I've just changed my laptop over to ASIO drivers in Traktor, and WOW what a difference that makes, even with my cheap Sony headphones....they're sounding pretty damn good now, and were only £10! I think it goes to prove that the soundcard in my laptop is a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing when used with a decent driver. Thanks for the head's up.

I'm keen to see what it can do with a decent pair of cans.

Standard windows drivers produced clicks about every 60 seconds with a Behringer 24/96 A2D firewire device. The ASIO drivers used in Sony Sound Forge stopped that.

I didn't have any clicking problems, but using the ASIO drivers has really cleaned up the top end, it's lovely and crisp. My headphones used to sound muffled, I thought it was the phones, and it turned out not to be the case. It was really annoying me as I can't really carry about my Saffire Pro 26 with me, my laptop bag's heavy enough as it is.

I have just built a couple of different portable triode headphone amplifiers based on the JAN 6418 sub-mini pentode tube. Back-end is a PT2308 opamp/headphone driver chip. Its nice to sit in the train with my Cowon S9, portable triode headphone amp and Phiaton MS400 leather and carbon fibre headphones. Not too many portable triode headphone amps on the market!!

I noticed that build earlier on. I'm liking the idea of that one. I've yet to dip my toes in the water of using valves, so that would be an ideal start. I wonder if they will ship to the UK.

Kind regards, John.

Check this out, AND they will ship to UK for about £15!! Tubey goodness....but portable... QUALITY... i'm gonna get one of these soon, been itchin to clik 'BUY', but i just spent £138 on some HD600's that the missus doesn't know about yet....

http://secure.oatleyelectronics.com//pr ... cts_id=805

Have you ever tried to explain why a pair of headphones could cost that much when..."they sound the same as...THOSE---->£2.50 earbuds that came with a generic mp3 player...(this was said about my £50 grado SR60's!!!) lol, it's a losing battle, especially at 'THIS" time of the month...

They ship fine. They are tiny valves about the diameter of a pencil and the glass is thick. You can order from Oatley Electronics here in Australia direct. I shipped the kit and the upgrade parts (the kit comes with low grade passives) to a Jonathan in Sommerset UK for $AU75 including a Burr-Brown OPA2134 chip just a few days back.

This is the kit to purchase. As I said though the resistors, some caps and chip sockets are low grade. For a few extra bucks you can enhance the whole project. I've built about six of them-preamps/headphone amps.

@ mwhouston, can you report on the sound from these little amps... obviously i know it's all subjective, but a "mini-review" would be great and i'm sure many others would also be interested!!

Also, if in the uk, good quality parts to replace the generic passives, sockets etc can be had from http://uk.rs-online.com/web/

I have shopped with them many times and found that they are excellent on price as well as dispatch/delivery times, for example, the BB OPA2132/4 can be had for about 3 quid.

P.S. MW, Is that your amp, or a copy/paste...I'm sure i've seen those pics before, have you posted them in another forum, on here maybe, or head fi??

EDIT: I just checked, the OPA2134PA is £1.83 in the DIP8 package!!

Yes, that is Mark's build. You likely saw the build pictures on the JAN6418 Valve (Tube) Preamplifier / Headphone Amp Kit page.