Headphone amp for AKG K702

I can agree that the Scarlett HP amp is awful; I bought a gen 3 8i6 a while back and returned it the same week. Complete cloudy mess in the low mids and lows (mind you this was with a Beyer DT770pro 250 ohm at the time). Also fun fact, I was reading on the "Audio Science Review" forum a review of one of the Scarlett interfaces (can't recall which one) and the HP-amp measurements were terrible, so it agreed with what I was hearing.

My inclination would be either (a) if your interface has a digital output (spdif, etc), then to look for quality headphone amps that include a quality DAC as well, and send the digital out from the Scarlett to the digital input of the headphone amp, or (b) look into a better interface with better AD/DA and headphone-amp specs. If you get an analog headphone amp, it will still partly depend on the quality of your DA output on the interface - which maybe it just fine, I don't know. Try it first with one or several of those options you mentioned.

Interface-wise, I have found the RME babyface Pro FS and RME UCXii to have good-sounding headphone amps as well as AD/DA for line in and out. I also have an older Lavry Black DA10 DAC which is good.

Sorry my thoughts aren't overly specific for a certain unit that you mentioned, but if you are truly looking for top sound and headphones are the way you will likely go (out of personal preference or necessity), then focusing on quality gear from the ground up should help (in my experience at least).

YMMV

Best,

T

I have a JDS Labs Atom Amp 2 which is great and cost effective. Topping also has one that is arguably a bit better in specs but has slightly lower user ratings and is slightly more money. Audio Science Review has a lot of good info on them.

Also, imo, I'd run correction EQ to get the most out of the K702. It works great with a decent headphone amp with capacity to handle bass extensions K series need. I used K701 for years and thought it was ok, but for me the EQ correction really made a positive difference. I have EQ corrected LCD-X 2021 as my primaries these days, but still use the EQ corrected 701 for others to listen simultaneously in cans with me. Corrected, they're not that different though the 701 is a bit veiled in comparison.

Home Studio _ Desktop PC Win11 Pro /Reaper .Saffire Pro 14(s) set-up.
Beyerdynamic DT 880 Edition _ 600 ohn HDfones, Schitt Audio _ Modi - DAC & Magni HDfone Amp. Cannot comment on alternatives, yet pleased with this combo for several years .... of course ymmv.

I recently picked up a Topping L50.

Audient id14 maybe?

Sebastián collao said:

Audient id14 maybe?

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Not sure if the OP is looking for a new interface. That is one solution, but few if any interfaces are comparable to dedicated headphone amps that aren’t low-end units.

My Clarett4pre was a lot better than my 6i6v2, but had a lot of crosstalk so the imaging suffered. Plenty of power. I changed to a Digiface and Ferrofish recently and those sound cleaner but severely lack power. This my purchase of the clean and reasonably powerful (and reasonably small) Topping L50.

Downside of the separate amp is that if you use the audio interface to feed it, it consumes 2 outputs.

vitocorleone123 said:

Not sure if the OP is looking for a new interface. That is one solution, but few if any interfaces are comparable to dedicated headphone amps that aren’t low-end units.

My Clarett4pre was a lot better than my 6i6v2, but had a lot of crosstalk so the imaging suffered. Plenty of power. I changed to a Digiface and Ferrofish recently and those sound cleaner but severely lack power. This my purchase of the clean and reasonably powerful (and reasonably small) Topping L50.

Downside of the separate amp is that if you use the audio interface to feed it, it consumes 2 outputs.

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True. In some cases though, the interface headphone out will clean up enough going into the 10K impedance of a good headphone amp while its pretty bad driving low impedance cans. Its worth a try to compare the headphone out and the line out into the headphone amp if you're in that situation of needing the outputs. The headphone out buffered with the dedicated amp may be good.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

The Topping L50 seemed interesting, but I decided to take a leap of faith with the JDS Labs Atom 2. The low price and the fact that it doesn't seem to sound cheap makes it a perfect first foray into headphone amps for me.

I'm thinking of getting Sonarworks or something similar somewhere down the line, pretty soon. I was thinking of getting the headphones+speakers bundle to help my speakers sound better in my untreated space as well (but I'm not expecting miracles in that department). At the moment I'm running an EQ curve that I recreated in Apple's NBand EQ from some Reddit post on correcting the headphones.

syrinx said:

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

The Topping L50 seemed interesting, but I decided to take a leap of faith with the JDS Labs Atom 2. The low price and the fact that it doesn't seem to sound cheap makes it a perfect first foray into headphone amps for me.

I'm thinking of getting Sonarworks or something similar somewhere down the line, pretty soon. I was thinking of getting the headphones+speakers bundle to help my speakers sound better in my untreated space as well (but I'm not expecting miracles in that department). At the moment I'm running an EQ curve that I recreated in Apple's NBand EQ from some Reddit post on correcting the headphones.

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I think you'll be happy. An extra $40 for the Topping gets you something with about 2x the power, a bit better sonically, and with more connections (e.g. balanced TRS instead of just RCA) but a more plastic body. However, the JDS is a nice entry amp and will be a noticeable step up from the Focusrite!

I was originally looking at the L70 but it seemed like overkill for my 250ohm DT880 Pros - and it's a lot bigger. Again, it'd be more power, and slightly "cleaner".... worth an extra $180? Nope. In other words: I understand. The L50 is plenty for the foreseeable future.

vitocorleone123 said:

I think you'll be happy. An extra $40 for the Topping gets you something with about 2x the power

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I think that is over the original Atom. The v2 has twice the power of v1 IIRC. I bought one for my kid and it totally hangs with my custom built headphone amp I use with my LCD-X and K701.

syrinx said:

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

The Topping L50 seemed interesting, but I decided to take a leap of faith with the JDS Labs Atom 2. The low price and the fact that it doesn't seem to sound cheap makes it a perfect first foray into headphone amps for me.

I'm thinking of getting Sonarworks or something similar somewhere down the line, pretty soon. I was thinking of getting the headphones+speakers bundle to help my speakers sound better in my untreated space as well (but I'm not expecting miracles in that department). At the moment I'm running an EQ curve that I recreated in Apple's NBand EQ from some Reddit post on correcting the headphones.

Click to expand...

Here are some further DIY corrective EQ examples for the K702 that you could try in AU Lab:

rhizomusicosmos said:

Here are some further DIY corrective EQ examples for the K702 that you could try in AU Lab:

AKG K702: a valid alternative EQ to Harman Curve for you to try

I'd like to offer you all an alternative EQ to the Oratory EQ, it's still done to the Harman Curve but it's using a different set of measurements. Oratory's measurement for the K702 has changed by a large amount over the various versions of pdf's he's released for it, and for my 4 units of K702...

www.audiosciencereview.com

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Thanks! I might try those corrections first, before getting something like Sonarworks.

The Atom is shipping so I'm waiting patiently for the shipping from the US.