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Dear headphone fans. While away from home working, my long evenings could be enlightened with some music. The Sennheizer HD 650 seems to be a good choice, I suppose it will work fine with my smartphone but would an amp add anything in sound quality ?
Thank you.
Thank you. I read the test of the Sony MDRZX110, amazing, and that one should add an EQ (equalizer) ? Is that possible with an android software or ? Thank you.
I'm probably one of a tiny number on ASR that can't be bothered with EQ - ever.
I'm a "just shut up and play your guitar"-type.
But yes, you can do EQ on android if you want.
The media player you use may well have built-in EQ controls.
You'll read about "graphic EQ" or "Parametric EQ (PEQ)" on ASR, one being simple changes to the "shape" of the frequency response curve using a number of filters at various frequencies, and the other allowing more control over the exact frequency of each filter and how broad an effect it has or how sharp (aka "Q"). But really, it's all far more than you need to worry about for just using a phone with headphones.
Even a free app like Foobar2000 has plenty of scope for messing with how your headphones will sound. I'd just have a fiddle and go with whatever sounds nice to your ears. It depends a little on the source of your music as to what app you use - for example if you use Tidal, you usually will use their app, and I have no idea how you do EQ with that.
On the same time as I appreciate the skills and experience of so many of you here, I feel that sometimes things go overboard searching for the perfect sound.
But I understand this search for perfection is passion so no jugement at all. Having passions is a wonderful gift.
However sometimes for me, going more simple feels right.
For many people, the spending of money on things they don't need, or can't tell apart from something cheaper, is the number 1 thrill. For others, they are excited by hearing great music, discovering new music and these days, hearing it reproduced very well for so little money.
You didn't mention your phone model. If it's Android, then Wavelet is a free option you can try for EQ. I'll let others chime in on iphone software.
As mentioned above, you most likely can drive the 650 with your phone, but if you're still not satisfied, there are tons of cheap dongle DAC/amps that would probably either slightly improve the sound, and definitely give you more volume.
I don’t understand making this blithe assertion about the HD650. Yes you can plug them into a phone source and moderately good volume will be produced. With any music mastered on the quiet side or with EQ applied, however, they will likely be too quiet and somewhat anemic. Cranking things up beyond modest and polite will be difficult.
How loud do people need? HD650 is 90dB from ~180mv. Sure, they're high impedance phones, but plenty of USB C dongles are able to deliver 1/2watt with very low output impedance. I suppose you can call a dongle an amp though.
For quiet recordings you can boost the gain on the input side of media players like FB2K.
90dB peaks in music is around 75dB average and not loud at all. A common misconception based on the usual 'exposure lists'.
90dBA average noise levels is loud.
110dB peaks is loud and that would require 2.2V and is what decent dongle should be able to almost reach.
I have HD 650 and Adi-2 Pro. I don't think I ever listened to a song and used volume higher than -10 dB. And that's with Hi-Power disabled. That gives max: +7 dBu - 10 dB = -3 dBu = 0.54 Vrms. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
