OP
L5730
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Thread Starter
- #41
I'll address the second question first:
The volume pot in most of these headphone amps control both the signal coming out of the headphone socket (obviously) and the signal level coming out of the RCA line outputs on the back. At maximum volume it won't be amplifying the line out signal nor attenuating it, but there could be the tiniest bit of degradation or imbalance or whatever, but that is unlikely at the maximum point on the control.
The amplifiers typically need to be turned on for the whole circuit to work and the line signal to be allowed to pass from input to the headphone amp to the line outputs, even though this signal is not really being amplified.
The A50 is different to the typical headphone amps. When it is turned off the line output is a pass through from the line input. This means that you cannot control the volume of the signal feeding the speakers from the headphone amplifier volume knob, but it also means the signal is preserved with less possibility of degradation. Measurements would confirm or deny how much relevance there is in my point here.
If you wanted similar behaviour (a fixed volume from D10 DAC line out > Speaker line in) as what the A50 offers, then a switch box to bypass the other headphone amplifiers completely would do just that. They would not need to be turned on to let the signal flow to the speakers as they would be switched out of the signal path.
But...if you wanted to use the headphone amplifier as an in-line volume control for your speakers, which it does seem you might, then I do not know if the A50 will actually do that. When powered off it says that it passes line in to line out, but it says that it will disconnect the signal when powered on - so you could not use the A50 as an inline volume control for your speakers whether you turn the A50 on or leave it off. Only leaving it off would let the full volume signal from D10 DAC go to the speakers, and you'd control the volume at the speakers or in software on your computer.
I hope this helps.
The volume pot in most of these headphone amps control both the signal coming out of the headphone socket (obviously) and the signal level coming out of the RCA line outputs on the back. At maximum volume it won't be amplifying the line out signal nor attenuating it, but there could be the tiniest bit of degradation or imbalance or whatever, but that is unlikely at the maximum point on the control.
The amplifiers typically need to be turned on for the whole circuit to work and the line signal to be allowed to pass from input to the headphone amp to the line outputs, even though this signal is not really being amplified.
The A50 is different to the typical headphone amps. When it is turned off the line output is a pass through from the line input. This means that you cannot control the volume of the signal feeding the speakers from the headphone amplifier volume knob, but it also means the signal is preserved with less possibility of degradation. Measurements would confirm or deny how much relevance there is in my point here.
If you wanted similar behaviour (a fixed volume from D10 DAC line out > Speaker line in) as what the A50 offers, then a switch box to bypass the other headphone amplifiers completely would do just that. They would not need to be turned on to let the signal flow to the speakers as they would be switched out of the signal path.
But...if you wanted to use the headphone amplifier as an in-line volume control for your speakers, which it does seem you might, then I do not know if the A50 will actually do that. When powered off it says that it passes line in to line out, but it says that it will disconnect the signal when powered on - so you could not use the A50 as an inline volume control for your speakers whether you turn the A50 on or leave it off. Only leaving it off would let the full volume signal from D10 DAC go to the speakers, and you'd control the volume at the speakers or in software on your computer.
I hope this helps.
