Tweaking a Grado RA-1 headphone amp

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Dredster

Tweaking a Grado RA-1 headphone amp
« on: 15 Jun 2004, 02:08 am »
Looking for some mods that can be done on a Grado headphone amp. I plan on bypassing the cheap volume control and coupling it to my Bent Audio Transformer volume control. Any other internal mods which would improve on the design.

GrahamnDodder

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Tweaking a Grado RA-1 headphone amp
« Reply #1 on: 15 Jun 2004, 02:37 am »
The Grado amp might not be worth doing a mod like that. If it were me, I would buy a used META 42 or buy or build a PPA from head-fi.org after selling the RA-1.

Tons of info here, and at head-fi.

GnD

rickcr42

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Tweaking a Grado RA-1 headphone amp
« Reply #2 on: 6 Jul 2004, 04:34 pm »
being a very basic gain stage the RA-1 is actually easy to upgrade but you will be changing the character of the sound by doing so.

Possibilities would be adding a dedicated regulated power supply ,class A biasing of the output , changing the volume control to a higher qality unit and maybe replacing the input caps.

The strength of the grado , some say weakness,is the opamp used which specs out at 70 ma current drive to the headphones and since Grado cans like current it is a good match.Plus the slightly soft voicing of the passive parts/opamp is geared specifically towards taming the grado rising top end

hope this helps

NotoriousBIG_PJ

Tweaking a Grado RA-1 headphone amp
« Reply #3 on: 27 Aug 2004, 06:44 pm »
I found the meta to be a poor match with grados. Stick with the ra-1.

Biggie.