Best inexpensive headphone amp?

I don’t know what you would consider inexpensive. . .
I just purchased myself a Topping E30 DAC L30 hpa. $150.— USD each. Oh my, I am absolutely blown away that I could get that sound for $300.—. Just amazing with my Senn HD58X Jubilees
I’m not usually such a fan boi!!

I have a Crack w/speedball, a Whammy, a Noir, cmoy, Etc. As well as quite a few portable amps too..
 
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Hi Djn,


I also think the good side of a laptop is you can EQ in the digital domain as far I understand.


I found a simple tablett with EQ plugin (mine is Samsung) has a great enough sound. If the load of your headphones is difficult, have you seen the starving headphone amp in the diya store ? little tubes...



I don't remember the name but what is this mass markett group buy store that is US based... a lot of good cheap (less than 100 USD) headphones amps, some dac based. Some re issues of known brand with lower price.
 
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I don’t know what you would consider inexpensive. . .
I just purchased myself a Topping E30 DAC L30 hpa. $150.— USD each. Oh my, I am absolutely blown away that I could get that sound for $300.—. Just amazing with my Senn HD58X Jubilees
I’m not usually such a fan boi!!

I have a Crack w/speedball, a Whammy, a Noir, cmoy, Etc. As well as quite a few portable amps too..

Be careful, E30 has no output DC protection. The TPA6120 chips they use on the output stage have been known to fail and blow up expensive headphones. It is a super value though for what you get.
 
Oh yeah, that. Hopefully that has been addressed in some fashion, it has been reported repaired after a certain serial number. I did try to do some homework on it.
It does sound grand though. Thanks so much for the heads up.
Edit: Found the reference, they added a resistor to the op amp circuit that kept the DC in check. Nothing more specific, but reportedly fixed.
 
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Be careful, E30 has no output DC protection. The TPA6120 chips they use on the output stage have been known to fail and blow up expensive headphones. It is a super value though for what you get.
I have no idea what implementation they use for tpa6120, but DC output is not a thing well known for TPA6120...on the contrary! Even more it is quite resilient with reversed power supply rails too as i saw once by mistake.If there was dc output it was maybe due to some power supply falure, but i truly doubt TPA6120 is prone to outputing dc out of the blue...I know people using TPA6120 in diy projects for more than 5 years with no protection and no problem either.Yet, if it is really a problem you can still use output capacitors or split capacitors virtual ground as in RNHP and problem is solved.By the way RNHP is quite a value for the money .
 
I'm not really sure the direct cause of the Topping L30 blowing up headphones but it was documented. They did a fix that was a resister added to an op amp (NE5532) circuit that is in place to detect and protect from DC offset and case ground for static. . .
 
I have no idea what implementation they use for tpa6120, but DC output is not a thing well known for TPA6120...

If there's a volume pot on the input, depending on its value, the DC output swing can be quite significant, depending on the pot's attenuation. Some preamps put an opamp buffer in front of the 6120 to solve that, but IMO it's not the best approach. I'd rather have a big cap on the output than a 5532 on the input :)
 
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If there's a volume pot on the input, depending on its value, the DC output swing can be quite significant, depending on the pot's attenuation. Some preamps put an opamp buffer in front of the 6120 to solve that, but IMO it's not the best approach. I'd rather have a big cap on the output than a 5532 on the input :)

The op amp is not in the audio path. They were adamant about that. .
 
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OPA1612 + TPA6120A2 composite with two pole compensation I think.
you mean this topology:
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/hea...posite-headphone-amplifier-3.html#post6320660
it's clear that the circuit relies there on potentiometer's integrity...

I'm using a similar composite (burr brown-best of both worlds) amp myself with tpa6120 placed in the opa1642 feedback loop .
TPA6120 Headphone Amplifier - COMPOSITE TOPOLOGY - AUDIO WORKSHOP

It sounds fine to me and have no problem with dc offset.You can always shunt the input potentiometer with a resistor ...and it's usually done anyway as i always have a capacitor coupling between the input pot and the op-amps input .I never take unnecessary risks.I also used RNHP virtual ground configuration with my preamp and don't even need a dc bias with fet input op-amp as the electrolitic capacitor's leakage current is enough to bias the op-amp.Thus the output is fully protected .As my headphones are 250 ohms i don't need huge capacitors for coupling to have good base reproduction.
 
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There is dc bias formed by the lekage current of both splitting rail capacitors(virtual ground) and the input capacitor , all of them being electrolytic.I didn't try it, i just discovered it by accident, desoldering the true ground wire and forgetting to create a dc path to input.If it was a high input current bjt opamp before tpa6120 it may have destroyed my headphones...
P.S.
I also thought that maybe TPA6120 being a current input opamp its inputs transistors internal bias may have created a virtual ground at the output when inputs left in the air and tpa6120 feedback resistor possibly made a ground potential for the input opamp...but never verified that and people here say tpa6120 get burnt when inputs are left in the air...
 
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hello gents,
can someone recommend a diy headphone amp project with the following in mind?
- newbie friendly = no playing with mains, no difficult parts to solder
- line in and out (ala topping L30)
- PCB or kit available somewhere
- of course: amazing sound for little money :D

thank you!