You Cannot Afford this Audiophile Grade CMoy Headphone Amplifier

[geekwithfamily]

I'm putting together a typical Audiologica CMoy Altoids Mint Tin headphone amp. The electronic components needed for the amp are less than $40. I hope this gives me great performance when I install it between my iPod and my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 in-ear headphones.
But what if money were no object? How much would it cost to build the ultimate audiophile CMoy amp? Find out below.

All the audiophile/exotic grade components listed below are from Michael Percy Audio (except the Vishay resistors). I rediscovered Percy Audio yesterday while looking up an old invoice to figure out what fancy silver solder I bought a few years ago to mod an old Pioneer DVD/Laserdisc player. The solder is WBT 4% Silver and I still have a good length for many headphone amp projects. I had forgotten about Percy as I haven't been into modding and tweaking since I ruined the afore mentioned Pioneer player. Michael Percy is easy to deal with and if you're serious about modding existing electronic components, DIY cables, or damping materials you should check out his often updated catalog [PDF].
The Ultimate Audiophile CMoy Headphone Amplifier

1. 2x 1.0 UFD 100V Exotica TFT Cap by Reliable Capacitor = $175.50 ea.
2. 2x 470 UFD 50V Black Gate Standard Elect Radial Cap = $6.50 ea.
3. 9x Vishay Resistors (from Parts Connexion) = $6.00 ea.
4. Total of other parts Percy doesn't sell (same opamp, headphone jacks, etc. as normal CMoy) = $24.24

Total = $442.24

So, this version of the CMoy only (heh) costs 11 times the amount of my current project. Would the sonic benefit of these high priced parts really give your iPod and headphones the audiophile push they need? I can't afford to build one, but maybe you can. I'm sure members of the Headwize and Head-Fi forums have already tried these exotic parts and can weigh in. I'm just
What other extravagances can you think of to improve the performance of our lowly Altoids Headphone Amplifier? Are there more modestly priced components that will give you a better bang for your mega-buck?
Tags: altoids Audiophile diy headphone amplifier modding Portable Electronics silver solder vishay resistorsaltoids, Audiophile, diy, headphone amplifier, modding, Portable Electronics, silver solder, vishay resistors

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[kismet]

Hi,
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents about the headphone amp. The main problem I see is that no matter how good the headphone amp is, you're still limited by the fidelity of the Ipod output feeding the amp and by the AAC compression used by ITunes. Those limitations come before the 'phone amp and can't be overcome. The main advantage would be the extra gain you would get to drive those really nice earphones! I think anything more than the $40 you're planning to spend would be overkill.
-Lee

[Wayde]

If you're just doing a pet project to squeeze as much performance out of a Cmoy headphone amp as you can, that can be fun on its own. Testing out some higher performance solder and transistors, I'm sure the head-fi forum you mentioned in your post will have some interesting recipies.

The real advantage to Cmoy is low cost and portability. If you do your head-fi listening stationary (like me) and have a bit of budget to play with you have a bit more leeway. I use this tube headphone amp at my desk at work and love it with Grado Labs headphones. I use my iPod but also have a Pioneer universal DVD player (563A) that lets me pop in CDs or even DVD audio/sacd. Although usually I'm using the iPod with 320 bit AAC and Apple Lossless files.

[geekwithfamily]

Kismet-- I have a 2G iPod (like an 80's cell phone these days) so, yes, I'm stuck with AAC files and I'm at the mercy of finding the unity gain on the iPod's volume (and double amping). For more modern iPods (3G and up) with the dock connector you can get Sendstation's PocketDock w/ Line Out to get a clean line level signal out to an amp. Combine this with Apple Lossless tracks and you should have a sweet sounding portable set up.

As a sidenote to the ridiculously expensive amp: I think I remember reading on one of the forums that Black Gate caps need 200 hours of break-in before they sound good.

Wayde: I'll be sure to check out your video when I get a free moment.

[Wayde]

I never thought AAC was all that bad?? Isn't it supposed to be higher resolution bit-per-bit than MP3?

So a 320bit AAC is a better rendition than a 320bit MP3.

I know it might be splitting hairs because any 'audiophile' worth his salt will discount them all as shabby.

[geekwithfamily]

Wayde -- AAC is great when compared to MP3s, but still lossy. Whether you can tell the difference over headphones is another story. Most of my portable music library is encoded only at 128 or 192 AAC and it sounds great on my way to work.

The quality of ripping and compression is another matter. I know many proponents of digital, harddrive based audio swear by ripping with EAC and compressing 320 MP3s with the LAME encoder. If storage space is not an issue (like on your home network) you can listen to AIFFs, FLAC or Apple Lossless.

To split hairs even more, really any format with a sampling rate is "lossy." Time to break out the vinyl and reel-to-reel tape.

[JCD]

I think before anyone over at Headwize (more of the DIY crowd) or Head-Fi would build your uber-Cmoy, I'd think they'd try PPA or Pimenta first -- assuming they wanted to keep it portable. BTW, here is a thread that details the current DIY amps.. or at least a good portion of them.

That being said, I'm not sure what extra fidelity you'd get from the uber-boutique parts. Of course, I'm still curious...

JCD