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Topic: Is a headphone amp needed? (Read 44158 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is a headphone amp needed?

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650s which I'm currently running off the amp in my Logitech speakers.  I can't say I hear any noticable hiss or distortion.  It sounds fine to me.

But someone on another forum is claiming there absolutely must be a difference, and there's no way possible that my speakers could be outputting as clean of a signal as a dedicated headphone amp would.

So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #1 –
Quote
I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650s which I'm currently running off the amp in my Logitech speakers.  I can't say I hear any noticable hiss or distortion.  It sounds fine to me.

But someone on another forum is claiming there absolutely must be a difference, and there's no way possible that my speakers could be outputting as clean of a signal as a dedicated headphone amp would.

So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I have a set of Logitech z5300 speakers. The headphone jack is coupled to the volume control of the speakers. I have not noticed any problem using it-seems to me to be the functional equivalent of a headphone amp. I run Senn HD580 cans off mine with no problems.
you will make mp3's for compatibility reasons.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #2 –
There would probably be a difference between what you have now and a good headphone amplifier. Whether or not that difference is actually "better' or 'worthwhile' is a value judgement. Unfortunately $80 is very little for a 'good' amplifier. You are likely to spend at least several times that to approach optimum, so if $80 is the limit, the answer is less likely to be 'yes, it is worth spending the money.'

If you are inclined towards DIY, there is at least one option that could come in under $80. Look at the 'Pocket Headphone Amplifier' stuff on the Headwize site. Especially if you make a well filtered mains connected power supply (rather than running off batteries) that provides anywhere from +/-12V to +/-18V, this circuit can be very good. Although it isn't intrinsically that expensive, I'm not aware of anyone selling them at a reasonable price. Labor, you own for DIY, can add quite a bit.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #3 –
$200 is pretty cheap for a good headphone amp. But it should be enough for your setup. Yes, your Senns will benefit significantly from amping. Cmoy is the DIY solution most used, I think. But if you can get it done for less than the SuperMini-3 I have no idea. (Myself own a SuperMacro-3 V6. And it's a different world from unamped. Really.)
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #4 –
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So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't agree a dedicated headphone must always sound better. It all depends on the quality of the headphone output of your Logitech speakers.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #5 –
Quote
Quote
So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't agree a dedicated headphone must always sound better. It all depends on the quality of the headphone output of your Logitech speakers.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344844"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yeah, might be, but honestly, if you're using Sennheiser's top-of-the-line high-end headphone, I find it rather strange to be so cheap with regard to an amp.  After all, Sennheiser's 580/600/650 line enjoy the reputation of absolutely needing a headphone amp to bring out their potential. From my own experiences, my Sennheiser HD 600 sound pretty bland on a normal headphone out, while they sound a lot more detailed and especially a lot fuller in the bass range when driven from my headphone amp.
I think it is at least worth trying them with a dedicated headphone amp and judging for yourself if the difference in sound quality is worth it.
Proverb for Paranoids: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."
-T. Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #6 –
It depends. It doesn't take state of the art electronics to drive Sennheiser headphones properly. Just low impedance and high enough voltage and current capability, which will be still low because they are headphones.

I'm quite confident a cheap Turtle Beach Santa Cruz would drive them properly.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #7 –
Quote
a cheap Turtle Beach Santa Cruz would drive them properly
but the difference between that and a decent amplifier would not be esoteric or subtle. Music would objectively sound different. Most people would classify that difference as "better" but, as I said earlier, the value of that difference can only be decided by the person who has to spend the money. No one else can make the decision for you.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #8 –
Quote
Unfortunately $80 is very little for a 'good' amplifier. You are likely to spend at least several times that to approach optimum, so if $80 is the limit, the answer is less likely to be 'yes, it is worth spending the money.'

If you are inclined towards DIY, there is at least one option that could come in under $80.


An 'optimal' headphone amp need not be costly. For less than $80, one can get a Behringer UB1202 small size mixer which has a superbly performing hedphone amplifier stage built-in. The headphone output stage on that unit will drive ANY headphone with no problem. I can use this device on the super-sensitive Sony MDR-CD3000 and have no audible noise/hiss[assuming one sets levels correctly] or use it on the insanely voltage hungry AKG K 340 and it will never clip, even on 30dB peaks on purist opera/classical recordings, since it[UB1202] can output RMS voltage in the double digits. Frequency response remains flat and distortion remains well under human thresholds during use on  either extreme as described above.

-Chris

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #9 –
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but the difference between that and a decent amplifier would not be esoteric or subtle. Music would objectively sound different.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344935"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

How do you know? I wouldn't be very sure about that. Santa Cruz card has a quite good output stage, with very low impedance and good current capability. I should perform some in-place RMAA tests to settle the issue, but I don't think I have much time to do it now.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Quote
So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I don't agree a dedicated headphone must always sound better. It all depends on the quality of the headphone output of your Logitech speakers.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344844"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Seconded - most headphones don't present a difficult load for a half-decent sound card anyway. To be honest, modern electronics make it difficult to make an output stage that sounds poor unless there's some serious skimping in the detail. All this "headphones have to be amped" is marketing and audiophile tosh IMO. What do people think is in the output stages anyway? Guess what - an AMP. Pick your components sensibly and an amp is just not needed.

My two-pence worth anyway but there's one rule IMO - if you like the sound and can afford something, buy it! It's not important if someone else disagrees, they don't have to listen to it - you do!

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #11 –
Quote
I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650s which I'm currently running off the amp in my Logitech speakers.  I can't say I hear any noticable hiss or distortion.  It sounds fine to me.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


If it sounds fine, then I wouldn't recommend buying a headphone amp unless you are really curious about the possibility of it sounding better.  I got a headphone amp because all of the receivers or soundcards I've plugged my HD600s into didn't sound very good.  I don't at all regret my purchase, but there's no way I would have considered them if I hadn't heard sound distortion in all the devices I habitually listen to.  My advice would be to take those excellent headphones of yours, and plug them into different things (your mp3 player, your friends' receivers, etc.).  If you don't hear any range of quality, then it might just be something that you're not very attuned to picking up.  If you do, and your Logitech still sounds really good, then you've lucked out in that the amplifier you're using happens to have a good headphone-out jack.

Anyways, while $80 might not be much in the realm of audio equipment, it's still a fair amount of money.  Most of the world doesn't earn that much in a week.  So if you don't have anything better to spend it on other than solving problems that you don't have, well, maybe you'd be better off saving it for a rainy day, or donating it to someone that would appreciate it more.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #12 –
Speaking as a person who has spent far more than $80 on headphone amps I can pretty conclusively say that the price has very little to do with the actual quality.

When you look at the $$$ (>200) audiophile headphone amp designs, by and large you are spending most of that money on purely design-based merits that imply some added subjective benefit:
  • Pure class-A amplification
  • Zero negative feedbacck, multiloop feedback, servo-only feedback, or otherwise esoteric feedback designs
  • Discrete designs (ie no opamps)
  • Linear/outboard power supplies
  • Dual mono/balanced circuits
  • Stepped attenuators
  • Stupidly large power outputs (A Dynahi can allegedly dump 10W of pure class A power)

What you are usually not going to see are amps purely advertised based on their objective ratings. That isn't just because audiophiles don't believe in them - the fact of the matter is that a lot of the time the objective ratings suck.

On two separate occasions, I have dealt with amps that came with the most glowing reviews, and positively blew chunks. The first one was a DIY amp I auditioned at a hifi store that sold for $200 and was described as a Grado RA1 clone (ie a glorified cmoy). It audibly hissed when I listened to them with my ER4S's. The second one was a headamp gilmore v2 I bought used and retails for $500, which has large amounts of both hiss and ground hum, although it is not often audible at low volumes. I still use it, and I don't like it, but to the benefit of objective psychoacoustics, the noise is not often audible when listening to music so it does not bother me.

That said, there are some good objective reasons for buying an amp. Most analog outs are just not meant to drive headphones at the sources's lowest distortion - their THD will go up the more mW you plow through them - and few of them are really meant to handle load impedances below 1kOhm. Whether those issues are audible is something you need to find out for yourself.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #13 –
Quote
So, is it worth dropping $80 on a dedicated headphone amp to sit between my cans and my soundcard?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344793"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Probably need to bump that up a bit to around $150. Doesn't make sense to buy an expensive pair of headphones and not drive them properly.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #14 –
I should also point out that I technically did have a headphone amp at one point, a Grado RA1.  I compared it against the amp in my receiver and couldn't tell the difference.  Or rather, I could, but it wasn't $310 worth of difference, so I ended up selling it.

Which is why I'm wondering how necessary they are.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #15 –
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I compared it against the amp in my receiver and couldn't tell the difference. Or rather, I could, but it wasn't $310 worth of difference,

As I said, value is personal.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #16 –
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Probably need to bump that up a bit to around $150. Doesn't make sense to buy an expensive pair of headphones and not drive them properly.


What's wrong with a <$80 UB1202, as I recommened? It drives headphones of any sensitivity with no audible noise[assuming one sets levels correctly, obviously if you turn up the extra unused channel input gains to maximum you will get noise on a mixer], no clipping/distortion and and has a flat frequency response.

If the user want a purpose specific product, I can recommend <$100 products, but they may not have the ability of the UB1202 on very low sensitivity headphones, because the UB1202 has a +/- 18V supply. But for most people, a +/- 4.5V supply would be sufficient to power their headphones with no problem, even on relatively dynamic source material.

-Chris

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #17 –
Quote
Quote
but the difference between that and a decent amplifier would not be esoteric or subtle. Music would objectively sound different.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=344935"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

How do you know? I wouldn't be very sure about that. Santa Cruz card has a quite good output stage, with very low impedance and good current capability. I should perform some in-place RMAA tests to settle the issue, but I don't think I have much time to do it now.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=345025"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'll second that. I have a Santa Cruz card and it's well capable of driving good quality low impedance earphones to a decent level without noticeable distortion. I do use "active" HK695 speakers but I tried earphones from curiosity, after reading Andy's post.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #18 –
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What's wrong with a <$80 UB1202, as I recommened? It drives headphones of any sensitivity with no audible noise[assuming one sets levels correctly, obviously if you turn up the extra unused channel input gains to maximum you will get noise on a mixer], no clipping/distortion and and has a flat frequency response.

I don't know; I've only tried a few diy amplifiers and haven't found the cheaper ones very good, and this guy's headphones are more expensive than mine. Maybe yours is one that should get more attention. It would be nice if there were more numbers around for amplifiers like the RMAA ones so one doesn't have to go on hearsay. But I'm happy with what I've got at the moment so I don't care any more.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #19 –
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$200 is pretty cheap for a good headphone amp. But it should be enough for your setup. Yes, your Senns will benefit significantly from amping. Cmoy is the DIY solution most used, I think. But if you can get it done for less than the SuperMini-3 I have no idea. (Myself own a SuperMacro-3 V6. And it's a different world from unamped. Really.)
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Just an FYI.  The XIN SuperMini-3 Amp mentioned above is on sale Thanksgiving Weekend for $150 vs the regular $200 price.  I would order the amp.  If it does not perform, it can be returned for a refund or maybe sold for more than you paid for it. 

After my research, I ordered the XIN SuperMini-3 on Friday morning.  I am hoping that it will make a substantial difference when listing to my Iaudio U2 dap and my Panasonic R4 laptop using UE 5Pro.

Take care,

Oliver

Links
XIN SuperMini-3 Amp [a href="http://www.fixup.net/products/]http://www.fixup.net/products/[/url]

Edit - This thread has more info on the amp. http://www.fixup.net/talk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1263

At head-fi.org
Xin amps holiday discounts!
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=148744
Xin supermini v Hornet?
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=148214

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #20 –
In my opinion, anything over $80 is a total ripoff, and $80 is quite expensive for what a headphone amp does. For a good enough headphone amplifier, the greatest cost in pieces would probably go for the power supply parts. If it was not for the power supply, I think the amplifier electronics could be built for a few $.

You must take notice of the fact that a dynamic headphone, no matter how expensive, needs very little power, so the requirements for the amp are quite low. Only a bit of care is needed to build a good amp.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #21 –
Quote
In my opinion, anything over $80 is a total ripoff, and $80 is quite expensive for what a headphone amp does. For a good enough headphone amplifier, the greatest cost in pieces would probably go for the power supply parts. If it was not for the power supply, I think the amplifier electronics could be built for a few $.

You must take notice of the fact that a dynamic headphone, no matter how expensive, needs very little power, so the requirements for the amp are quite low. Only a bit of care is needed to build a good amp.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=345864"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Have you tested any headphone amps? And are you clever and handy enough to build one small and solid enough to fit in your pocket? With good powermanagement and internal recharging of NiMH batteries? Well, maybe you are, but I'm not...
Besides, there are more to a good sounding amplifier whether it drives headphones or speakers than just supplying raw power. Amplifiers sound differently (it's not difficult to ABX difference in sound between amplifiers, what's good sound on the other hand is more difficult/individual).

Let's agree to disagree.
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #22 –
I've currently tested just the headphone amp of my Revo 7.1 soundcard, and found it not to be good enough for driving my Sennheiser HD580. But this card has a very simple and limited output stage consisting of 2 5532 opamps in parallel per channel. Not that the 5532 is any bad, but is inadequate as a power device. The Santa Cruz has a better output stage, with a measured low impedance output and I believe it has dedicated power parts, I guess it will do quite better. It costed around $50 when it was sold. Let's see if I can find some time to measure its headphone performance.

Now, I'm not much of an electronic designer, but I know that the electronics required for building a good headphone amp are simple. As I and others have said, there are available inexpensive devices with good headphone amps. As to battery management and such, they are extras that I'm not considering.

All a good amp has to do is supply raw power with low levels of both linear and nonlinear distortion.

Now, do you have any positive ABX results that prove two decent amplifiers, be it expensive or not, sound different? IMO cd players, DACs and amps, as long as the are half decent, are *very* difficult to ABX, or even impossible.

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #23 –
Quote
Quote
In my opinion, anything over $80 is a total ripoff, and $80 is quite expensive for what a headphone amp does. For a good enough headphone amplifier, the greatest cost in pieces would probably go for the power supply parts. If it was not for the power supply, I think the amplifier electronics could be built for a few $.

You must take notice of the fact that a dynamic headphone, no matter how expensive, needs very little power, so the requirements for the amp are quite low. Only a bit of care is needed to build a good amp.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=345864"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Have you tested any headphone amps? And are you clever and handy enough to build one small and solid enough to fit in your pocket? With good powermanagement and internal recharging of NiMH batteries? Well, maybe you are, but I'm not...
Besides, there are more to a good sounding amplifier whether it drives headphones or speakers than just supplying raw power. Amplifiers sound differently (it's not difficult to ABX difference in sound between amplifiers, what's good sound on the other hand is more difficult/individual).

Let's agree to disagree.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=345867"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

There's no special technology required to produce a good quality low-power amp, which is all a headphone amp really is. Yes, I'm clever and handy enough to make one, should I choose. Power management isn't difficult, since batteries don't produce huge amounts of noise. Internal recharging isn't something I'd find useful, why add complexity when an external charger is easy & cheap?

You make a bold statement that it's easy to ABX amps. As Kike-G points out any half decent amp is going to be very difficult to ABX from another. Consider that any decent, modern, solid-state amp will produce distortion figures in the hundredths of a percent or better, yet  the distortion in any headphone or loudspeaker system is several percent, at least, even in the very highest echelons of quality. To distinguish that tiny fraction of a percent due to the amp would indeed be *very* difficult IMO. Valve (tube) amps aren't so difficult because they often do have very poor distortion figures.

"Good sound" is indeed difficult, simply because it's personal preference. I'd certainly agree that what sounds "good" to you may not be "good" to me or vice versa. In the true sense of "Hi-Fi", however, a more accurate amp has to be better...

Is a headphone amp needed?

Reply #24 –
If you want a quick and easy, but maybe not totally safe, test, just hook up the headphones to your normal speaker connection and keep the volume very low. I made a box years ago with half a dozen jacks and series power resistors to limit current, and other than deaf musicians had no real problems with it. You could also cut the plug end off a headphone extension cord, strip the wires and hook it up to your amp (like the speaker B terminals etc. but I wouldn't LEAVE it hooked up with the headphones plugged in).

My own experience is that while the top Sennheisers sound very good under most conditions, it wasn't until I had a real amp behind them that they walked away from the competition.

Don't most heahphone amps also do the blend thing?