Gato amp w headphones

[profcliff]

I have a Gato 150 amp. Very nice but without a built/in headphone input. Anyone got a suggestion on how to use headphones with a Gato amp?  Thanks

 

[Jules_S]

Depending on what headphones you wish to drive, something simple like a Project Headbox S2 could be connected to the line out RCAs. If the 150 functions like the 250 / 400 then you can disable the speaker outputs to use only the RCA out - you may need to ask Frederik at Gato how to do this because the 150's controls differ and I wouldn't know how to do it.

 

[profcliff]

Thank you, Jules. That’s helpful, and something I can do. But out of novice technical curiosity, would that be a case of double-amping, which I’m told will degrade sound quality?

 

[Jules_S]

Well I can't say for definite as I've not done it myself ("yet" - it's in the plans). I believe that the RCA outs are at line level, i.e. after the input switching but before the volume control, so it doesn't involve most of the pre-stage. So you're taking a relatively unmolested signal into the headphone amp to boost it to the level needed for headphones, and to control attenuation.

As I said, I'd check with Frederik because on the 250S you hold down the standby button to enable / disable the speaker outputs (and the source button to enable / disable the home theatre bypass function). On the 150 the standby button does the HT bypass as I understand, and due to the difference in controls (you have rotary input selection) I don't know for definite that the speaker output can be disabled, and if so, how to do it. None of the manuals mention this function unfortunately - I found it out by mistake but couldn't work out what I'd done, I had to call him to find out.

 

[profcliff]

Thank you, Jules. I appreciate your thoughts. 

 

[uzzy]

It really hacks me off these days - 50 years ago when headphones became popular a lot of amps did not have a headphone socket (my Leak Stereo 30 for example) but you could buy a box that had a few resistors in it and a headphone socket and a switch - headphones - speakers or both.  It connected to the loudspeaker outlets on your amp connected your speakers to the headphone box.

Now this arrangement was also used by the electret condenser headphones (they came with their box for the headphones and the same as the headphone box above).

The wonder of this arrangement is you get to use your magnificent amp to drive the headphones (and not have to buy an additional headphone amplifier) - the other wonder of this arrangement was it was very very cheap to produce (even using the most exotic switches and electrical components),

QED used to incorporate headphones on one of their speaker switching boxes too and by god I wish they still did.  All I could find were cheaply made ones now with awful speaker terminals .. but no one is going to convince me that a separate headphone amp is going to work better than your main amp (albeit with a box with a few resistors to cut down the power output).   Here is a link giving an illustration of a speaker switch box with headphone socket      https://gavshop.co.uk/5-way-speaker-switch-with-headphone-output-unbranded-3115-p.asp  or a dearer one (but I bet the same innards but with better speaker terminals)  https://www.avstorm.co.uk/products/b-tech-premium-4-way-speaker-switchbox-with-headphone-socket-bt913   

Now it would be good if some of the techies in here could do a design for us to build in a little box to DIY or perhaps produce it themselves and make a few bob
 

 

[profcliff]

Hi Uzzy, I appreciate your historical perspective. And thanks for the tip on speaker switch boxes. I am not familiar with them but it sounds like you think they would work pretty good to switch between speakers and headphones, and not need a headphone amp.  I will look into that.  Happy New Year