At 300 ohms the HD800 is probably not such a good match with the Atom’s headphone amp. I would suggest trying headphones with an impedance around 30 - 50 ohms.
I have Atom + Meze Classic99, it is good match.
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Ultrasone Edition 5 Unlimited (38Ohm) works great on the Uniti Star. I also used it with the AQ Drangonfly red on the iphone
If you want headphone listening as a priority I would look elsewhere than any all in one system like these and Naim. Headphone listening is not there strength or focus.
You could build something much better with just a streamer or pc feeding a , good DAC with Preamp and a good built in headphone stage or this can feed a seperate head amp and is also capable of feeding active speakers. This way you get the best of both words. For that money you could build a very nice system.
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I use a Topping A90 head phone amp to drive my HD800s. I am quite happy with the sound quality and happy to recommend it.
I also tried some Vioelectric V281 in the past and they too seem to work well with the HD800s.
HD800s are not easy to drive, lack deep bass and can sound thin in the treble. Ideally I’d also recommend a source that allows for EQ adjustments. I use Roon which has an inbuilt EQ adjustment function, and the improvements it has made to the HD800 is quite substantial.
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Hi,
I am just wondering : is it possible to plug a headphone amp to the Atom from the Jack and getting headphone’s amplification without losing any sound quality ? Since it’s analogue signal, I guess it would be the Atom’s DAC that handles the conversion.
Is this option possible ?
Hi,
Do have any recommandations of EQ adjustment running for the HD800s ?
You can but it’s low level output not line level and again your essentially have a chain with two preamps and two levels of attenuation. Which always should be avoided. It’s just not worth trying much better results can be achieved with a seperate system or choosing the correct headphone and use the Atoms output. Saying that I always found it lacking to some degree.
Build a system around your needs not try and change a system to it that’s not suited. There are so many options to build a very good headphone system that can also power speakers and maintain the quality.
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Here are my current EQ settings, which I tweaked based on ASR’s recent review of and EQ recommendation for the HD800s.
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When you EQ headphones be careful with boosting frequencies too much as it can clip the preamp input. Looking at your graph I’d be tempted to drop the preamp input slider on the right so that the boosted frequencies are at 0db. You will get a drop in volume but just turn up your headphone amp. I suppose more noise might be introduced here but better that, than distortion.
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Are you applying any headroom in Roon to compensate for the +in bass. ? Or as @adeypoos is saying you will get clipping.
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Thanks for the tip, I haven’t noticed any clipping yet. My EQ adjustments to the HD800s followed recommendation by ASR’s review here:, but I turned everything one or two notches down, nothing exceeding ±6db.
I haven’t noticed any clipping yet, I did try with -3db in headroom, but there wasn’t any noticeable difference.
I would turn it on start at -3db and turn on the clipping indicator so you will notice in the Roon app if any is happening. It might be ok for some but you will likely get some that will clip the samples. I always needed it for any EQs I have made.
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Thank you some much !
Wise advise…I guess I was a little disappointed when I realised the Nova’s do not offer the possibility to plug a good headphone pre-amp and don’t offer a very good built-in headphone out.
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No problem - although recommendation from Crystal on starting with a -3db headroom adjustment is a wise one. That’s what I did as well (I actually started with -6db) but gradually reduced as I wasn’t experiencing any clipping to music.
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Thank you very much.
Something has to give in these all in ones. Naims integrated amps and separates allow connecting external amp via the tape out function which passes through line out to what was a tape deck for recording so this can feed a seperate headamp if required.
Does the Atom have a tape out? Will there be any loss of quality in doing it this way?