Headphone Heights

Posted by peppy m. (A) on January 02, 2025 at 17:34:26

In Reply to: RE: Not really. The reason for 4-wires is better sound posted by Ralph on January 02, 2025 at 12:40:30

Not sure if it's sonically superior in any way to amps with 4 wire outs, but my headphone amp was made to handle headphones with dual 3 pin XLR cables. Two larger 3 pin XLR jacks provide a bit more surface area for electrical contacts than a single smaller 4 pin XLR jack does, I guess. Not sure if it matters much, sonically...

So I have 2 pairs of headphones re-cabled with dual 3 pin XLR connectors.

20 years or so ago, Headroom made dual mono headphone amps with 3 pin XLR ins and outs. My amp was made to handle headphones suited to that kind of amp. The dual 3 pin XLR arrangement fell out of favor, but I believe that John Atkinson of Stereophile still uses his Headroom dual mono, dual 3 pin XLR, balanced headphone amp - the flagship amp from Headroom before that company folded.

My amp sounds great, that's all I know. A bonus of having these L/R outs is that I can also use the headphone amp as a stereo preamp.

• DNA Sonett dual XLR version   (Open in New Window)

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