Hi Norm,

I tried that. I build a splitter box and tried all sorts of different
configurations of resistors. A few previous newsgroup posters suggested
that, with the high impedance of the Sennheiser 580 Headphones (300 ohm) it
would be okay to run them directly off of my the speaker outputs of my NAD
3020, which puts out aprox. 25 wpc, which I nervously tried.

When listening using the NAD's built-in headphone jack, I need to put the
volume control to between 9:00 and 9:30, especially I'm listening to
classical music. When running the Senns directly off of the speaker outs, I
seem to achieve the same volume at about 8:45 to 9:15 -- not a great
difference. I have a lot of play in the attenuation.

I would be a bit freaked if someone would come into my study and crank up
the volume to the point they would fry my phones, so for safety reasons, I
switch off the headphones whenever I'm not listening to them.

And, for what it's worth, they sound great off of the speaker outs. They
are less boomy than off of the headphone jack and as my ears become older, I
find myself leaning more towards treble and less towards bass, which now
suits me perfectly.

I do appreciate your suggestion.

Roland.

"normanstrong" wrote in message
news:mTOSc.248065$IQ4.5337@attbi_s02...

"Spiderant" wrote in message
news:mXCSc.82158$J06.81198@pd7tw2no...
I've been a lurker on this and other audio groups for two or three
years
now. I'm an amateur audiophile who tries to get the most musical
enjoyment
I can out of budget equipment. I listen mostly to classical music,
but also
enjoy jazz and some contemporary. I've still got some old records
(Heifetz
playing the Kreutzer, for example) that I keep because I can't find
the
music on CD. I try to get the best sound from the most modest
equipment
simply because I'd rather spend my money on music than on equipment
that I
can't hear a difference with (I built a tube pre-amp, experimented
with
trying to hear the sonic differences between carbon and metal film
resistors, and so on). I tune into this and other groups to get
some decent
advice on things like whether I can hook my Sennheiser 580's to the
speaker
outs of my NAD 3020, whether or not I should make the leap to SACD
or DVD
audio, what components have given good pleasure, and so on. After
these few
years, over the various audio newsgroups, there are some posters I
have come
to trust above all others, and who I think are more interested in
audio and
music than slagging others (even if they do, at times, get caught in
maelstroms):

Howard Ferstler
Arny Krueger
Stewart Pinkerton
Tom Nousaine

I'll have to second the motion. I, too, have received much useful
information from the 4 gentlemen above.

As far as your 580's are concerned, you'll find it desirable to divide
down the output of your amplifier before sending it to the headphones.
Otherwise you will have to turn down the volume control so far that
the signal will be competing with the noise of the amplifier.

Norm Strong