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Post by landychris on Aug 6, 2007 14:22:13 GMT
I'm just getting into headphone hifi (mainly at work) and i've got my grubby hands on a pair of Grado SR225's, i've read up on headamps for them and everyone seems to say they are hard to drive and they don't work with this amp, and that amp. so which one do they work well with?? any suggestions?
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cosmopragma
Team Cosmoid
vorsprung deutsch audio technic uber burgermeiester
Posts: 78
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Post by cosmopragma on Aug 9, 2007 4:59:51 GMT
The cheapest way of getting a synergistic amp is cloning a Grado RA-1 amp.It's not that special and certainly not worth even close the asking price of the original amp, but it's really cheap and nevertheless decent with Grados (and useless for high Z cans like Sennheisers). Normally I'd hesitate to speak about cloning an amp but in this case the original is such a shameless rip off that I don't have any scruples. I've once soldered my own clone and it did cost me less than 40 Euros (with better parts than the original that costs ~ 500 Euros in Europe).
In case it's forbidden to mention it (like it is at head-fi) I apologize.
Other synergistic (commercial) amps are made by Rudistor in Italy. I'm not exactly a fan of Rudistor amps since some of them are not versatile at all.For Grados though there are some really nice sounding amps. I do have personal experience for more than a few minutes at a meet with two Rudistor amps that are synergistic with Grados. The RPX-33 dualmono I've recently sold to an australian gent doesn't deserve the praise it gets at head-fi but it's certainly a good sounding amp for low Z cans in general. IMO the RPX-33 is overkill and at 1300 Euros or so way too expensive for a SR 225. The other Rudistor I still own is more appropriate.It's a discontinued RP-31, and without a lot of experience you'd be hard pressed to hear a difference to the RPX-33 in combination with the SR 225.Such an amp would cost you less than 200 Euros nowadays used but in very good condition .
The last amp (series) I can heartily recommend for Grados are some amps by Audio Technica, namely the HA 2002 and the successor HA 5000.Very good amps but admittedly also too expensive for a SR 225.
Hopefully some british members will chime in with recommendations of synergistic amps from the UK I'm not familar with.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2007 5:21:01 GMT
Cosmopragma I suggest you don't use the word "Clone" here either, it could be a sore point, as the Chinese are so busy cloning U.K. designs and passing them off as their own. Perhaps you should use the words "modify" or "upgrade".It isn't always the Chinese that are at fault either, it is often unscrupulous Western companies who don't invest in R&D, and copy other people's designs , then clone them in a Chinese factory,and give them a facial so they look different. SandyK
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Post by merton on Aug 9, 2007 6:58:52 GMT
if you want cheap the pa2v2 may work at $60... the maple tree ear + something or other would be nice... but $750.
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Post by landychris on Aug 9, 2007 11:56:13 GMT
apart from the MF amp i've never heard of or seen the others! i'll have to get hunting I'm not afraid of getting an amp 'better' than for the 225's as knowing me, i'll be buying another pair of better ones in 6months and using the 225's as a spare. I was thinking of spending around the £200-300 mark but could be persuaded higher i'm not adverse to 2nd hand or modding (i can use a soldering iron but i've only basic electronics experience and never used silver solder before) - it's just 2nd hand headphone amps seem to be few and far between. - If i can build an amp, then i'm all up for it - but it would have to be a kit or something with a decent set of destructions... any other suggestions (from uk manufacturers - or at least ones a headphone newbie might have heard of!) would be good ps i'm in gloucestershire, uk - home of the flood
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xerxes
Been here a while!
Posts: 1,115
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Post by xerxes on Aug 9, 2007 13:16:26 GMT
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Post by dsavitsk on Aug 15, 2007 7:29:18 GMT
You might look into my Less-pressivo. Of course, you'll have to build it yourself, but that's half the fun. It is designed with Grados in mind, uses the same output transformers as the Mapletree but it corrects a couple of flaws in that amp, and it is really cheap to build, though you can go crazy and make it a very expensive amp -- cheap version sounds pretty good, though. Also, my big rig amp is designed for Grados and sounds very good. It will cost a little more. Finally, I just worked this up though it is not built yet, but it is a balanced driver for Grados. Should cost about $50 to build though it will require you to re-terminate your phones for balanced operation.
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