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Topic: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone (Read 38953 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #50 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: pelmazo on
The practice of OpAmp swapping is dubious to start with, particularly when done by the layman with no appreciation of the actual operating conditions within the circuit at hand.

Agreed. The good news is so much modern gear is SMT and swapping parts in a SMT device is pretty non-trivial.

It is often mission impossible to obtain better sound quality as the original op amp was sonically transparent in the first place.
Agreed too, but there might be other advantages with swapped Op Amps.
Power consumption for example - low power O2 uses OPA2277/TLE2062 instead of NJM4556 which results in power consumption more than 3 times lower (6mA vs. 22mA). There are certain drawbacks to this, but for anyone using high impedance headphones, it's very interesting option to boost the runtime of their 8.4V LSD Ni-MHs to over 24 hours (over 70 hours with LiIons).
However for other 99.5% of cases, switching Op Amps it's suboptimal.
Audiophobe

Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #51 –
Sure, if you know what you want to achieve, know what you are doing, and have the means to check that the result meets expectations, then there's no reason not to do it.

My point was that OpAmp swapping is most often done by people who don't have those means and qualifications. (They often believe that golden ears is all that's needed, but I strongly disagree)

Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #52 –
To be honest i had fun myself with OP swapping in several occasions :)
When i understand correctly these discrete OP amps may be of value when you build them for a special parameter. I doubt they can compete with an IC OP amp that consists of many more parts tuned for compensate all kind of side effects that can occure in a circuit. A look into the nearly empty datasheets hints also in that direction.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #53 –
Quote
The effect could be supersonic oscillations, which may only have an indirect and non-obvious effect on audible performance.
:D  :D :D  Many years ago when I was learning about op-amps I built a preamp that turned-out to be an oscillator.   I assume it was oscillating in the MHz range...   I didn't have an oscilloscope and my only indication of a problem was when one side of my power amp went dead.   From what I remember I never got around to sending a signal through it, but I do remember being impressed with how quiet it was...  No hum or hiss...  :D :D :D

It wasn't so funny at the time, but it did force me to research op-amp stability (which was a bigger deal in the early days of op-amp ICs).      I was able to repair the power amp and get the preamp working, but it was an expensive lesson.

Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #54 –
Just wanted to update this.  Been using the Headroom Micro DAC and Micro Amp for about 4 years or so now.  I mostly use them with the HD800 still and have been pleased over the years.  Sometimes I use the Etymotic ER-4 in ear monitor if my wife is watching tv nearby or there other noise going on, or sometimes the Alessandro MS-2i (grado derivative), Sony MDR-7506, and Beyerdynamic DT250-80 if I just want something different.

Audiophiles will poo-poo the micro amp as not being good enough but I don't know what could be any better, low noise floor, and on low gain it drives the HD800's to more than loud enough sound pressure at less than 50% volume (less than 20% total amplification capability of the amp?).  Then again I still listen to V2 vbr MP3's because I can't distinguish them from lossless in ABX so I must not be one of the gifted with golden ears :) .  If anything the micro is probably overkill, and in honesty it's hard to distinguish from my Pixel XL's headphone output with the low impedance headphones; with the HD800 there is much less volume/and dynamic headroom even at 100% volume.

Considering buying another high end headphone since it's been 3 or 4 years.  Been wanting to try the Audeze LCD-X but they look uncomfortable.  Maybe an upgrade to the HD800S or trying a Beyer T1.





Re: Amp for Sennheiser HD800 headphone

Reply #55 –
I am using Beyerdynamic A1 for my HD-800, and never had a single glitches, if that helps.