rant: Headphone amps are overrated

[ablaze 0]

I have to admit I don't know too much technically about connecting straight from the RCA outputs of typical CDplayers, but others who've done it seem to not have too much problem with it. although as I said, I don't pretend to know the technical aspects of doing this anyway, thats not what I was ranting about. As I said, the PCDP and soundcard people would probably be more able to relate to what I said in the first post

 

btw,

Jazz's original thread on the "direct-path"

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread....ght=direct+path

With my DAC's line-out signal feeding a headphone directly, just attenuated by some resistors (or the potentiometer, respectively), the sound is more direct (not necessarily spacially), more accurate and also more meager and «dry» than with any of the comparative amps: X-Cans, EMP and Corda Blue. Details are more easily audible and clearer, especially in the treble (I think that's naturally the range where details are located). Each time an amp is in the signal path, the sound seems to gain in coherence and warmth, on the other hand lose some of the clarity, transparency, transient speed and resolution the puristic connection provides. The effect is very much the same independent of the headphone, but with different results in terms of my personal preferences.

now doesn't that sound like its at least worth a TRY?

The following my not be relevant but just to share my personal experience in an experiment that bypasses the pre-amp and hook up a Marantz CD6000ose cdp direct to the power amp.

 

With one link removed from the usual cdp > preamp > power amp > speakers setup, soundstaging, transparency and clarity improved by leaps and bounds...........good enough to let my jaw drop. I actually posted this finding on www.audioreview.com; under Marantz CD6000ose review. However, the "nirvana" didn't last. After a couple of hours of listening, the "digital" garbage inherent in the signal began to hit me hard on the ears. The music became "noisy" and tiresome. Reverting to having a pre-amp as buffer, the aforementioned improved areas were negated but sound is actually warmer, cleaner and more musical.

thats interesting Mackie, so you actually find that obscuring some of the recording artifacts makes it more musical? (I don't understand this word. its probably the MOST subjective word in the "audiophile vocab" but anyway..)

 

me, I like to hear everything. If its on the recording, deliberate or not, I wanna hear it

[Mackie 0]

Ablaze, preference for music changes as one ages. The same may apply to your sound preference and requirement. Give yourself time. Most importantly, be happy with what U have and what U're getting out of them. I prefer to sit down and enjoy the music than go on a relentless search for the better which is often perpetual. FYI, my upgrade cycle is often on a 5-year term of hibernation.

[fishball79 0]

Mackie,

 

The initial difference is always huge. Sounds a slight bump around 5k region. This has been known to be perceived as better details, transperancy, etc etc.

[Mackie 0]

thats interesting Mackie, so you actually find that obscuring some of the recording artifacts makes it more musical? (I don't understand this word. its probably the MOST subjective word in the "audiophile vocab" but anyway..)

 

me, I like to hear everything. If its on the recording, deliberate or not, I wanna hear it

Be it intentional or not, musicality is the depth of your involvement with the music itself. I just watched a German war movie "Stalingrad" on dvd that has 2-channel stereo sound only. However, I was more moved and involved in the movie than some that carries all the whiz-bang and DTS 6.1ES surround. Apply this reaction to music and U have a glimpse of the term musicality.

 

I used to be like U and prefer a neutral and accurate sound from my system. Most of it then was made up of pro gears. After a few years, I found that I heard almost everything but the music was neither involving nor emotional......in a word, cold.

 

This is also the reason why tubes and vinyl have survived till this day.

Edited August 23, 2003 by Mackie

[ablaze 0]

Mackie, for now, I like cold and analytical. gimme 5 years and we'll talk again

[Mackie 0]

Hee hee.......looking at myself in the past. Nevertheless, who has the right to say what's right or wrong as long as U enjoy it.

Edited August 23, 2003 by Mackie

[Blues 0]

ablaze, I would like to try it. If only someone can help me make that thingy(connector), then I can tell you whether headphone amps are overrated or not.

So far, I can distinguish one amp from another.. quite easily I would say. Some provide bigger jump while others offer subtle improvements. Some are worst.. premium price and the sound quality doesn't reflect their price tag

 

Of course I won't say it is overrated until I've heard what the direct path connection can do. Till then, I will be neutral

[jarthel 0]

in regards to point 4, I don't think anyone using a computer for source can be considered an audiophile. CDROMs are not as jitter-free as transports used in standalong CD players. No high quality DACs. Also, do you know how noisy are computer power supplies? All the EMI/RF happening in there.

 

E.g. Everytime I copy a huge file across HDDs, it distorts the output.

 

MP3s are not high quality solution even at CBR 320kbps.

 

In regards to direct path, it's a silly idea. They admitted it themselves that it can't be done even with a best volume control (Penny & giles volume transformer) currently available. And direct path? How can it be direct when the signal passed through multitudes of components already? As I said in one of those threads, you want something as close as to direct path, listen to a live performance (but then again, the sound passed through the mic and other components between that and the speakers and this goes for CDs and other media as well).

[ablaze 0]

jarthel:

using a computer source does not equal to listening to mp3s. you can play CDs thru a computer, and have you heard of lossless compression? nowadays, the way to go is harddisk playback. rip the CDs as lossless (or even the original wav files to the hdd) then playback thru the soundcard. no high quality DACs? current generation of soundcards use pretty good DACs. eg. the AKM4381 a 24/192 dac with I think 110dB dynamic range. how about the Lynxtwo? CS4396 . 120dB DR, 24/192,-100 dB THD+N. are those considered "bad" DACs?

 

if you use ASIO/kernel streaming, the pops and clicks can be virtually eliminated even under high cpu/hdd activity.

 

"direct path" is relative to going thru a headamp first. nobody's talking about listening to the performance as it was BEFORE it was recorded.

 

and lastly, I never proclaimed myself to be an audiophile

[ablaze 0]

going off-topic: but for those computer-source disbelievers, you gotta at least take a look at this

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....ighlight=96%2F8

 

[evil-zen 0]

OT: CDROM drives are used in standalone cdps you know? meridian etc. And don put down computer as a source until you have heard it done properly. For eg, EAC ripped cds and lossless compression.

 

Anyway I have roughly the same stand as ablaze. Both of us talked over irc and came to the same conclusion. Headamps are neccessary for the utmost best sound for headphones. But is $1k worth it for 10-20% increase in fidelity? Probably yes for a matured working adult with loads of cash, but maybe not for a student with no fixed income. Having tried a amp in my system for around 2 months, I wasn't exactly convinced by the improvement versus $$$ ratio.

[fishball79 0]

There is no doubt that computer cdroms are competent transports. But that does not mean a computer with the same cdrom will perform similarly.

 

Well, a computer source is data passed from cdrom via the motherboard to soundcard, decoded on soundcard's onboard DA and then buffered and amplified before going out thru the stereo socket... there's alot of noise in the computer.

 

Thankfully, that is much less ever since we can stream data digitally from the cdrom. This is converted to the analogue signal on the sound card rather than converting within cdrom before transfering noise prone analogue signal thru the whole chain of earlier described events

 

A standalone external cdrom plugged into a dac would be very different from a pc with the same cdrom and a sound card with the same DAC.

 

[jarthel 0]

A standalone external cdrom plugged into a dac would be very different from a pc with the same cdrom and a sound card with the same DAC.

I totally agree.

 

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Also do you think regular CDROMs uses the Philips CD12 transport commonly found in CD players? I have several CDROMs here and I haven't seen any similarity to the transport used in my CD players. I think the Philips was design for audio while transport for CDROM are data so reducing jitter is not as important.

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Let's assume the soundcard has a DAC. But how much circuitry can you fit into a soundcard PCB? I would assume there would be comprimse on the schematics and to make parts count as low as possible to lower cost.

 

Even listening from HDD is not a good idea. As fishball has said, the signal passes through the motherboard which isn't exactly designed to output good audio signals. Also there's just too much noise happening inside a PC and foremost would be the computer power supply. It's not exactly designed to give out clean DC output.

Edited August 24, 2003 by jarthel

[ablaze 0]

1. as I said, I don't listen to music from the CD-ROM

2. the professional level soundcards are well-known to be highly efficient in rejecting all the noise and EMI from the computer

look at this link http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/LynxTWO/index.htm

attached is a picture of the summary table:

[ablaze 0]

there're more links out there that support using the PC as a more than viable alternative to standalone CDplayers

check out HTPC forums like

http://www.mediapc.org/

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdispla....php?forumid=26

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdispla....php?forumid=46

 

what you know of soundcards sounds like it would be applicable in the time of SBLive, and other crappy cards. There's a new generation of soundcards now, more than capable of rivalling standalone sources. Please take a look at my links, and ideally, at least take a listen out of a properly set up computer setup before you condemn the use of computers as sources

 

 

ok, shall we get back to the topic now?