Headphone Amp for Denon Cans

[VegasBuiltRebel]

I just bought a pair of Denon AH-D7000 headphones. I was reading a review on Stereophile.com and the reviewer said that pairing these headphones with a headphone amp is a must if you want to get the most out of them (especially if you want to get the most bass for which these headphones are known). The review said that simply plugging the headphones into a receiver is like connecting $20,000 speakers to a $500 budget receiver.

So will my Denon 4310ci be sufficient or should I invest in a headphone amp? If so, what are some brands you would recommend? I'd like to spend $300 or less but I am open to more expensive suggestions if you have good reasons for stretching my budget. I'm using the headphones primarily for video games (figured headphones were best way to avoid the jumbo jet like noise produced by my XBOX360), blu rays, and some music. Also, how would I set this amp up. Would I plug it into my receiver and if so with what kind of cables?

 

[m_vanmeter]

wow, talk about snotty/snarky magazine reviewer crap. Your Denon's will work fine with the typical receiver headphone output. Where they would need an additional amp is if you hooked them up to an iPod or other MP3 player which have woefully inadequate output amplifiers to conserve battery power. You have an excellent a/v receiver....the Denon 4310 is more than capable of handling your headphones !

Note: if you actually paid $20,000 for a set of speakers, then your sanity is in question whether or not you hook them to the proper receiver/amplifier or the $500 one. Pure BS

 

[WmAx]

I just bought a pair of Denon AH-D7000 headphones. I was reading a review on Stereophile.com and the reviewer said that pairing these headphones with a headphone amp is a must if you want to get the most out of them (especially if you want to get the most bass for which these headphones are known). The review said that simply plugging the headphones into a receiver is like connecting $20,000 speakers to a $500 budget receiver.

So will my Denon 4310ci be sufficient or should I invest in a headphone amp? If so, what are some brands you would recommend? I'd like to spend $300 or less but I am open to more expensive suggestions if you have good reasons for stretching my budget. I'm using the headphones primarily for video games (figured headphones were best way to avoid the jumbo jet like noise produced by my XBOX360), blu rays, and some music. Also, how would I set this amp up. Would I plug it into my receiver and if so with what kind of cables?

I actually recommend using a high quality mini mixer. The Behringer Xenyx 802 has a superb headphone amp, and can be used for many other things as well. It can drive ANY conventional (not electrostatic, obviously) headphone, even the power hungry AKG K1000, with no problem. It has a high voltage supply to the headphone amp (+/- 18V supply = 36VDC single supply). It has very low noise and is built with high quality parts. I don't recommend the lower model numbers (602 for example), because they do not have the higher voltage power supply that this unit has, which allows it to power any headphone out there. The 802 and higher models have the higher voltage supply.

-Chris

 

[MinusTheBear]

The Denon AD-7000 have a very low impedance of 25Ω and a senstitivity of 108 dB/mW. Your Denon receiver will power them just fine and just about any portable device for that matter. Just so you know Little Dot offers a variety of solid state and tube headphone amplifiers under the $300 range. If you get interested in using a portable device with your headphones I would recommend the Sansa Clip+ or on a larger budget an offering from Cowon such as the Cowon D2+ or Cowon S9. These are excellent portable devices.