Hey guy, Ive a BW P9 Signature amd I dont want to put money in a new heaphone amplifier. As DS Sr. doesnt have heaphone out I want to know if is possible to drive my heaphones using DS interconnects out, using some adapter or any cheap solution?
Thanks
Andre
Ps: @Paul its a good question for a video, dont you think?
I don’t think that there is enough gain. The DSD was never designed to drive something directly without an amp or into a preamp. There’s many Headphone Amps out there that are reasonable.
Maybe try one of these budget HP amps (I doubt you could do much better for the price).
Monolith by Monoprice Liquid Spark Headphone Amplifier by Alex Cavalli:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33304
Schiit Magni:
https://www.schiit.com/products/magni-1
While I completely agree that a headphone amp is the best thing, some here are enjoying their headphones direct. That certainly won’t work with all (most?) headphones, but it does for some. If you want to experiment you can’t hurt the DS by trying to draw too much current, it’s happy driving a short indefinitely…
It might be possible to drive some headphones directly with the DS output. Might be worth a try.
In terms of the DS output impedance (for driving headphones) does JA’s Stereophile measurement have this correct:
“At low and midrange frequencies, the DirectStream’s output impedance was a fairly low 296 ohms balanced and 124 ohms unbalanced. Both impedances rose slightly at the top of the audioband, to a respective 313 and 145 ohms”
I won’t argue that’s what he measured, they are close to the theoretical values: the output impedance is set by 120 ohm series resistors on each leg, the balanced should be nearly twice the unbalanced,