Does this Crack specific headphone kit work with other amps?

[Doc B.]

It's optimized specifically for the Crack amp. And it sounds great with the Crack amp. That's what it is designed to work with, the Crack amp. Specifically.

This Crack specific headphone kit is not specifically designed to work with Quickie (by the way, Quickie is a preamp). It's not specifically designed to work with S.E.X. It's not specifically designed to work with Mainline. It's not designed to work with an iPhone. It's designed to sound great with Crack.

[btrancho]

Hopefully folks will get the message now, but frankly Doc, I doubt it.

It's the nature of a strong subset of your customer base to want to tweak, twist and generally muck about with the labors of your love.  Often it makes sense and is even desirable; sometimes its downright silly.

Having spent some time investigating the Monoprice 8323 and the mods that folks have done to it, and having done some mods on another brand headphone, I'm guessing that the Bottleheadphone will sound better than the stock unit with just about any source, simply by the nature of the of any mods that you have devised. 

But it's the synergy with my Crack where I place my faith in you and the other Bottlehead folks.  Sure, I'll definitely hook mine up to other sources using the stock or other custom cables.  But I'm putting my money down for your expertise in developing a closed headphone that sounds great with the Crack.

[Grainger49]

It's optimized specifically for the Crack amp.  .  .  .   

Dan,

This is quickly becoming a FAQ.  Hopefully, with your grace in posting, you can find a way to head it off. 

[Doc B.]

Perhaps it will help if I explain that the stock 8323 sounds better to me on an iPhone than the Crack specific modded one. The more rich lower mid and upper bass performance and the mellowness of the top end found with the stock 8323 work well with the iPhone. This difference is true of the modded 8323 cans even when used with the stock cable, without the added resistance.

So the deal is apparently that the Crack can deliver in an area (lower mid range/upper bass) that might end up lacking when used with other amps due to the added mechanical damping in the cups, and Crack does very well with the series resistance and the more open sounding cable. Whereas these cable and cup mods work against you with more traditional lower impedance sources like iPhones and transformer output amps. The Crackheadphone also sounds different on the Mainline than the Crack. While the higher resolution of the Mainline is somewhat apparent vs. Crack, the bass just doesn't sound as defined and punchy to me from the Mainline thru the Crackheadphone as it does when using the Crack amp with these modded cans.

Horses for courses. This baby is really tweaked for Crack. If folks want to play with modding the 8323 for other sources it might just make more sense to start from scratch since with this can you might have to go back to square one before you can begin to tailor it to other amps.

So now that I have said this the first guy who "discovers" that this headphone sounds better with Crack after comparing it to other amps will win a free

I told you so.

[Grainger49]

Dan,

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi244.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fgg7%2FGrainger49%2FSmiles%2Fthumbsup_zps4d4312f2.gif&hash=fcc4a0e009432b061e176ccb2802f87dcbbe185c)

Well said.

[cspirou]

While it's clear that this headphone is not meant for the other amps in your lineup, is there any reason why this wouldn't work with other 6080 OTL amplifiers?

[Doc B.]

If the 6080 is running as a cathode follower at about the same operating condition, they should work. Will it sound good? I have no idea. This project really was initiated as a Crack amp specific headphone and I have not explored its use with other amps except to verify my expectations of lesser performance with our low output impedance amps.

[cspirou]

Have you tried this with the Crack-a-two amp?

[Doc B.]

We no longer sell this kit, but if you have one it will work well with the Crack-a-two-a.