What's the best way to hook up a headphone amp?

[moonbeams]

What's the best way to connect a headphone amp to an integrated amp? I wish to retain the bass/treble adjustments from the integrated amp.

I bought a new pair of headphones and was getting terrible sibilance. To fix the problem, I bought an Audio Technica AT-HA21 headphone amp. It has stereo audio imputs and outputs on the back.

Having no experience with a headphone amp, I googled how to connect it and found that I should connect the out of the tape on the integrated amp to the input of the headphone amp.

Doing so gives me a bright sound and NO SIBILANCE.

But I lost the ability to adjust bass and treble. I like my bass up higher than the treble, preferably bass up all the way and treble up halfway.

Is there a way to retain the integrated amps EQ while using a headphone amp?

Thank you.

[kyleevanswastaken]

I assume there is a plug somewhere, you should probably plug it in.

[slinch]

If the way you have it connected (I googled a pic of the back of your unit and only found an "AUX2 OUT" output connection) bypasses the tone controls, the only other way is to run the signal from the headphone output on your unit to your head-amp. The job of the headphone amp is to A: Give enough juice to drive your headphones and B: do so by keeping the signal as linear as possible, while keeping other sound-quality degrading factors to a minimum. If you run the signal like mentioned above, you will keep the A, but lose the B, as the cheaper headphone output on your Denon unit will already do all the damage. Basically the expected result would be SQ of the Denon's headphone output, with more power. But there's definitely no harm in trying, it's possible that the result is more optimistic.

The bright sound you're describing is a culmination of characteristics of each component in your system. A cheaper phono stage most likely lacks proper RIAA equalization, which means - in most cases - brighter sound. The lack of load/capacitance adjustment adds to that as well. The DL-110 cart is also known as being a bit bright. Add all that together and the result unavoidable.

The thing is, even with buying the best components, a good result is not guaranteed. It all boils down to the synergy between those components.

[moonbeams]

Slinch, you have been helpful.

Before posting, I hooked it up to the headphone output, but got lots of white noise.

I have AH-D 1100 which pack a punchy bass (bought them a day before the d5000, but gave them to my fiancé and decided to spoil myself with the 5000s). I hooked them up to the headphone amp and the result sounds good. But I barely notice a difference between the headphone amp and the integrated amp.

I've decided to return the d5000s. They are super comfortable and jazz/classical music sounds absolutely amazing. But I mainly listen to cheaply recorded punk and indie music and the d5000s reveal too much sibilance. My ears don't handle highs too well. I watch YouTube quite a lot and the sibilance is also too high with the D5000s.

I'm might return the ATs as well. The pic you googled is wrong. My model is the 21. It has inputs and outputs.

I think it would be best for me to study more about equiptment and then make a budget plan. The D5000s showed me how good things can sound. I just either don't have the setup to pull them off or I don't have the neural networks to handle the highs.