Headphones and valve / tube amps

[Bakersdozen]

I think Two Notes CAB M is a pretty safe bet. If i don’t like the amp modeling I can turn it off. If I don’t like the IR I can make my own or buy from Celestion. Or at the very least I can just use EQ, reverb, etc.

Get in contact with me if/when you need IRs

[Joe Garfield]

Get in contact with me if/when you need IRs

Will do, thank you!

[phrozin]

But you'd also need to use it with a cabinet simulator (as they state) with headphones, otherwise you'll get all that HF fizz that sounds awful once you start adding any drive to the sound.

Valve amp headphone outputs use a very simple low pass filter affair, a couple of capacitors and resistors and that's it, to remove most of the frequencies above 6kHz (well I definitely know that's all that Blackstar use). Yes, they'll also use an op-amp to drive the headphone output, but it's just cleanly representing the signal coming from your pre-amp, and not taking anything away. But most valve amps don't have headphone outputs.

If you are going to spend almost all your time on headphones, then either get a solid state modelling amp (they really are very good now), or maybe a valve/tube amp for playing without headphones and some form of stomp or desktop modeller for when you are. But get one of the latest models, as they have all improved considerably since they first came out. For instance, don't get a 10 year-old Line 6 combo. But the Mk 1 and Mk 2 (current) Boss Katana models are certainly worth considering and sound excellent on their own and through headphones.

The Blackstar HT5R is one of the few valve mps that do have a headphone output, and although the speaker emulation is basic, it is useable, and the amp does sound good on its own. But it's only 5W, and although that's more than enough for home use, it's not really enough to gig with unless miked up, and it's never going to sound as nice clean as say a Fender Princeton, Blues Jr or Deluxe.

Don't waste your time on a Blackstar ht5r I picked up ht5hr with the 2x112 cabs it was rubbish and way overpriced, I got rid of it and replaced it with a Marshall DSL20H and a Marshall 212 cab with a NUX MS-20 and I love the thing, I play it every day on the 10watt setting perfect for not upsetting folks, the boss katana 50 is a great bit of kit, another different option is a line 6 amplifi TT it's a really good thing for using headset heaps of amp models and cabs and effects can go on an amp to computer to headset also has Bluetooth, the boss GT-001 is also a great bit of kit but $400+ their desktop units but for what you want to do without an amp the line 6 amplifi TT would be perfect for you and under $300

👇👇👇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMw7...nel=Sweetwater

[Gefest]

Agreed with phrozin about Blackstar ht5r. This one is really overpriced.
With choosing my headphones I met the next problem, nowadays it is hard to find really good headphones with affordable prices, most of the models are overpriced due to brand, but their quality is too low compared with their price. My friend suggested me to go to the audio-direct.com website for recommendations and information about good and NOT overpriced headphones. So with their help, I'm using now Skullcandy S6SCDZ-003 what have amazing quality and very affordable price. I'd recommend following my steps to find good headphones.

[Joe Garfield]

Blackstar seems to have a good following but not quite the sound I’m after.

[DrNomis_44]

You bet!

They were awesome

Sent from my moto g(7) using Tapatalk

Just so happens, I remember building some Dick Smith kits when I was in my early teens, one of the very first Dick Smith kits I built was the Funway Into Electronics FM Mic kit from book 2 of the Funway Into Electronics series, remember those?

[DrNomis_44]

I've been seriously thinking about doing a diy scratch-build OTL Headphone amp build project for a long time, OTL is short for Output Transformerless, basically an OTL Headphone amplifier is a Tube/Valve Headphone amplifier that does not use an output transformer in it's design to drive a pair of headphones, OTL Headphone amps are more for HiFi music reproduction, I thought that building one from scratch would be a fun project, I might start a thread about my build in the Amplifiers section just in case other members are interested in building one, I will be documenting the build progress as I work on it.

[DrNomis_44]

I'm currently working on a diy OTL Headphone amp based on this design article I found on the internet, my build will be using three new Svetlana 6N1P twin triode valves I bought online from Evatco, here's a link to the webpage article that gives full construction details:

https://headwizememorial.wordpress.c...one-amplifier/


It looks relatively easy to build too, even though it is a piece of high-endy HiFi gear, there's no reason why it couldn't be used with a valve guitar amp with an FX loop, just plug the send into the OTL Headphone amp's input, or plug the line-out of a rackmount guitar valve preamp, like a Marshall JMP-1, or an ADA, Rocktron Piranha, Digitech 2112, etc, into the OTL Headphone amp's input.