Dedicated Headphone Amp

rob80b · « **on:** 29 Sep 2004, 09:16 pm »

Question for James Tanner,

Just curious if Bryston has ever thought of manufacturing a dedicated Headphone Amp.

James Tanner · « **Reply #1 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 04:48 pm »

Hi Rob,

It has come up but no decisions as yet because it is a very small market .

james

rob80b · « **Reply #2 on:** 7 Oct 2004, 09:46 pm »

True James

But there appears to be more interest, especially with the insurgence of MP3 players, read “ipods” out there.
These devises are capable of recording at full bandwidth but truly lack any ability at driving higher end headphones.
Also I am sure there are a number of Bryston owners who would love to have a personnel listening station made from their favorite manufacturer.
Not to forget the crowd over at http://www.head-fi.org/ and different groups around the globe who associate Bryston with an honest high quality product.

Personally I have not been thrilled with the headphone amps currently available and believe Bryston would do a better job at it, especially driving phones like AKG’s K501’s and Sennheiser’s HD580/6** series.

Robert

nicolasb · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 10:10 am »

Quote

Personally I have not been thrilled with the headphone amps currently available

Out of curiosity, which headphone amps have you tried but not been thrilled by?

James Tanner · « **Reply #4 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 02:42 pm »

Rather not say - I will tell you that the headphone amp in the BP25 is a pure Class A discrete circuit and has gotten rave response the world over.

james

rob80b · « **Reply #5 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 03:43 pm »

“Personally I have not been thrilled with the headphone amps currently available and believe Bryston would do a better job at it, especially driving phones like AKG’s K501’s and Sennheiser’s HD580/6** series.” This was a just little Bravado to get Bryston up to the challenge, I’m far from being an expert on headamps.

I should have stated that my request was targeted at the lower to midrange units, $300.-$1000 Can.. One should not have to pay a fortune to get close to the best available.
Which is why, I think Bryston would be the perfect candidate to manufacture a high quality unit at a realistic price point to compete against units like the Emmeline HR-2, Meier Audio HA-1 MkII and Graham Slee Solos for example, and it would be Canadian.

James Tanner · « **Reply #6 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 03:46 pm »

HI Rob,

Point taken - thanks for the input.

james

elnero · « **Reply #7 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 04:57 pm »

Quote from: James Tanner

Hi Rob,

It has come up but no decisions as yet because it is a very small market .

james

Hi James, If you check out Head-Fi.org you might find that the headphone market is not quite as small as you might think, it's still small in comparison to the other markets you deal with but since my introduction into high-end headphones a couple of years ago I've seen interest and the market grow at an alarming rate. New companies like Emmeline, Singlepower and Headamp are thriving pretty much by word of mouth business from Head-Fi alone.

I think a good headamp in the $500 - 1000 range capable of driving low and high impedance headphones from a company as renowned as Bryston would receive a very warm welcome in the Head-Fi community I know I would definately be interested in hearing one myself.

rob80b · « **Reply #8 on:** 8 Oct 2004, 06:39 pm »

"I know I would definately be interested in hearing one myself."

No, you have to say "I know I would definately be interested in buying
one myself."

Robert

jjsuperfly · « **Reply #9 on:** 9 Oct 2004, 08:05 pm »

Hello James,
As a very satisfied owner of a half dozen Bryston products please add me to the list of customers for your new headphone amp. I'll take mine with the black faceplate to match the rest of my 2 channel system (the silver stuff is in my HT); impedance matched for my HD600's; balanced inputs; separate power supply and built-in DAC.
/JJ

nicolasb · « **Reply #10 on:** 11 Oct 2004, 08:46 am »

Quote

I'll take mine with the black faceplate to match the rest of my 2 channel system (the silver stuff is in my HT); impedance matched for my HD600's; balanced inputs; separate power supply and built-in DAC.

If you're going to have a built-in DAC, then how about adding the ability to decode DD and DTS to Dolby Headphone? That'd be really cool.

And, of course, there basically isn't any such product on the market right now. All (or almost all) stand-alone Dolby Headphone systems require you to use the headphones that come with ithe system - usually cordless 'phones that I have no desire to use.

(Actually something I've thought for ages would be cool, but which doesn't exist and probably never will do, is a cheaper version of this: a pure-digital Dolby Headphone front end. You would feed in a DD, DTS or stereo PCM stream, internally decode or - in the case of stereo PCM - apply Dolby PLII processing, then go through a Dolby Headphone processing stage, and then finally output a Dolby Headphone signal digitally as PCM, to be fed to the DAC and headphone amp of your choice. So you'd never leave the digital domain at any point. Possibly as an extra one could add A/D conversion so you could start with an analogue stereo signal.)

NormB · « **Reply #11 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 03:08 pm »

In fact, the BP-25 is a good headphone amp. It compares very well with my other ones. Using similar circuitry in a smaller package (sans preamp outs, input switches, etc). would make an excellent headphone amp. Norman

rob80b · « **Reply #12 on:** 11 Mar 2006, 02:55 am »

Sorry to bring up this older post, but I think it is time.

antt · « **Reply #13 on:** 16 Mar 2006, 01:34 am »

Doesn't the Pro market use headphones alot? Seems to me there might be possibilities there. Since Bryston sells to the pro market as well as the audiophile market.