I picked up a set of Grado headphones a little while ago. I auditioned quite a few, and although I found the Grados to exaggerate the highs a bit more than I like, I chose them because they offered the most bang for the buck. When I was trying headphones out I had a chance to A B a set of Sennheiser 580s with a Creek headphone amp connected to a current Rotel receiver. I plugged the headphones to the Creek and then directly to the Rotel. I played a cut from the latest Peter Gabriel CD over and over and never could hear any difference in sound quality. The lows were as low, the highs as clear, and the transients as sharp. So...now I know that either the Creek headphone amp is unneccesary, or the Rotel has a good one built in. This got me thinking about the quality of headphone circuits in older (affordable) stereo preamps.

This raises some questions. I primarily bought the headphones to use at my computer. I have the original Klipsch Pro-Medias (without a headphone out) which are still impressive, but there are times when the family is watching in the livingroom and I want to listen to something on the computer. I can purchase the upgraded preamp from Klipsch with the headphone out, or I can pick up an older NAD, Adcom, Hafler or similar preamp and jack the headphones into that. Does anyone have any experience with those sorts of preamps? What sort of sound quality and reliability issues are likely to arise?

I use a Little HeadRoom in my office for headphone listening, with AKG K501's and sometimes the old K240's. I've been very happy with it for the price and the dimunitive size (important in my office). My only complaint is that it's a little weak at lower frequencies with the K501's at higher listening levels. But the sound is exceptional for a unit in this price range, and with Grados I'd expect less of the hint of power supply issues. Of course, one nice thing about the Little is that you can upgrade the power supply and also the electronics. But the starter unit is around the price of the Creek OBH-11, so if price is your determining factor, it's not an option.

As for old preamps, I don't know; I'd strongly recommend a listen first. I can remeber having exceptional headphone outs on an HK receiver 20 years ago, but having terrible ones on other gear. It seems the headphone jack is often an afterthought, understandably so since not many folks use headphones a lot for home listening. These days all of my headphone use is in the office and studio; I've not once tried the headphone jack on my current receiver but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it's abysmal (Yamaha RX-V2095).

Do you need the preamp for something other than headphone listening? If not, and you're just looking to save some money but get decent sound, I'd look at a pro unit like the ART HeadAMP ($50), Rolls HA43 ($80), et. al. I haven't heard the ART, but I've had nothing but good experiences with their other gear (processors and studio amps). Bang for the buck, as it were, and it's sort of hard to go really wrong for $50.

i use the klipsch headphone output for my grado sr-60s and it sounds fine. the sr-60s have 32 ohm impedance though and work fine without any amp. the klipsch headphone output is supposedly amplified though.