# Using a head-unit as a headphone amp?



## K2e2vin (May 18, 2009)

I don't know how much people on here are familiar with headphone amps, but they are pretty pricey...for just being a "headphone amp".

Anyways, I have a couple HUs laying around and wondering do you guys think they'd be able to drive 600-ohm headphones just fine? I mean, a HU has several advantages over typical headphone amps:
-built-in EQ
-you can run individual grounds from L/R(recabled headphones)
-DSPs
-Act as it's own source(instead of processing signal from another source)
-Radio!

I don't have these headphones; but there's some 2-way headphones(Phiaton 320) and using a HU; active crossover?

As far as driving it, I have a PSU from an old computer that can output 12v(and I think about 12a?)

Any feedback?


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## Matt R (Aug 29, 2007)

You can build a very simple amp with info from this site How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier. I built one with my own twist and parts I had laying around and it sounds insane. Battery powered is as good as it gets.


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## K2e2vin (May 18, 2009)

I'm familiar with CMoy(seen that since my Koss-Plug days!), and actually have a Fiio E1 amp that's smaller than that(IIRC the cmoy is closer to the E5). Most of my headphones are 30-60ohms but these are 600ohm. I'm looking more along the lines of a desktop headphone amp; a step above portable amps like the iBasso, cmoy, Fiio, etc. I know a modified cmoy could probably run them, but using batteries are a turn-off; it's pretty much easier for me to find a HU than buying or building an amp. The E1 can't really run the 600ohm DT990s.

In addition to that, they'd lack the "features" described above. I'm just curious if the output would be about the same or better quality as headphone amps; though I assume HUs have plenty of power to drive 600-ohm headphones, I'm not completely sure if it'll be clean or not since that's higher than the speakers we run(though at higher sound intensity). Just a comparison; my 63ohm MDR-V6s at 20% volume on the PC is about the same as the 600-ohm DT990 at around 70%.


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