Headphone amp for Airport Express?

March 16, 2009 9:11 AM

I buckled and bought a set of AKG k701 cans. They're currently hooked up directly to my Airport Express and sounding great, just lacking the final couple of decibels. Can anyone offer any advice on choosing a suitable headphone amplifier or, even better, suggest a recommendation (sub $500)?
posted by hydrophobic to technology (9 comments total)

Headroom Total Bithead will fill the bill and more.
posted by torquemaniac at 9:30 AM on March 16

Seconded! I have a BitHead and it's great.
posted by chairface at 9:50 AM on March 16

+1 on the Headroom Total Bithead.
posted by jeb at 9:50 AM on March 16

Though the Airhead might be a better fit for you if you don't need the USB DAC.
posted by jeb at 9:54 AM on March 16

Single Ended eXperimenters kit (kind of nsfw model in illustration), less than $500 w/ shipping, but you do need to assemble it yourself. I have one of these and also a Headroom Max. The Max has more detail and better bass, but it fails to embarrass the other one. I am considering replacing the Max with an X-Can, but have not had a chance to test them side by side. Regardless of what you choose, I highly recommend buying a used amp. The cost for a used amp of recent vintage in excellent shape is usually about 60% or so of the street price of a new one and amps don't really wear out. There is always eBay, but Audiogon is usually better for used hifi stuff.
posted by caddis at 10:36 AM on March 16

If you're game and have some past experience with electronics, DIYing it can get you something equivalent or even possibly superior in quality to these commercial options. The Cavalli Bijou or SOHA II, Millett Hybrid, and Ti Kan's M^3 can all be put together on commercial boards comfortably within your price range; something smaller like Ti's Mini^3 would be even cheaper.
posted by monocyte at 11:41 AM on March 16

I'm in the process of selling a couple of DIY headphone amps on eBay, a pimeta and a cmoy. I had paired the pimeta with an AKG K701 and it sounded fantastic. I'll send your a private message.
posted by cazoo at 12:35 PM on March 16

If you want a heaphone amp that doesn't cost $159 but does the exact same thing, check out the Fiio E5 for $17 shipped.
posted by andrewzipp at 12:38 PM on March 16

Do *not* get a Headroom Total Bithead. It is both a completely underwhelming amplifier and mediocre DAC (see my/paulg's previous comments in this Ask post). It's particularly unsuited to drive your specific headphones and I don't think it'll sound any better than the raw output of your Airport Express. It may even sound worse, as the K701s are known to be hard to drive.

In broad strokes, improving the sound of your setup breaks down into two discrete issues: driving your headphones with a more capable amplification stage and using a higher quality DAC than the one inside the Airport Express. I would suggest starting with amplification and then moving onto the DAC later.

As far as amplification goes, @monocyte's DIY suggestions are the best value for your money at this price range, though you may not be able (or willing) to build your own headphone amplifier from raw parts. Fortunately, there are people out there (ie: YBM) that will build these amps to your specifications for a reasonable fee. I suspect that some of Ti Kan's more extreme designs like the β22 would be a perfect match for the K701s.

And on the issue of a DAC, just about any entry-level standalone unit will sound better than the DAC in the Airport Express. I would simply start checking the head-fi.org For Sale forums or Audiogon for a good deal on a decent DAC. Sometimes local hi-fi shops will have demo unit DACs that they can't seem to get rid of because they're discontinued models. You can usually get these for pretty cheap.

Personally, I have a set of Sennheiser HD650s that I listen to at work through a somewhat tricked out Millett Hybrid amp that I built for maybe $300 in parts (not quite twice the cost of what the basic version would cost). As a source, I use an older entry-level DAC that I bought quite cheaply from a local Hi-Fi shop because it was a store demo unit and then later modified it to my liking. It's a modest setup that sounds quite pleasant and non-fatiguing.
posted by strangecargo at 4:15 PM on March 16