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Why are headphone amplifiers still so important to audiophiles?

_thelaughingman

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I have an X570 AORUS ELITE motherboard, and I have to admit, the headphone out sounds pretty good with headphones, and line-out pretty good with my amp and speakers. After a brief test using TH-900 and comparing to a Bifrost Multibit/Bottlehead Mainline, I'm hard pressed to tell the difference. Certainly not with low volume background music.

Anyone else have a higher end MB and are using the built in headphone out? Anyone done any serious comparisons between a good MB headphone out and decent Head-Fi type external equipment? Maybe even measurements? I always head about how much better external DACs and Amps are, but I'm starting to wonder if the MB manufacturers have caught up enough.

Note, I'm not talking about laptops here; I'm talkinb about a decent motherboard that the manufacture put a little effort into the audio.
There are few motherboard vendors that have put effort into bumping up the spec on chips used on the motherboard. Ultimately I think the limitations of onboard sound comes down to efficiency of current and noise isolation from all the electrical components on the motherboard.
 

Benaudio

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For me, it’s the ability to power pretty much anything without worrying about power reserve and having a nice volume knob for a good tactile experience
 

ReaderZ

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FLAC is still better than 320kps MP3, that's not a myth, and that has nothing to do with, nor is it dependent on, whether you can A/B it.
 

dfuller

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A lot of laptop headphone outputs straight up don't have the voltage swing to deal with high impedance headphones. Something like a Motu M2 - which only does 22mW clean at 300 ohms - is far and away superior to any laptop I've ever owned in terms of power on tap. It's worse with low sensitivity low impedance cans like a lot of planars, which are amazingly current hungry.

I have an X570 AORUS ELITE motherboard, and I have to admit, the headphone out sounds pretty good with headphones, and line-out pretty good with my amp and speakers. After a brief test using TH-900 and comparing to a Bifrost Multibit/Bottlehead Mainline, I'm hard pressed to tell the difference. Certainly not with low volume background music.

Anyone else have a higher end MB and are using the built in headphone out? Anyone done any serious comparisons between a good MB headphone out and decent Head-Fi type external equipment? Maybe even measurements? I always head about how much better external DACs and Amps are, but I'm starting to wonder if the MB manufacturers have caught up enough.

Note, I'm not talking about laptops here; I'm talking about a decent motherboard that the manufacture put a little effort into the audio.

Desktops are another matter entirely - they're usually worse. Amir reviewed one motherboard, a Z390 Aorus Gaming Master I want to say, and it was profoundly mediocre. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...te-z390-aorus-motherboard-audio-review.13083/
 
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MrOtto

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The audiophile community has stopped parroting these myths like "FLAC sounds better than MP3 (320kb/s) and "expensive cables will improve audio quality" but for some reason we are still spreading the misinformation that one must buy a headphone amp otherwise your shiny new headphone will sound like crap.

There's no way to prove with measurements that amp will sound better than listening straight out of a decent laptop. The vast majority of the audiophile community nowadays listen to modern pop and hiphop music which are compressed to death. There's no reason to tell them to buy an aditional $100-200 amp when most laptops and PC's will drive the vast majority of headphones just fine. I have done blind A/B tests with $50, 100, 200, 500 and $1000 amps and I couldn't tell them apart from my $400 dollar Windows laptop and my Macbook Air.

The queston is, when will people in the audiophile community stop putting so much stock in amps when there's no scientific way to measure their usefulness outside of pure volume?

So in general, amplifiers doesn't affect the sound you hear from the headphones, or in this sense, also speakers?
 

Frank Dernie

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So in general, amplifiers doesn't affect the sound you hear from the headphones, or in this sense, also speakers?
An amplifier needs to have enough power and a low enough output impedance not to alter the frequecy response of the transducer it is driving, whether it is headphones or speakers.
A low background noise is pretty important too but it is many years since I owned anything which was problematic noise wise.
I have loads of headphones, ridiculously since I prefer speakers, but have never noticed sound from my Mac laptop being unacceptable on any of them.
The ones that I was concerned by most were low impedance planars but no audible problem for my Macbook Pro.
I had never tried IEMs other than walkman-type-thingy/plane though.

OTOH I do like to have a rotary volume control so a separate amp is worth it to me simply because of that.
 

EJ3

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The audiophile community has stopped parroting these myths like "FLAC sounds better than MP3 (320kb/s) and "expensive cables will improve audio quality" but for some reason we are still spreading the misinformation that one must buy a headphone amp otherwise your shiny new headphone will sound like crap.

There's no way to prove with measurements that amp will sound better than listening straight out of a decent laptop. The vast majority of the audiophile community nowadays listen to modern pop and hiphop music which are compressed to death. There's no reason to tell them to buy an aditional $100-200 amp when most laptops and PC's will drive the vast majority of headphones just fine. I have done blind A/B tests with $50, 100, 200, 500 and $1000 amps and I couldn't tell them apart from my $400 dollar Windows laptop and my Macbook Air.

The queston is, when will people in the audiophile community stop putting so much stock in amps when there's no scientific way to measure their usefulness outside of pure volume?

Have you had your hearing checked lately? That certainly could be a factor in what you do or don't hear. Many (if not most) people don't hear exactly the same as each other. Riding motorcycles (with or without a helmet), shooting guns, working on high performance cars, jet engines, lawncare, all sorts of things affect our hearing.
 

Dopaminer

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Does everyone believe the OP is real person and their post was sincere?
I am skeptical about a lot of things, and the post was filled with sensational, triggering opinions. Is ASR the type of site that keeps people 'engaged' by posting controversial opinions ? I've recently left 2 other groups (photography and audio) because I started to realize there were 'members' who kept posting variations on a theme - highly opinionated and logically false commentary or rhetorical questions (like this thread). I really felt it was just the moderators manipulating the members to keep them engaged.
 

AllanMarcus

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A lot of laptop headphone outputs straight up don't have the voltage swing to deal with high impedance headphones. Something like a Motu M2 - which only does 22mW clean at 300 ohms - is far and away superior to any laptop I've ever owned in terms of power on tap. It's worse with low sensitivity low impedance cans like a lot of planars, which are amazingly current hungry.



Desktops are another matter entirely - they're usually worse. Amir reviewed one motherboard, a Z390 Aorus Gaming Master I want to say, and it was profoundly mediocre. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...te-z390-aorus-motherboard-audio-review.13083/
"Overall, I take the rather clean multi-channel line out and give a passing grade to Gigabyte Z390 Aorus audio subsystem. Get yourself a headphone amp and you may be good to go without having to get a DAC to go with it. "

Thanks for the link! I missed that review. This is how I'm set up, line out to speaker amp and USB DAC to HPA.
 

DeepFried

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Does everyone believe the OP is real person and their post was sincere?
I am skeptical about a lot of things, and the post was filled with sensational, triggering opinions. Is ASR the type of site that keeps people 'engaged' by posting controversial opinions ? I've recently left 2 other groups (photography and audio) because I started to realize there were 'members' who kept posting variations on a theme - highly opinionated and logically false commentary or rhetorical questions (like this thread). I really felt it was just the moderators manipulating the members to keep them engaged.

I'm fairly new here but I can see you're newer, so I'll take your comment at face value. I don't think there is any sensationalist agenda or baiting going on here, so far as I can tell ASR is a website generously run by Amir basically as a hobby, and although I'm not equipped with all the details I imagine the moderators are just kind volunteers. There is no benefit to anyone in stiring up controversy, but I think the reality is that the 'Audiophile' world is full of controversy all by itself.

The Members here are genuine.
 

Dopaminer

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I'm fairly new here but I can see you're newer, so I'll take your comment at face value. I don't think there is any sensationalist agenda or baiting going on here, so far as I can tell ASR is a website generously run by Amir basically as a hobby, and although I'm not equipped with all the details I imagine the moderators are just kind volunteers. There is no benefit to anyone in stiring up controversy, but I think the reality is that the 'Audiophile' world is full of controversy all by itself.

The Members here are genuine.
Thanks for that. I love what Amir does, and I like that there seems to be no advertising here. However, I know the membership here is very large, and there may be strong incentive to monetize the site. I'm just sick to death of monetized social media, algorithms, and advertising/marketing in general.
And I still find it difficult to believe the OP would post those opinions in good faith.
 

AdamG

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Yes, flippant trolling exactly like this.
You made an outlandish claim about the Site and it’s Management and expected to go unchallenged? I guess you got us all figured out in the less than one month here. You have earned a Thread Ban. Take a break and try to find Any advertising here that we manufacture threads to increase clicks.. You will find none.
 

markanini

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Because the marketing departments are doing excellent work and consumers are ill informed. Some audiophiles pay tens of thousand of dollars for a tube amp, because the idea is that the best version of a dated tech somehow is better. And inefficient headphones are considered a feature, so that's one more excuse to pay hundreds of dollars for additional equipment. I personally love the the idea of gear with a quality integrated headphones outputs, but consumers largely show little interest. They expect a separate a unit and a high asking price, otherwise they don't have enough trust in the quality to make a purchase. It incentivizes every manufacturer to be the Apple of audio, because it's more profitable.
 

weasels

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Thanks, but this doesn't really answer the question.

We've seen dedicated headphone amp SINAD range from the mid 40s to the 120s, and price point seems to be a minor factor.

We've also seen dedicated DACs range from the 60s to the 120s.

That seems to suggest amps can make a bigger difference - which was the original question I think - but really the takeaway should be that you can get a dedicated amp and a dedicated DAC that both perform north of 100 SINAD for a couple hundred bucks all in so why make do with adequate when excellent is not that expensive.
 

Yorkshire Mouth

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Thanks, but this doesn't really answer the question.

We've seen dedicated headphone amp SINAD range from the mid 40s to the 120s, and price point seems to be a minor factor.

We've also seen dedicated DACs range from the 60s to the 120s.

That seems to suggest amps can make a bigger difference - which was the original question I think - but really the takeaway should be that you can get a dedicated amp and a dedicated DAC that both perform north of 100 SINAD for a couple hundred bucks all in so why make do with adequate when excellent is not that expensive.

That’s pretty much where I am, too.

Certainly in world of speaker-based hi-fi vs headphones, the quality you get for so little money is astonishing.

In a speaker-based system, you’re talking about £500 or close just to be starting off with something worth listening to.

As a source, £100 is the absolute minimum you’ll pay for a turntable anything better than a toy. You can but a DAC for £100 that’s close to SOTA.
 

mkawa

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with low impedance sensitive headphones like IEMs, yah, i don't bother with anything more complicated than the headphone jack or cheap dongle on a battery powered player. it's less true now that Apple has beefed up their internal headphone drivers, but for high impedance and lower sensitivity headphones, a small amplifier has better dynamics, so there is still a place for headphone amps.

also, to get less distortion at the D/A stage, you need to put something between your outboard D/A stage and the headphones. enter the headphone amp.

i agree there's an outsized focus on power and, for the subjectivists, other flowery terms, attached to headphone amps, but in reality it's more that you need something that is low distortion and provides enough power at the expected distortion levels, and that is it. people shouldn't have 10 HPAs looking for something with the right clarity/air/musicality/whatever. one also doesn't need 4W at 600o for any reasonable headphone.
 

THW

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i use a dedicated amp because i like a bit more oomph than what my onboard does, that’s mostly about it really. i like the extra headroom
 

ReaderZ

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i use a dedicated amp because i like a bit more oomph than what my onboard does, that’s mostly about it really. i like the extra headroom

Yeah, just like we don't need a car with more than 300 HP, but it's nice to have.
 
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