Headphone Amplifier

Headphones can be considered as high quality loudspeakers, but with a much lower power requirement. For this reason, they have distortion levels on an order of magnitude lower than conventional speakers, and therefore are capable of showing up amplifier deficiencies more clearly. What’s more, headphones are one-way systems, with very few exceptions, and for this reason crossovers do not interfere with sound quality. Consequently, a headphone amplifier must offer the best possible sound quality, even at very low volume levels, whilst working not unlike a real power amplifier.

The Canamp, our bestseller headphone amplifier can fulfill all these criteria offering a no-compromise solution in a realistic package. It is the ideal auxiliary amplification for the majority of headphones including many top-class models from all the well-known manufacturers, and even some notoriously low impedance representatives can be driven by the Canamp with astonishingly good results. The synergy of the AKG K701 and the Heed Canamp is legendary.

The Canamp is a two-stage amplifier. While the first – voltage gain – stage is based on an integrated circuit of the highest audio pedigree, the second – power gain – stage is a single-ended, pure Class-A amplifier. It enables the Canamp to drive virtually any headphones from about 30 ohms up to 600 ohms or more. The signal path is kept to a minimum on its PCB, offering a clean and noise-free sound.

The CanAmp not only has a line-level input but offers a line-level output to boot; it can therefore be connected to the TAPE MONITOR output of an amplifier, leaving the TAPE output free for additional components. Gold-plated RCA terminals are used, and soldered directly onto the fiberglass PCB.

How It Works

It is far from us to lose you in technical terms. It is not our aim to teach you our profession or to provide you with numbers that are merely different from other devices. Electronic specifications and “correctness” are just one aspect and not enough to create perfect music reproduction alone.

Even so we ought to enlighten you about some of the specialties that make Heed products distinctive and stand out from the crowd. Naturally it is impossible to make a musical impression by words alone. Should you have the chance to listen to our creations then you can become acquainted with the relationships between the technical and sonic features of our products by studying the following chapters.

Features:

• Two-stage topology
• Class A power amplifier section
• High grade components

Specifications:

• Inputs: 1x analog
• Outputs: 1x 6.35mm headphone / 1x line out
• Frequency response (+0, -1 dB): 10 Hz – 50 kHz
• Input impedance: 10 kΩ
• Power: 300 mW (100 Ω)
• SNR: > 85 dB
• Max. consumption: 15 W
• Weight: 1.2 kg
• Dimensions (W x H x D): 9.5 x 7.5 x 25 cm