Making a Sansamp GT-2 drive a pair of headphones?

[therecordingart]

I know that seems a little nuts, but I absolutely hate the POD. How would one go about doing this or building an analog version of a POD (minus all of the effects)?

[petemoore]

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/content/category/6/13/26/
 
 I'd use an amplifier, it'll need to be able to drive a fair amount of current through a low impedance [speakers].

 http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/content/view/15/26/

 It's quite possible you have a well designed low voltage amplifier right there that you used to listen to soundclips with [right before you got the upgrade computer speakers?]..if not you can find them for ~/<2 buxx...splice or clip on some input connections, If there is no headphones output [many have it] headphones connect where the speakers went [matching jack to headphone plug recommended]
 Turn the volume down, Power it up [don't exceed a rated voltage] and see what happens.

[liquids]

I've done a headphone amp project recently, and it was very satisfying build.  I use it all the time now.  I never thought I'd say this, as I was always the "turn up a tube amp so you can practice with the 'feel' of loud volume" type, but I'm mostly cured of that.   Headwise has some good projects to build from (cmoy, etc).

Really, in the end, all you need is a dual 5532 chip. That is, an op amp that has less than 1 ohm output impedance. You can get fancier and more expensive (OPA chips), but the 5532 is working great for me.   2x 386 chips can do it too.  Each channel will drive a headphone, which are sometimes as low as 8 ohm loads.  Use 220uF caps on the output for maximum bass to drive headphone loads.

In addition to that you'll want some want to configure something for volume / gain to drive the headphones at a good volume.  So add a volume control of some kind in there probably.  Make sure you take loading and impedances into account.

At that, the sansamp may have some speaker simulation, but for any other uses you want some *active* filtering (which is what most speaker sims and Tech 21 schems I've seen use) to shave off everything above at least 6k (if not 5k, 4k, 3k, etc) sharply, maybe with some control.

Likewise, I've found some mid dip a necessity - this is often lacking in the 386 amp projects.  Guitar preamps almost ALWAYS have a mid dip as compared to highs and lows no matter how the EQ is set, generally speaking.  You can do this with a simple passive network or a full out active 3 band baxandall tone control.

So it can be as simple as a box that has a volume control at the input, into a buffer and then in two 386 with huge caps on the output.  Or it can be as complex as adding some preamp EQ and speaker simulation for more realistic tones, driving a 'select' op amp, adding in an aux input (for music or drum machine etc) and some mixer stages to mix the guitar and aux input source in stereo, as complex as you want.  

And it really matters that you have good sounding headphones.  They become your speakers.   You can easily spend $99 on Grados.  But I've been *extremely* happy with the Koss KSC75, and they are has at less than $15 in many cases.   If you prefer earbuds, even the cheapo Jbuds I have are not bad at all.