Good cheap headphone amps?

Back when I was using personal tape players the volume was more than adequate to drive a mid-market pair of headphones, like the Sennheiser 457's. But now I'm using tapes less and less (arent we all) and I find my MD portable
(Sony MD-MZN505) to be lacking in volume. Meaning I still find the highest volume (at 30) to be comfortable. I think the amps in most personal portables are at only 5mw to save on battery power.
I have purchased both the Koss EQ 30 & 5.0 which take 2 AAA batteries are are about half the size of a cassette tape, the 30 more like a small cube, the 5.0 is more like a card. The battery life is excellent (usally well over 50 hours).The older model, the 30, has better controls but both seem to be kind of noisy. It seems they pick up high frequency noise from TV stations, power lines, and cell phones very easily.
Poor sheilding I guess. Anyway I'm wondering if the Radio Shack 3-way volume booster (cat 33-1109) is any better than the Koss EQ's.
It would be nice to get a nice portable amp without hearing the loud splatter from cell phones (which are just about everywhere now) and the hash and beeps from power lines.
I dont think power lines are even supposed to emit high frequency noise but they do. I dunno if its from utility equipment or not. I never get it from transmission lines, usually its the local distribution lines at fault.
Anyway the noise is annoying. I wish they made some type of bag you could place your portable gear in to protect it from RF noise. Though I guess the headphone wire could be acting as an antenna to pick it up, but I've tried shortening it, doesnt do much to alleviate the problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I haven't tried any headphone amps, but the obvious first places to look are www.headphone.com for commercial units to buy, and www.headwize.com for projects to build yourself. The simplest appears to be the pocket headphone amplifier by C. Moy (go to www.headwize.com, then click on library, then click on projects; scroll down to op-amp based amplifiers):
http://headwize2.powerpill.org/proje...=cmoy2_prj.htm

Headwize also has forums where folks could answer any questions you might have. Good luck.

Jason

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnCM

Back when I was using personal tape players the volume was more than adequate to drive a mid-market pair of headphones, like the Sennheiser 457's. But now I'm using tapes less and less (arent we all) and I find my MD portable
(Sony MD-MZN505) to be lacking in volume. Meaning I still find the highest volume (at 30) to be comfortable. I think the amps in most personal portables are at only 5mw to save on battery power.
I have purchased both the Koss EQ 30 & 5.0 which take 2 AAA batteries are are about half the size of a cassette tape, the 30 more like a small cube, the 5.0 is more like a card. The battery life is excellent (usally well over 50 hours).The older model, the 30, has better controls but both seem to be kind of noisy. It seems they pick up high frequency noise from TV stations, power lines, and cell phones very easily.
Poor sheilding I guess. Anyway I'm wondering if the Radio Shack 3-way volume booster (cat 33-1109) is any better than the Koss EQ's.
It would be nice to get a nice portable amp without hearing the loud splatter from cell phones (which are just about everywhere now) and the hash and beeps from power lines.
I dont think power lines are even supposed to emit high frequency noise but they do. I dunno if its from utility equipment or not. I never get it from transmission lines, usually its the local distribution lines at fault.
Anyway the noise is annoying. I wish they made some type of bag you could place your portable gear in to protect it from RF noise. Though I guess the headphone wire could be acting as an antenna to pick it up, but I've tried shortening it, doesnt do much to alleviate the problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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i dont kow if this will help much, but for home listening your receiver or stereo system is all the amplifier your headphones will need.

-Joey

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnCM

Anyway I'm wondering if the Radio Shack 3-way volume booster (cat 33-1109) is any better than the Koss EQ's.
It would be nice to get a nice portable amp without hearing the loud splatter from cell phones (which are just about everywhere now) and the hash and beeps from power lines.

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Just ran across this:
http://www.pcavtech.com/pwramp/boostaroo/

Makes me think that the RS part is worth trying. You can always return
it if you hate it. Good luck.

Jason

That might help.