Justin Maynard
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- Oct 31, 2020
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Headphones have very poor SINAD. Even the best measuring ones have around 0.1% THD+N, which is 60 dB SINAD.
A concrete example. Let's take the Stax SR-009, with ~0.1% THD+N.
https://www.stereophile.com/content...09-sr-007-sr-507-sr-404-ltd-sr-404-and-sr-003
The Stax SRM-311 has 0.005147 THD+N.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-headphone-amplifier-review-comparison.17161/
A difference between 0.1% and 0.105147% (the headphone + amp added together) THD+N is 0.4 dB. Is that an audible difference?
If the amp had 100 dB sinad, the difference would only be 0.1 dB.
In other words, isn't the headphone such a big bottleneck that chasing after 100+ dB SINAD of amplifiers is an overkill?
What is the smallest difference between two dB values that is still audible?
A concrete example. Let's take the Stax SR-009, with ~0.1% THD+N.
https://www.stereophile.com/content...09-sr-007-sr-507-sr-404-ltd-sr-404-and-sr-003
The Stax SRM-311 has 0.005147 THD+N.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-headphone-amplifier-review-comparison.17161/
A difference between 0.1% and 0.105147% (the headphone + amp added together) THD+N is 0.4 dB. Is that an audible difference?
If the amp had 100 dB sinad, the difference would only be 0.1 dB.
In other words, isn't the headphone such a big bottleneck that chasing after 100+ dB SINAD of amplifiers is an overkill?
What is the smallest difference between two dB values that is still audible?