What you are describing is a preamplifier. My Quad 33 (2024 edition) has MM/MC phono, balance control, a low impedance high output headphone amp and as a bonus, excellent tone controls. It is also compact in size and quite reasonable in price. I drive Sennheiser HD660S cans and it is very satisfactory. After I got it I sold off an outboard phono preamp and headphone amp I used previously with my “spartan” C-J linestage. Very happy with the move…
Integrated Headphone amp with moving coil phono stage
I am moving to headphone only listening and just sold off my integrated amp. I would prefer to get a single unit headphone amps and moving that includes a moving coil phono stages but and balance control, but can't seem to find anything that matches.
Does anyone know if this exists?
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Unfortunately there’s almost zero market in hifi for the intersection of these things, so anything you come across that gets close is almost certain to use low cost off-the-shelf chip based solutions for most (if not all) of the functions you require:
If you care about quality (which is presumably why you’re here), you’d be far better off with a dedicated phono stage plus a dedicated headohone amp, each of good quality with discrete circuitry. Schiit Audio makes this kind of stuff with a good bang-for-buck. I would also recommend Hagerman Labs - more for the phono side there, but he does have a headphone amp too. I’m an old head-fi guy and if I was starting from scratch today I’m getting an old dynalo (Kevin Gilmore Dynamic), dynamid, dynahi, or GS-X build, whatever I can find, and calling it a day. Maybe an EARMAX or similar OTL if I want to go the other way and wallow in glorious double-digit distortion. Maybe both! But getting a balance control too is going to be tough, without adding a 3rd box and degrading quality with a cheap potentiometer. |
Hi OP This may be $$$ but the Mark and Levinson No 523 has the phono pre-amp. headphone driver and quite possibly the balance control you all needed If this fits what you need, please check this out.
Mark Levinson #523: 6-input dual mono Pre-amplifier - Stereocheck
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