Very succinct, very clear and very *needed* tutorial on this subject. I design vacuum tube amplification gear professionally, and the subject matter you cover here is *very* commonly misunderstood by audio enthusiasts. Kudos!
I'd like to see a video on how using an amp vs not using one affects the sound quality of headphones, i.e. what things can I look for to know whether my headphones are underpowered, or how much performance am I leaving on the table by not using an amp on a headphone that is supposedly hard to drive.
My phone could only derive DT 770 pro at say around low-half volume, where as Macbook pro was able to derive it to very high volume. As for quality of sound it doesn't change, maybe loudness effect can appear like a change.
@@ManoharSingh-dg8ih This is flat-out wrong. Rarely is an amp actually required to get adequate listening volumes, the reason you amp is to supply adequate power to properly control the driver through any dynamic swing you may throw at it. A properly-amped driver is faster, more dynamic, detailed, and more controlled as a whole.
@@alondite215I've been unable to hear a lot of things in songs when using my he400se with a samsung A31. yes, it did get loud, but most of the audio wasn't even there, especially voices, since these headphones aren't as front facing with vocals. to get a decent amount of detail I had to crank the volume near max since the lower 70% was near unhearable even when in a completely silent room.
Great video, Cameron. I use a digital db meter ($20 Amazon) and shoot for 80-85db at abut 50-60% amp volume at low gain setting (I typically only use high gain for a little more note weight at low listening levels, like the old-fashioned loudness function). After doing this with about a dozen sources I have gotten to know my headphone driving need rather well. Now I can more easily look at the impedance and sensitivity of a headphone and basically know the ballpark power source needed.
@@koustuvkanungo9873 the meter tip inserts between the pads as I press them to seal around the meter tip. It is not meant to be scientific measure. I use this for benchmarking. Very useful to protect me ears too. Thanks.
@@dukdive Cameron's method is more accurate but my method is a quick way within an acceptable SD to benchmark my listening levels for understanding my headphones power needs and to protect my ears. Thanks.
This is a great video, favorited for future reference as it saves a lot of writting time when explaining to people how headphones work. Personally i found out that people tend to understand better the concept of power to sound pressure conversion when you explain to them that the headphone impedance determines the amplifier maximum power, and then sensitivity is how efficiently a driver can convert that power to sound pressure. For some reason explaining it as "steps" makes that information easier to digest.
I find that most people who arent WILLING audiophiles really don't care about this. Audiophiles care...most people will still buy those crappy Bleats, Bosé and Cowin Headphones off Amazon. I've seen this too many times where most people dont care about better sound and the technical of a headphone as much as we do. They just don't and I'm resigned to say that's okay.
Technically sensitivity should be expressed as a function of voltage not power, the way many (but far from all) speaker manufacturers express it nowadays. If you express 'sensitivity' as a function of power (wattage) what you are actually describing is 'nominal' efficiency. Nominal because it depends on impedance and the quoted impedance is 'nominal' because it often varies with frequency.
This has to be one of the best videos explaining the spl and amp power requirements I've seen for quite some time, extremely informative and detailed, thankyou, my btr5 dac amp no worries with a 300 ohm drop 6xx or sennheiser 650, cheers mate.
A good amp with output transformer will have no problems with any impedance load. IMHO, the sensitivity rating is a more important factor to look at when researching headphones.
It's like wine. You enjoy to explore different grapes, taste, and their texture. My reference i HD-600 (open) and DT-150 (DT-100 pads, closed) and Etymotic ER2XR (IEM)
Wow this video was extremely helpful thank you. More people and reviewers need to see this. Alot more misconceptions about amps out there than I thought.
I have sony mdr 7506... and they hugely benefit from an amp... now this could be a shortcoming of my motherboard audio. so that is something important to note. I got the Schiit magni unity with the dac option I gained better lows and highs and general clarity across the board over my motherboard soundcard... that said, things were still pretty good before... I wouldn't get the dac/amp for these headphones, I am waiting for my hifiman edition XS.
Love every video with goldensound! Such great explanations. Could you explore the topic of what constitutes a well mastered song, and how best to music songs for testing headphones?
An excellent video in terms of coherent explanation of key concepts but he doesn’t actually answer the question he poses in the title of the video. Do I need an amp?
I came here in search of answers to whether or not I even need anything more than built in audio on PC for my skullcandy crusher evo's and I'm pretty sure this stuff is out of my league.
Though I respect you for being a great bridge between objective and subjective world, this video, though being quite informative, went zipped past. Would have been lot informative with bit lesser speed and with examples! 👍
Good explanations ! Just one little thing @ 3:15 and latter, you have to be careful with FFTs. An FFT will show a white noise (which is bright) flat and a pink noise (which is flat) downward slopping 3 dB/Oct. There is a difference when plotting sines (one freq) vs plotting spectrum. A basic spectrum analyzer will show equal loudness when there is equal volume per linear bandwidth. It's because for an FFT, 20 to 40 Hz is the same bandwidth as 20020 to 20040 Hz. So to get a better representation, you have to tilt 3 dB per octave. Still it doesn't change the point, bass are louder, but not as much as a basic spectrum shows.
Fantastic and informative, Goldensound. Despite being in the hobby for a bit now, and having nice gear, I learned quite a bit from this video. Thank you!
maybe i'm crazy but first of all your video is very useful, I bought an DT-990 Pro and I really don't need an amp I just need to push the volume to 75% but I don't need above that pourcentage. Secondly I was able to test an amp with my headphone and I notice that it's clearly louder but I notice a slight loss of detail in the music I listen to (perhaps this is due to the sensation of "loudness" by the amp) I wanted to know if this is accurate or im just crazy haha. Btw I can modify the audio parameters (without the amplifier) up to 192 khz in the windows parameters, whereas with the amp I can only go up to 96khz. And i can push to 192khz because I have files (I don't know if this is due to the loss of detail)
A question for the experts: Is the Ifi Zen Dac V2 powerful enough to power a Hifiman Edition XS? And does it absolutely need an external power pack, or is the power from the USB port sufficient? Thanks :-)
Yes the Zen DAC is more than enough... The Edition XS requires 63.1mW of power to get to the standard 110dB SPL as listed by Golden Sound. The Zen DAC can do roughly 350mW into 32 Ohm so yes it should be able to run the Edition XS no problem
Hello there, my amp (ACUS FERDI 8) does not have a headphone output. Can I try to circumnavigate it by connecting “something: to my DirectOut on my amp? Thank you.
One thing I still don't understand: Is there a good reason to still buy and use an amp if I am using headphones which can be played at ample good enough volume across all my devices? Or maybe in more concrete terms, would something like Campfire Andromeda or the new Sony MDR-MV1 benefit from amp when both can be driven easily on a smartphone? Lots of people seem to suggest so, but what is the science behind that?
NOISE! Never mind the science. Isnt it enough for you to be told over and over again that phones and computers are horribly noisy? And we are not just telling you about audible noise (which may actually even be present). Get a separate dac/amp and you will hear for yourself.
I feel like the first myth could have been worded a lot better. I would almost think the HD600 is harder to drive than the HD650, for example, even though I’m sure that’s not what you meant.
can anyone share a list of iems which doesnt require any dac/amp or any fancy stuff for listening on an normal iphone 14promax directly - am a newbie any pointers will be helpful - mainly for listening fun music - a common man question
5:30 If anyone's got this down, care to explain? How does higher gain not equal higher output voltage in this description? And how does it not alter power as consequence?
If there are other humans in your house have some consideration and Get a closed back. Even video games' soundtracks will sound better with a clean amp. Look at amps with thx
i didnt really get the part about planar (9:27) so let me recap if i've understood correctly: so if i listen at 85db the bass region in most song could be at 20db higher due to human hear stuff, so i plug 110 db in the calculator to see if i can drive it in the full range so in planar the bass is particulary hard to drive so the amp will output even more power towards those frequency and therefore i need an amp that drives cleanly even at higher power? so in practice what happens and how i check this? i have a fosi audio q5 that is rated for 400mW @32ohm and i'm intrested in a
If I say that this video changed the WHOLE way I saw the power rating of amps - does that mean I have been a complete dunce up till this moment. If it does ...then it does. It also means that I am incredibly grateful not to be a dunce anymore. That was quite long enough. Thanks so much for making this video. I suspect I was not the only dunce in the room. Haha. More, please - remove my dunceness on all topics headphone!!
Another suggestion, I have an original version Grado 225. I am considering a 325x but...what about a diy upgrade? Specifically how do diy drivers compare to factory Grados?
Golden Sound - great video. I have Audeze LCD-5 headphones. My DAC is the Gustard X26Pro. I'm currently using an iFi iCan Pro Signature amp. Any suggestions on a new amp and or DAC to drive these cans? Thanks in advance.
how to choose one for your phone where it is a normal small headphone jack and how to know it will work'? I got the Light Phone 2 and got all my Apple Music and podcasts on it as well some recordings from Logic Pro... Now I use the beyerdynamic DT 1770 PRO and want to use them as well as with my phone to listen to music...
the thing that i don't understand is why does more gain not mean more power? doesn't power equal voltage X current, and gain increases the voltage? so there should be more power, i don't have a deep understanding of electricity and circuitry so bare with me, i understand the increase of noise floor and why that's bad so there's no need for an explanation there.
Instead of HI RES stickers they should make "Tungsten ready!" and "Susvara approved" stickers so people don't get confused, they can get a kickback from said companies.
Ok so riddle me this why were the Meze elite's garbage with "normal" (fiio btr5) amplification when according to the calculator anything should drive them but really come alive with a true amp (HA6A)?
Hey, did you also drive them with any other options? Any good non-tube? My new Elites are quite underwhelming with Mojo 2. What aspects improved for you with a better amp?
@Peace Guard I also have a btr7, and that did vastly improve the sound. For me, what was missing were all in the bass area. It just sounded lifeless, and I would max out the volume, but I felt I needed more.
Because different amplifier topologies & circuitries exists, I wish it was as simple as just using a headphone power calculator. Solid state vs tube, discrete components vs opamps, battery vs mains power, hybrid vs OTL, etc.
Back then, on my community of audio, people told to me that I had to have stack (DAC + AMP) if I wanted to drive headphone properly. Now, I only have iFi Zen Air DAC for everything including my IEM & headphone. I'm satisfied with it, even though it would be nice if I have a stack 😂
You have to take into consideration that not many members of the audio community have a proper understanding of even the simplest electrical properties of DACs, amplifiers and headphones. In the end if you are satisfied it's all that matters.
So if power isn't an issue, then is it safe to somewhat assume that the sound changes from different DAC/Amp setups are more so on the pairing of those to the headphone? I remember trying to power my HD600 on my old Fiio Q1 Gen 1 and it was able to play it but the soundstage felt really narrow and there's a bit of a loss in clarity. Plugging it to a desktop headphone amp with my Topping D20 usually did the trick for me. I'd say that if it was more so the overall performance relative to the gear, then that could explain how different both DAC/Amps made the HD600 sound.
Components used can affect the coloring of sound. Since sound is translation of electricity to an audible signal, the parts that affect the signal's cleanness can alter that. It's the same reason not all headphones sound the same
It could be, and it could also be in your head. I'm not saying there's no audible differences between gear, but I found that in my own testing, once I set things up to no longer be able to tell what source gear I was listening to, an enormous amount of the differences went away entirely, and it became EXTREMELY hard to tell. I even did the same tests with a few of my friends who're huge audiophiles and spend thousands on source gear; I won't lie, the face they made when they couldn't tell if they were listening to a Modius or a Holo Spring 3 was a little funny. Hard to say for sure though without proper testing though, your brain is very very good at making stuff up based on your perception and expectations.
@@dmines25 hmm makes sense, tuning, design and components do make headphones sound diff from each other so it makes sense too that it works for stacks too. Thanks
@@KaneAmaroq its a weird thing honestly Like at least in my memory, I tried pairing the HD600 with the Fiio X1/Q1 gen 1 combo, my Moto G 5G Plus connected to a Lake People G109(double amped), and with a G109/Topping D20 The Fiio portable stack powered the HD600 for sure but for some reason it sounded very narrow and because of that, the mids and highs sounded very close, although the hardware bass boost helped out the warmth a bit. Overall it wasn't very good My phone connected to an amp with no dac sounded quite good but the highs were a.bit lacking compared to the desktop dac/amp stack, although i would want to eventually do more testing on it eventually It could be all in my head so I'll also try to ask my other friends how they feel about it if they pass by
Just gotten myself an Arya V2 & if what I've understood from what you had said at 7:26 is correct, can I drive my Aryas with the Topping DX3 Pro+ that has a power output of 1.8 watts @ 32 Ohm i.e. 1.226 watts @ 47 Ohms?
It will make them loud, but thats doesnt mean they are driven properly. You should upgrade to something price appropriate for a ayra in the $350 to $500 range.
Also your calculations are false. If you look at the product spec for the dx3, you will see it has different voltages at different impedances. Your 48 ohm load will have a different voltage than a 32 ohm load, you cannot just substitute the new impedances, you need to know the new voltage at that impedances.
I have an he6se v2 and i still don't understand if im squeezing absolutely everything out of its driver despite running it from the powerful burson soloist. Well, it sounds close to a 1000$ headphone despite me paying only 600 so im kinda satisfied for now, despite its og price being 1800$
I doubt you’d do much better than the Burson. The planars just require more power to drive them to full potential. I have two Hifiman planars and had to upgrade my portable amp to an IFI XCan to drive them properly. For dynamics that wasn’t necessary.
@@joelcutinho2020 I confess I haven't heard any Bursons, but I've heard plenty about how good they are. It's sort of similar to speakers: tiny Klipsch bookshelfs like I have in my HT system, you can drive with almost anything, but a giant pair of Martin Logan speakers, well, you'd better match them with the right amp or you won't even hear them! They'll sound terrible anyway, probably.
@@thiscorrosion900 Haha yea! The Burson soloist 3xp has a class A smooth sound but still more transparent than other class A amps barring GSX mini, I was a bit taken aback with the extra transparency as I expected a lot of body and richness (Singxer SA-1 is richer and has more body), but I decided against returning it due to its power, natural organic sound that is absent in most chifi amps, and versatility of sound signatures by allowing op amp rolling as well as 2 audibly distinct sound signatures (headamp mode and power amp mode)
@@joelcutinho2020 I dunno I think what most audiophiles are after at a certain level is more transparency and detail anyway. One thing I have learned is that one headphone might be great for rock and dance music, and another may be totally unsuitable for that, lacking bass, etc. No matter what. Then again some phones can be tuned and tweaked and EQ'd and put them through the right amp and you may get different results. If you just want to listen to classical or jazz I would say get some electrostatics if you can. But planars are great, too, for that. If I want to listen to that music I whip out the Hifimans for sure.
Amp classes are more in car audio. Class D is for bass/low end. Class A/B is mids and lower high frequencies. Class A is top end of the frequencies range. But as stated power is power. RMS matters more than anything in mobile audio, like impedance and sensitivity matters more in audiophile settings.
HE6 with EQ takes 90% volume from a THX 789 which is often referred to as a 6W amplifier as that's it's max output. Are there many amps that offer same output at the correct impedance with a much smaller max output, I haven't checked the numbers.
As mentioned in the video, (in fact I used this specific example) the position of the volume knob should never be used to indicate whether a headphone is being driven properly or how much headroom is remaining. It can be quite misleading
@@GoldenSound Yes, but in practise what would be examples of amps both ways? Lower max output, but sufficient and same/higher max output, but insufficient?
If you get enough volume at 80% volume you're set imo. People using speaker amps for HE6 etc are just using worse measuring power for no benefit most of the time.
@@enjoshi-godrez8775 I've never come across this issue with the HE6 with several amps so I wonder what are examples of this issue in practise. Power amps have sounded worse in my experience.
@@hartyewh1 the application of those speaker amps will be vastly lower distortion than any headphone amp. They must deliver enough current RMS to run at 2 ohms, which would cause unimaginable amounts of distortion form all headphone amps baring TOTL models. You are in a tiny majority of the people that think the orginal (better be a orginal) he6 doesnt sound better on an amp like that. They are objectively superior at delivering current than any headphone amp.
This video is so pointless and useless. "Do I need an amp?" Well... just plug your headphones in and see if they sound tinny with a volume level that is to low for your taste. "Volume and depth of sound seem fine... I guess it's good." or "Man, this sounds weak thin and it just doesn't get loud enough for me and sounds distorted when I turn it up. It seems like there isn't enough power driving these." Just don't impulse buy a DAC or DAC/AMP when you're falling for the upsells and marketing hype. Try your headphones for a week, you're experience with that will tell you if you then, also, should look at buying some sort of amp solution. Critical thought - It's hard. I get it.
Only Class A amp that I consider as 100.00000% Class A is a pure single ended triode (no parallel tubes, directly or indirectly heated or triode strapped without any option to switch to pentode) output transformer coupled amp. The rest of them that claim Class A are not Class A in my book since they have tricks to switch to A/B when power requirements increases beyond a certain point or has a push-pull /pentode/ultra-linear mode, or it's a balanced driven triode amp).
@@williamsteven5613 A balanced amp uses push-pull which is Class A/B because each op-amp or tube or transistor only amplifies one set of peaks (positve amplitude peaks for example or R+/L+) and that other tube / op-amp / transistor that amplfies the negative peaks (R-/L-) is momentarily off (50% duty cycle). Manufacturers add something called "Class A Bias" and claim that at a certain power requirements, these transistors can turn on 100% of the time (aka 100% duty cycle) thus amplifying all signals (one tube is R+/R-, complete sine wave in pure Class A) while the other tube/op amp etc amplifies the L+/L-
