Tks
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- Apr 1, 2019
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How many you guys listen to headphones with high gain volume maxed?
Never, this is just for borderline deaf people or something. Hegel (for the one thing I felt they did right with their headphone amp reviewed here a while ago) forced parity with balanced and SE power output, specifically because they said they didn't see a single use case where you would need 4V output to a headphone.
I agree with them, and if any performance can be salvaged by implementing lower-power designs, I'd say go for it. The days of 600 ohm or inefficient headphones are coming to an end. You are seeing a ton of (in my opinion) overly efficient drivers with virtually even smartphone levels of power output, still reach ear bleeding levels of volume.
I am far more interested in seeing designs of amps and DACs these days that can eek out better SINAD at the 50mV range for example (which is why i hope to see something like a DX7 Pro V2 that incorporates lessons learned with these newer-gen devices and salvages some of that lower-output performance, and fixes that dreaded output impedance). I don't particularly care about 4V input/output to an amp at all really, as I am NEVER EVER using that, even with low-gain and such. Want performance I can use at sane ranges (and no I don't want to lower my DAC output especially if the amp is better performing, why would I make the DAC an even bigger bottleneck?)
Great job John, all that's left is for that power amp that everyone is waiting on the edge of their seats for (and maybe just maybe a DAC/AMP that I know companies hate making due to the cost/pay-off ratio that sucks compared to selling separates).
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