Azeia
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2019
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Hello, I'm new here, although I've been lurking and reading the reviews for a few weeks now. I hope this is the right place to post this question, I saw other posts asking for recommendations, etc, so I thought this was as good a forum as any to ask.
My question relates to the power measurements of the JDS Labs Atom and the THX AAA 789, specifically the unbalanced (SE) headphone outputs in the case of the 789.
I'm still a bit new to a lot of this terminology and not sure if I'm reading all of these graphs correctly in many cases, but I noticed that on the "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" tests, it appears as if the Atom actually has more power than the 789 does (again, compared to the 789's SE output); is this actually the case or am I not understanding these graphs correctly?
JDS Labs Atom "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" : 250mw @ 300 Ohm
THX AAA 789 "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" : 150mw @ 300 Ohm
The reason I ask is because I recently bought a pair of Beyerdynamics DT 990 headphones, they are the 250 Ohm version (here, they look like the massdrop editions, not sure how different they are from normal DT 990s). As could be expected, my old DAC/Amp (Audioengine D1) wasn't able to drive them properly, so I went looking for something better; after a bit of trial and error, I found out about the Topping DX3 Pro on this forum and bought that. It definitely works well at high gain, but there are some situations where I would like to be able to raise the volume a bit higher.
I had my eye on the 789 for awhile, I figured even though it was expensive, I would save up and then the next time it showed up on Massdrop, I'd get one; it seems good enough that I figured I'd probably never have to get anything else, even if I eventually got 600 Ohm cans, but then I took a closer look at those graphs..
Thus far I've mostly seen the Atom discussed as a "budget alternative" to the 789, since the 789 is hard to get a hold of and way more expensive, but these measurements confuse me, is the Atom actually louder in terms of max volume (with no distortion obviously) than the 789?
My question relates to the power measurements of the JDS Labs Atom and the THX AAA 789, specifically the unbalanced (SE) headphone outputs in the case of the 789.
I'm still a bit new to a lot of this terminology and not sure if I'm reading all of these graphs correctly in many cases, but I noticed that on the "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" tests, it appears as if the Atom actually has more power than the 789 does (again, compared to the 789's SE output); is this actually the case or am I not understanding these graphs correctly?
JDS Labs Atom "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" : 250mw @ 300 Ohm
THX AAA 789 "Distortion vs Power @ 300 Ohm" : 150mw @ 300 Ohm
The reason I ask is because I recently bought a pair of Beyerdynamics DT 990 headphones, they are the 250 Ohm version (here, they look like the massdrop editions, not sure how different they are from normal DT 990s). As could be expected, my old DAC/Amp (Audioengine D1) wasn't able to drive them properly, so I went looking for something better; after a bit of trial and error, I found out about the Topping DX3 Pro on this forum and bought that. It definitely works well at high gain, but there are some situations where I would like to be able to raise the volume a bit higher.
I had my eye on the 789 for awhile, I figured even though it was expensive, I would save up and then the next time it showed up on Massdrop, I'd get one; it seems good enough that I figured I'd probably never have to get anything else, even if I eventually got 600 Ohm cans, but then I took a closer look at those graphs..
Thus far I've mostly seen the Atom discussed as a "budget alternative" to the 789, since the 789 is hard to get a hold of and way more expensive, but these measurements confuse me, is the Atom actually louder in terms of max volume (with no distortion obviously) than the 789?