It's in their minds all these imaging and improvements of warmth and detail. Get the most powerful quality headphone amp for your price range and if you want absolute reliability get the one without a snazzy LED/LCD/OLED display. For this reason I bought a Schitt and I crank it loud all the timeee.
Right? Like that's my thought process too, but because I'm not super familiar/experienced with audio gear, I can't necessarily trust my own convictions, so when I start reading posts, I get swayed. In my mind, the science should be all that matters, and yet, so many seemingly rational people SWEAR up and down about such and such qualities to a specific unit....
@Quinton595 the new Schiit MAGNI is a great unit. Lots of power and simple and effective. 3 year warranty parts and labour.
www.schiit.com
Yes, thank you! I know the Magi an Modi are well-liked. I've just always wondered what exactly you're "giving up" by stepping down from the mid-tier units to these smaller ones. Or, to put it the other way, what you gain by stepping up from a magni and modi to a magnius and modius. "More Power", "Balanced Output", yadda yadda, but again, if it all comes down to measurements, and the noise and distortion are below what's audible anyway, then what are you
ACTUALLY getting?
You are asking this on ASR, so you will get one answer to this divisive question.
If two dacs/amps have flat frequency response in the audible frequency band, a thorough suite of measurements finds levels of distortion and noise that are inaudible in a typical listening scenario, and there is no meaningful differences in output impedance, they will almost certainly be *indistinguishable* going on sound alone. An amp cannot exhibit differences in "soundstage" or "detail" if it is producing the same exact signal as another amp, and I've never seen it persuasively argued by anyone what this ja-ne-sais-quoi is that eludes engineers' ability to measure their designs. But human hearing does not go on sound alone, so if you are listening for differences in loosely-controlled A/B tests, you will probably hear them. Much of audiophilia runs on the fact that most people have an entirely unwarranted level of confidence in the objectivity of their hearing, and properly blind-testing equipment is a giant pain in the ass.
That said, human ears are much worse distortion detectors than Audio Precision analyzers, so even equipment that doesn't sniff the top of Amir's charts, like the Jot 2, is going to sound just fine.
I'm with you 100%. I guess I just don't know what to do with that information, because if there's no clear winner in a competition, how is a person to choose which one to buy? If the Topping, JDS, Modi/Magni are all equally good products that will sound the same, how do you decide to buy one over the other? I guess it just comes down to those secondary purchasing qualities, like looks, build quality, features, etc. I can get my head around that fairly easily,
so long as the products are comparatively priced.
What really throws me off is when we're talking about two different price-points entirely, like if Topping's E30 line sounds every bit as good as the E70 line, from a numerical perspective, then what reason is there to spend so much more on the E70? Is it
JUST for the features?. I mean, it's double the price, so can those little features really be worth that much? "Oh, but the E70 is balanced, while the E30 isn't", yes, but again, if they measure the same anyways... then the balanced output isn't really getting you anything, now is it? (Assuming short cables).
Basically, I don't really know WHY I would buy the Jot 2, or WHY I would buy the Topping or the JDS. I guess it's just down to a whim, and I don't do well with whim.
Nothing. They are all well beyond audibilty levels.
Balanced out of a DAC into balanced in of an amplifier, when designed correctly, can prevent annoying ground-loops. Ground-loops can be (barely) audible sounds that should not be there.
Ground-loops don't HAVE to be there using RCA but possibly can be. Using balanced prevents that from occurring when making an audio system using computer audio/AVR setup.
There is NO benefit to sound quality nor background noise (all of which is of no concern with HD800S)
Balanced is about preventing possible ground-loops.
That the chance exists there MIGHT be a ground-loop in your home (is not equal to lab) conditions. There don't HAVE to be any though. Most RCA systems are perfectly quiet.
To be able to play impressively loud you need the amp/headphone combo to reach 120dB SPL. This is PEAK power NOT continuous as music consists of peaks.
When you are bothered with tinnitus 115dB or even 110dB peak is enough and get rid of the treble peak !
120dB SPL peak requires your amp to reach 6V (= 120mW in 300ohm)
115dB SPL peak requires your amp to reach 3V (= 30mW in 300ohm)
110dB SPL peak requires your amp to reach 1.5V (= 10mW in 300ohm)
When you want Harman type of bass you need to add 10dB more headroom in the amp in which case for 120dB peak SPL (at 20Hz) you will need a 1W in 300ohm amplifier but in your case I would say 200mW amp in 300ohm is more than you will ever need.
See above. There is NO need to buy an amp with 'more power' as you will never need it and the nonsense that you need 1 jiggaWatts even if you never use more than 100mW because such an amp 'sounds better' is nonsense. When DO you need an amp that can provide more ? When you plan to buy/use headphones that are notoriously inefficient and you want those to play impressively loud. That basically is the only reason (and to boast to others how much power your amp has) to buy one.
Don't think better 'numbers' equates to better sound or longevity. They DON'T.
Good sound can be had with ALL of the suggested devices and even with much poorer measuring devices as long as the S/N ratio is good. Distortion at max level better than 0.01% is not needed NOR audible in any way.
It's all nonsense. Soundstage in headphones is not amp/dac dependent but brain dependent (and or spatializers etc).
Yep, they don't want to hear (read) that but when you are inclined to believe all that, you should forget about ASR and the measurement game because measurements and (subjective) perceived sound quality, below certain numbers are NOT related in any way.
Thank you very much for continuing to develop your responses, and for responding to each of my points.
Your explanation of how much power is needed, especially to hit harmon targets, was very helpful. Based on my testing of the HD800s in stores, I intend to run it with a 5-to-10 dB boost in the bass and sub-bass frequencies. Even with my fairly limited exposure to EQ, I gather that this is a fairly big boost, and so I obviously want to avoid distortion, and make sure I have enough amplification power for that. Problem is, I don't actually know how to calculate how much power I need for this, specifically with the HD800s.
One thing I'm trying to figure out about EQ is the whole concept of headroom and preamp gain. If you don't mind, I'd like to confirm that my understanding of the two approaches to EQing are correct:
1) To my mind, if I were to leave all frequencies at 0, have a preamp gain of 0, and then boost the bass with a bass shelf of, say, 5dB, then what I've done is kept the volume constant across most of the sound, but boosted the bass. Beyond a certain amount of boost, though, I will start to introduce distortion. This distortion is separate and unrelated to noise, and instead represents... what, exactly? A failure of the speaker's driver to be able to move and respond properly to the given much-higher-than-usual voltage for that frequency?
2) Alternatively, I can apply a -5dB preamp gain, thereby creating the "Headroom" I keep seeing mentioned, and then re-apply that 5dB bass shelf. So, in effect, rather than actually BOOSTING the bass, I've just dropped all the OTHER frequencies, making bass SEEM boosted by comparison. However, because dropping gain in EQ doesn't introduce distortion the way that boosting gain does, this is considered the better way to EQ, right?
Ok, but now I've made the music quieter overall, because of that -5db preamp, so I gotta turn the volume back up, thereby boosting the gain of ALL frequencies.... or does it? Is volume a separate concept from gain? How does this need to increase the volume higher than it was in scenario 1 change the distortion/noise? Based on your earlier explanation of S/N ratios, the ratio actually gets BETTER, because noise is constant, but turning the volume up boosts the signal, right? Ok, so that seems like a SECOND point in favour of using scenario 2)'s approach to EQ. What happens to the distortion, though?
When you have to turn everything up louder, to offset of a negative EQ preamp, are you not just undoing all of the distortion benefits you gained by using scenario 2's approach in the first place?
Also, thank you for again reiterating that it's all bullshit, what people say about different dacs and amps sounding wildly different. It's still helpful to read that, even though I know it to already be true. Like I said in response to Oleg87 above, I always find it difficult to choose between products when there's no
clear winner. When it all comes down to subtle flavour differences, aesthetics, and whim, I tend to struggle to make a decision.
But speak for yourself, buddy.
YOU might not need 1 jiggaWatt, but
I intend to run my headphone directly off the core of a nuclear reactor, and it is my God-given right to do so.
The thing I noted about the OP’s query is the fact that he wants something he can just plug in and be happy with the next 10 years or so.
For that to come true he needs a great build quality, and I’m not sure any of the options here are going to last that long under daily usage.
The Schiit’s I’ve owned/tried have all developed a noisy volume pot fairly quickly after me getting them. The cheap ones also weigh next to nothing and scate around the table when I started twerking to Rachmaninov.
The Atom amp I had was made of some frail Toys R’ Us plastic…and wouldn’t you know it..developed a noisy volume pot.
Topping was the best of the lot but still felt somewhat cheap compared to my Lake People amp…but I am also old and from a time where weight used to indicate some form of quality in Hi-Fi.
When you then count in the fact that the only real difference between all of these is appearance and possibly connections, it all comes down to reliability.
Sure if you live close to the Topping, SMSL or Schiit factory and can drop off your gear if or when it develops poor form, fantastic…but I would personally much rather pay for a more robust design via either Violectric or Lake People. That’s my dough though and my bias against the build I’ve encountered from the makes included in this poll.
Soundwise? They’re all the same when you can’t see what’s playing, most especially when using a 300 ohm Sennheiser.
Best of luck going forth
Oh, interesting. You seem to be the first person who has expressed any concern regarding the build quality of these devices. They're all solid-state machines with essentially no moving parts, so I've never really heard of anyone having issues with any of these brands, beyond the odd fluke.
I have heard of a case grounding issue with certain Shiit's, (
thank you, Amirm), creating noise in the case, and in the volume knob specifically, but it was easily remedied by sanding a small portion inside the case to allow for a bare-metal connection to the ground.
The new JDS Atom 2 line is all metal.
Topping is the only one I actually HAVE heard some Quality-Control issues with.
Still, thank you for your comment. I checked out Violectric but they're definitely beyond my price point, and Lake people, well, I personally can't stand the look of expensive consumer goods being made in $3 alibaba aluminum project boxes. I know it's a common trend, and makes for easy repairability, but it just ain't for me.
