Final listening station; inexpensive Sennheiser HD 25 for small devices

Shelf over the Schiit Jotunheim amplifier

Bedside. I got a great price on an older Jotunheim (not the Jotunheim 2) with the AK4490 DAC card installed, that I couldn’t pass up. This is for more casual listening; music while reading before bed, maybe the occasional TV show or online lecture series or whatever before bed. (I know I maybe shouldn’t, but, here we are.) But my bedside table is getting a little crowded. At first I put this shelf over the amp, but that put my Belkin charger a bit too high for my iPhone in ___ mode to be effective, so I returned to the well and picked up another 10" square aluminum plate to build another small aluminum shelf to put over the amp. This time I used 4" legs for air flow (2/7 x 4 inch Sign Standoff Screws), since the Schiit is passively cooled and the vents are on the top (the mac mini has a fan and vents out the back, so I wasn’t as worried about leaving space above it). Drill bits to poke holes in the aluminum. It’s a little wobbly but not too bad, and I’m pretty sure I can cure even that with a little bit of threadlocker.

Aluminum shelf over the Schiit Jotunheim amplifier

Rounding out the setup, I swapped the existing power cord for a 2' one that I mated to a switched extension cord so I wouldn’t have to hunt around behind the unit to find the power toggle, and added a USB C to USB B cable to connect computers, iPhone, etc.; a 4' 3.5 mm cable mated to an RCA adapter cable (fingernail polish to differentiate right from left; it’s a poor design), and a 4.4mm to Dual XLR Male Balanced cable to connect to an iFi Zen Blue 3 Bluetooth receiver I picked up used.

Schiit Jotunheim connections

(I’m remembering a MAD Magazine joke - or maybe it was in Cracked? - where one guy is showing off his “Hi-Fi system” to a friend, who asks: “When are you going to be done adding stuff to this?!” The owner points to the as-yet unconnected RCA jacks on the back of the main unit and replies something to the effect of, “when all of these are used up!” ... Yeah.)

Sennheiser HD 25 headphones are awesome for small devices

Meanwhile, after reading a glowing review of the Sennheiser HD 25 (“the HD25 was made primarily for DJs, but it just so happens to be the perfect headphone for Metal and also Pop ... the HD25’s transient response is magnificent for these types of fast genres that rely on lightning-quick chord and note changes ... the bass response is splendid, and the resolution, especially for a closed-back on-ear (Supra-Aural) headphone is hard to beat in this price range ... a “fun” headphone on steroids”), and seeing them drop well below their lowest selling price to date, I picked up a pair cheap to use with, e.g., the iPod mini. Although 70 Ω, they’re incredibly efficient (120 dB(1 kHz,1 Vrms); converts to 108.5 dB (1 mW)), and the diminutive iPod powers them easily, no external amplification required. It’s got me thinking an inexpensive second-hand Sony NW-A105 might be a good DAC, no balanced output or higher powered on board amp required ...

Sennheiser HD 25 headphones