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Yes, the Active Placette would drive headphone, still I do not like the sound. I get way more proper sound when Placette driver my “big” system then what is drivers headphone. I use headphone quite aggressively but mostly for “technical listening” (like fine-dial the antenna attenuation to get better noise on FM). Placette does to headphone very good “quality” but it is very amusical quality. The HF-MF range with Placette into headphones is brilliant but it is not supported by proper harmonics – so who need that “brilliant midrange”. There is not bass at all and the lower MF range is very-very sharp. The upperbass is insultingly fast and overly round – very unpleasant. It very much reminding the sound of Kharma-Magico, only with even more ridicules extreme.

I think the truth is the Placette has no power to drive this thing, even I asked Guy to bias the out transistor as hot as heatsinks might handle but I think it did not help and my Placette still has no power to drive my 75R headphone. Saying it I feel that the headphone jack is very useful feature on Placette – extremely convent and very useful. Juts I feel that Placette’s headphones should be used for no other purpose then for monitoring.

Surely Placette has no of the above quality what it driver the higher impedance. I usually use double-load test to found out if the output stage with an acceptable load.  To simplify for you might do the following: driver big system with Placette and get the reverence how it sounds. When connect the headphone (not via the Placette jack and it will mute the main system’s output). Pay attention if the sound of your main playback changes. In my case it goes to toilet right the way. That is the sign that the amp should not drive the given load. My rule is that an amp should be able to drive with no sonic impact at least the half impedance.

I have to note though that I use top of the line and the near-bottom of the line Audiotechnica headphones, with the near-bottom of the line being my reference headphones (ATH-M40fs) . The Placette’s Guy disagrees with my findings about the Placette’s headphone sound. He feels that Placette sound very fine with headphones. He uses Sennheiser 650. I did not try any other headphones besides those that I already have.

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