DIY Audio Projects Forum

Class-A Headphone Power Amplifier with IRF610 and LM317 CCS
Please feel free to ask your questions and post comments about the DIY IRF610 Class-A Headphone Power Amplifier Project in this thread.

FAQ
I can't find an IRF610. What alternate MOSFET can I use?
IRF510, IRF610, IRF611 or IRF612 are all suitable and work well in this buffer circuit. Stay away from IRF530, IRF540, IRF630 and IRF640 types which are commonly found in SMPS as there will be a terrible roll-off of the high-end response.

IMPORTANT POSTS
{coming soon}

Similar Headphone Amplifiers

• Szekeres Headphone Amplifier (Reloaded rev.3) - forum thread
• NP-100v12: DIY 12AU7 (ECC82) Tube / IRF510 MOSFET Headphone Amplifier - project page

== Original Post ==
All this F5 talk has got me horny for a Class A amplifier, so here is a little headphone amplifier project that I am just putting the finishing touches on. It is my first real solid state project and it seems like a good starting point before I tackle something serious.

It uses an IRF610 MOSFET and a LM317 regulator as a constant current source. Below is a shot of the head amp built on a Radio Shack protoboard. The amplifier circuit is a MOSFET follower with a CCS load.

It came together rather easily. At first I tried it with a unregulated wall wart power supply. Major hum. Below is a shot of additional capacitance on the supply and connecting the power ground to the signal ground through a parallel cap and resistor. It reduced the hum by quite a bit, but there was still enough hum to make it annoying. Adding another cap and a small inductor helped to reduce the hum some more, but through headphones you only need a little hum to make it annoying during quiet parts of a song.
With a regulated wall wart power supply, there is no hum and this headphone amp sounds nice from an mp3 player or computer. Gain is less than one (I measured ~0.8) so you need a good voltage drive - the output from a portable mp3 player or computer sound card were sufficient to drive 16 to 100 ohm headphones.

PROJECT PAGE - DIY IRF610 Class-A Headphone Power Amplifier

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[ DIY Mains AC Power Cable Cord ] - [ Gobo LM1875 Amp Kit ] - [ Tang Band D4-1 Horn Speaker Kit ] - [ Monoblock Push-Pull KT88 Tube Amp Kit ]

Cool project Gio. Is this your own design? How did you decide on this circuit?
Ri

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DIY Lightspeed Passive Attenuator

It is mainly the Szekeres headphone amplifier http://headwize.com/projects/showproj.p ... dd_prj.htm with a CCS. I decided to go with this one since I have been wanting to try something solid state and class-A for a while now and because I had all the parts for this project on hand.

I'll get more details posted shortly.

Cheers

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[ DIY Mains AC Power Cable Cord ] - [ Gobo LM1875 Amp Kit ] - [ Tang Band D4-1 Horn Speaker Kit ] - [ Monoblock Push-Pull KT88 Tube Amp Kit ]

Ok, full details about this build have been added to the website. See the DIY IRF610 MOSFET Class A Headphone Amplifier Project page for more information, photos and a schematic.

Below is a final shot of the amplifier. I stuffed it into an external CD-ROM enclosure. The end use for this head amp will be work, so this is the perfect enclosure as it will sit next to a computer.
The sound is very good and really improves the listening experience from a portable mp3 player. It drives a pair of Grado SR80 headphones nicely.

Soon I will have to try a Solid State Class A project for speakers!

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[ DIY Mains AC Power Cable Cord ] - [ Gobo LM1875 Amp Kit ] - [ Tang Band D4-1 Horn Speaker Kit ] - [ Monoblock Push-Pull KT88 Tube Amp Kit ]

Wow, what a great idea. I just love it. We have a bunch of old external cdroms at work and I bet I can score one. What power supply from radio shack will work with this?

Any regulated wall wart should be fine. 750mA should be fine. While I have not tried this one from Radio Shack 273-029, it says it will go up to 12V and 1A. That should do the trick. I would try find one that is closer to 15V.

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[ DIY Mains AC Power Cable Cord ] - [ Gobo LM1875 Amp Kit ] - [ Tang Band D4-1 Horn Speaker Kit ] - [ Monoblock Push-Pull KT88 Tube Amp Kit ]

Thank you

Gio,
With the LM317 configuration, does it get as warm as the mosfet?

It is pretty hard to tell with the heat sinks in place and bolted to the chassis as they barely get warm. But if I was to guess, I would say the MOSFET gets warmer than the LM317. The temperature is about the same to the touch, but the heat sink I used on the MOSFET is larger.

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[ DIY Mains AC Power Cable Cord ] - [ Gobo LM1875 Amp Kit ] - [ Tang Band D4-1 Horn Speaker Kit ] - [ Monoblock Push-Pull KT88 Tube Amp Kit ]

Gio
You hit the nail on the head when you said even a little hum in headphones is akin to driving kitchen forks in your eyes. Not your exact words but for sure you have to have a dead quiet PS when driving headphones. Batteries are best but in high drain devices, not practical. As you are well aware I have been enjoying my headphone driver (HPd) "Woody" for a week now. My PS is a 24V 3.5A computer power pack and is fully regulated. I have a 10uf poly snubbed by a .1uf poly sitting across the supply internally to the driver. Though the hum was well in the background, on very quiet passages or between tracks the hum was just there but a distraction (kitchen folks!). The hum completely vanishes with an additional 5600uf cap across the supply but I could not get this into an already crammed case. I could fit a 2200uf cap though and this is sufficient. But in WoodyII I will include an additional 5600uf cap on the PS to kill Mr Hum once and for all.

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Projects: "Lagoon" - tube preamp with cathode follower | "retro-Oatley 6J6" - 6J6 push-pull headphone amp with OPTs | "retro-Hiraga" - Jean Hiraga Le Monster
Website: retro-thermionic