable by certain people who prefer the characteristics of tubes to solid state amplification. But there are just as many audiophiles devoted to the sound of solid state amps as tubes. Tubes are not as good for fast, rock, bassy, or electronic music. They are excellent for accoustic tracks though.

Roxstar

>>it is amplifying an already heavily processed (usaully) signal
not necessarily

>>Any high end audio equipment that would have a signal of a high enough quality to deserve a vacuum tube treatment is already going to be loud enough through headphones to satisfy anyone.
this isn't the point of a headphone amp

>>Vacuum tubes will not make audio sound better, it will however give it a volume boost without making it sound any worse.
This is just wrong. Tubes change the harmonic distortion of the signal which changes the sound considerably. Many people consider this changed distortion better. Solid state can go as loud as tubes with less 'loss' in the signal.

jessedybka

Okay experts, go ahead and tear my up.

liquidsoapdispenser

illiniguy

edmicman

devwild

it's definitely NOT an outdated technology.

Check out any of the highend preamps in a recording studio and they will all have tubes. The same goes for guitar amps, microphones.....etc...

not sure about this thing though.

justpeak