Thread for the diy Whammy headphone amp
Really nice SS amp for the money if you comfortable with the build.
Would take it over say a Jotenheim. Competitive with Liquid Platinum, though a somewhat different sound.
Easy build if your comfortable soldering on a PCB, heatsinks do require a decent iron to solder.
If you do build one, leave some length on the legs of the capacitors around the op amp socket, some discrete op amps will over hang the socket.
Mine has a Burson Classic v6 opamp in it, but it sounds good with much cheaper options.
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I will be building one in January. I’ll post my build log here when I do. Waiting on the last parts and I need to order a case still!
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Very different I’d say. WHAMMY is darker (regardless of opamp), has better tone density. LP has better separation, microdetail and, blackground. Despite LP’s advantage in power (6.6 watts vs ~0.5 watts) WHAMMY does macro better.
Both are relatively chill and musical as opposed to clinical/technical.
Overall the LP comes out ahead based on technical attributes.
I’ve been contemplating building a balanced dual mono WHAMMY with all discrete regulators and op amps just to see what it will sound like but that’s number 137 in the project queue lol.
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Having lived with my Whammy build for a month and more distance from the ego involved in building it, I have had some time to try and have a more critical ear.
Opamps do make a difference with this amp. Not a huge one but an audible one. I’ve mostly used a Muse 01 up until now. It gave it a very nice tone - very similar to the RNHP but with slightly more staging. A slightly drier sound than the RNHP.
Today I swapped in a Burson V5i. This was interesting. The sound is more three dimensional, not in width but in depth. It feels like sounds are moved relatively closer or further to front or back instead of only wider. I also noticed that while there was now a touch less definition in the upper mids compared to the RNHP, the lower mids into bass are more separated and this makes that three dimensionality more prominent. It brings out drums in a different way and puts slightly less emphasis on guitars as they sound very slightly less full.
Effects on some headphones:
- Focal Elegia just seem to like the Whammy regardless for me.
- This has made the HD-660s sound less congested and more rounded out. Much less narrow.
- The DT-880 600 ohm sound quieter and less impressive with the V5i. They really miss the upper mids.
I listened to Planet Caravan, 2012 remaster, by Black Sabbath a fair bit to tease this out as it has passages of heavier and quieter sound as well as a variety of instruments in varying combinations. To my ear it can also sound wonderfully atmospheric and complex or stuffy and rough depending on the amp and headphones - I find it either delights me or I just can’t, depending how it gets presented.
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In case anyone is interested - no one I actually know off the internet could care a fig 
, I have recently finished rebuilding the Whammy. I wasn’t happy with the quality of work and I learnt so much I knew I could do a much cleaner build. Also and most importantly I just really wanted to do it again.
I reused all of the large caps but replaced everything else. For the smaller parts as a matter of ease since I had no wish to de-solder all of those!
I made one change by replacing the transformer with a toroidal transformer. Mostly to learn how and partly for aesthetics.
It was a much, much quicker job and I completed the rebuild in about two hours and remounting in the chassis took another two as I was trying to get some nice clean cable runs.
So now a small confession. I’ve been very sceptical of those of you who are absolutely sure you hear a difference from a cable, or a power source. No judgement, whatever makes your fun flow is fine by me. However… I swear blind I can hear a difference in this rebuild. Whether through better work or because of the change in transformer type I have no idea but it just sounds a bit more lively. Funk bounces with a little more spring? It just dances a little bit. Really hard to pinpoint, no idea if it is a factual or subjective difference but it doesn’t matter as I am really enjoying it.
Also it does look cool and I made it.
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Nabbed another one!
But yeah, so much makes differences. I would think for you the transformer would be doing it but cleaning up any wiring can help keep the signal clean.
Heck yeah you did! Great work btw, very impressive. We need to get you a bhc kit stat!
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Damn you all!!!
I think it most likely is the transformer too but I can’t rule out other variations. I really would not have expected the way the power is delivered to have an effect. It’s in the range of the change I heard moving up to the BF2. Small, subtle but there if you listen carefully.
Weird and kind of cool. Now I have to think about power too dammit!
Thank you so much. I am unreasonably proud of myself. Btw, I learnt to solder at school - all kids had to along with basic woodwork, sewing and cooking. Most useful life skills school gave me.
I think I will have to save up for a BHC. I keep looking at the guts of those and it does look like a fun build. Nice to have something to aim for as I was thinking that my setup is just about complete for a few years to come.
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I know Paul at PS audio has stated that they get significant differences from the gauge of wire used in power transformer windings even for the same winding ratios, claiming that larger gauge windings with less overall impedance give better results.
FWIW while I can justify the claim, the measurable electrical characteristics change, I’m not sure really what it would be doing, but I feel the same way about all power changes, I hear the difference, but I’m not sure I’d want to argue the Why or How of it.
If you start looking at the very expensive components the amount of $$ in the PSU relative to the other components just sky rockets, so clearly manufacturers think there is something to it.
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I have been thinking about your reply.
I’m thinking it might be just an animal senses thing. In the same way some animals seem to sense impending weather changes, earthquakes and so on it really would not surprise me to find out own senses can do some pretty unexpected things that fall outside what we general understand their capabilities to be.
Not just sensory either but perception. I’m thinking of all those electrical whines that drive me nuts and the my partner just looks at me blankly about when I point them out. While she can hear a sound that will seem to drown out all others and I can happily tune out.
I am struck by the idea that this is the the assumption of pure objectivism. The idea that we know absolutely everything about how we perceive sound and interpret it and there is nothing yet unknown that might alter that. If you assume this then it is reasonable to say “these measurements tell you everything about what you can hear”. Conversely the assumption of pure subjectivism might be that no measurements are of any value at all because they describe nothing of value to the experience.
This is probably getting a bit off topic though so I shall leave it there.
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I think it’s both more and less complicated that that.
We can almost certainly measure the difference, though it’s going to involve more that a sine sweep.
Whether you can correlate a particular quality to a single simple measurement however is highly questionable.
This becomes obvious if you do anything with machine learning, it all in the end comes down to “feature selection” and often useful features are not a single measurement. For example temperature or pressure might vary wildly in a system, and tell you nothing in isolation, but if temperature is rising while pressure is falling, it could be indicative of something.
I think if you were going to actually study this, you’d have to first quantify what someone was hearing, you won’t find a decent DAC that doesn’t measure entirely flat through and beyond the audible frequency range, yet people will consistently use descriptions like stronger Bass, or Peaky Treble. How they describe what they perceive is clearly not correlated to the measurement, so the first step is to establish what they are perceiving, and why they describe it as a change in frequency response.
Changes in power cables in particular are the epitome of I can’t justify this but I can hear it. There is just a limit to effect it can have. And it’s hard to digest that a few 10’s of mV of additional noise or fractions of an Ohm in impedance change could have that big an impact.
If you accept that a cable can make a change to the output, then clearly absolutely everything inside the system is important.
I refuse to even listen to expensive fuses because I just don’t want to know.
My viewpoint on this at this point is, measurements will tell you if a device is “broken”, and while you should always question if the difference you hear is meaningful, you should believe your ears.
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Interesting, thanks. Learnt a lot. I mostly am coming at it as a philosophical question so it’s awesome to get a scientific / engineering view.
In general I think we share the same attitude.
This is the bit I think makes it (so far) impossible I reckon? I don’t think we can assume people are even talking about the same things when they use the same words. We try to. We hope so but… do we really know? It’s fascinating and I love this kind of uncertainty in knowledge and perception. I think it is the space that art lives in and one of the aspects that makes this hobby so interesting to share opinions on and discuss. Learn something every time.
I generally agree, but when enough people use the same or similar words to describe the same difference you can infer that their perception is likely similar. Though you do have to be a little careful here because often those people talk to each other, and it’s unclear if the meaning of the language is evolving to match the perception.
I’m sure you can’t ever “know” what is being perceived, but we can weigh evidence.
The other mistake I see made in equating measurements to experience is the assumption that perception is instantaneous that what I heard 10s or a minute ago is not impacting what I perceive now. In fact I think there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that some of what we perceive like stage are in fact not pure functions of phase and frequency but are built over time. Anecdotally, as I think I’ve said before, I couldn’t hear the difference between two very different DAC’s in fast A/B switching but listening for a minute or two the differences were very obvious to me.
I think the philosophical discussion is interesting as well.
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Totally agree with this. The discussion is what happens when we grope towards common understanding and build shared experiences.
I think I am busy with this as between this experience changing the transformer and with acquiring a BF2 not so long ago I’ve had a very sudden introduction in the last couple of months to some experiences I’ve seen people discussing for the last couple of years on forums and had not been able to experience myself. It’s fascinating to see how much of what I thought was being described matches up with the experiences I am now having that are worth comparing. Very interesting stuff and I really appreciate having this place to think aloud in.
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An amplifier is a product of its PSU. Power supply ripple greatly influences everything. A common effect of lower ripple is better driver control - generally heard as tighter bass. Power supply headroom leads to better blackground. Etc. etc. All these things are both measurable and easily heard.
If you go ahead with the BHC, after you get used to it, replace the first resistor in the CRCRC with a choke and replace the rectifier diodes with Schotkys. Then listen to it again.
All manufacturers know the importance of a PSU. The good ones charge a lot because a good PSU costs a lot. The bad ones charge a lot simply because they know that most people don’t know any better.
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