EPTHeadphone enthusiast thread! - Page 133
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firehand101
Australia3152 Posts
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rebdomine
6040 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:06 firehand101 wrote: Man im so confused at all the headphones there are so many, but my budget is about 100-150 AUS$, im not sure which is the best. I just want it for home and possibly to travel, what is the best brand and/or headphone i should buy, i need best quality and comfort, dont even care about looks. Thanks to anyone that replies! What genres do you listen to? Do you have any sound signature preferences? (V-shape, neutral response, etc) Would you want open-back headphones (sound leaks) or closed-back? | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:00 Myrmidon wrote: I think the green stereo out jack is a line out and may not be passed through the headphone amp? The green port says "front" so I'm not sure. Anyhow, if you really want to spend $400, I would guess...CEntrance DACport (not LX, you want the standard DACport with the amp)? http://www.stereophile.com/content/centrance-dacport-usb-headphone-amplifier-measurements http://centrance.com/products/dacport/ I know CEntrance licenses out some USB receiver code to other companies, including those making high-end studio gear, and their MicPort and other products are well regarded in the pro audio / recording space. $400-600ish would be for the set (AMP+DAC). The tiny little DAC scares me too x_x. I'd be a little more wary of the random audiophile company that stuffs brand-name audiophile components into a fancy-looking enclosure (in addition to cheapo stuff, instead of getting what works) and then proceeds with typical audiophile marketing tactics and pseudoscience. Some of those products may be good, but sometimes you get complete fails like headphone amps that deliver 2V transients on power on/off, extremely high jitter, 0 dBFS signals clipping, DAC chips running at 192 kHz no matter what the input is, etc. Not sure how to spot the stuff. =( | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
Sometimes there's performance/size tradeoffs, but I'd trust experts making tradeoffs over others doing anything. I don't think the small size is necessarily a bad thing, as the performance stands for itself. If it's slightly worse because of being small, it's still good so who cares? | ||
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:00 Myrmidon wrote: I think the green stereo out jack is a line out and may not be passed through the headphone amp? If you look how the card is laid out, each analog output gets its own opamp (one of the features of the card is interchangeable opamps for every analog out), leading me to believe that every analog out is amped. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:24 Myrmidon wrote: It's a DAC + headphone amp. You can see it clearly driving 30 ohm loads (not to mention 300 ohm loads) in the review. Output is only about 3V, but that's plenty for HD 650 or HD 600. In fact, one reviewer mentions using HD 650, while another one used HD 600. Sometimes there's performance/size tradeoffs, but I'd trust experts making tradeoffs over others doing anything. I don't think the small size is necessarily a bad thing, as the performance stands for itself. If it's slightly worse because of being small, it's still good so who cares? The small size is probably a good thing for people who are thinking rationally, but I'm thinking about buying toys here and I like the thought of having a big box with tubes that I can swap and mess around with. Plus sound equipment would look good on my desk... So yeah maybe I'm being a bit childish but I don't intend to buy anything on impulse - I want to make sure I end up with something decent. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [image] + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/U493c.jpg) Where's the amp for each channel? If you're talking about the DIP-8 op amp that's located to the right of the green jack (past the green-wrapper caps), that's a 5532, which is definitely not considered a headphone amp. You know what a 5532 is? Besides, most amps behave very well when they're not asked to source much current. | ||
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
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diophan
United States1018 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:06 firehand101 wrote: Man im so confused at all the headphones there are so many, but my budget is about 100-150 AUS$, im not sure which is the best. I just want it for home and possibly to travel, what is the best brand and/or headphone i should buy, i need best quality and comfort, dont even care about looks. Thanks to anyone that replies! IMO http://www.head-fi.org/ is THE audio site on the internet. It's a bit intimidating at first but once you figure it out there's an absolute wealth of information. I ended up getting an incredibly underpriced pair of studio monitors based on information from there and some in-ear headphones for a steal as well. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:29 Djzapz wrote: The small size is probably a good thing for people who are thinking rationally, but I'm thinking about buying toys here and I like the thought of having a big box with tubes that I can swap and mess around with. Plus sound equipment would look good on my desk... So yeah maybe I'm being a bit childish but I don't intend to buy anything on impulse - I want to make sure I end up with something decent. If one goal is to play around with stuff, then that should have been mentioned earlier. Otherwise I'll be thinking about performance, design principles, etc. TBH I think building an amp would be a lot more interesting and would let you play around with even more parts. Go nuts with a custom enclosure, or just buy a fancy one. On January 10 2012 15:30 seiferoth10 wrote: DACs don't need to be monstrous in size. You only need one DAC chip plus any circuitry for power/input/output to be able to have that function. The amp section is the one that benefits (to an extent) from being large. Yeah and again the amp size depends on the output power required. Past about 10V or so you probably can't use typical op amps anymore, and you'll start to have substantial power consumption, so heatsinks and larger discrete designs may be necessary. 10V is plenty for pretty much any non-electrostatic headphone that's not from World War II though. Well it's arguable for HE-6 too, or K1000, or... The DACport is a DAC + amp though, so size concerns regarding the amp may be valid...I guess. Note that you can't get a 3V rms output (8.5V peak-to-peak) from a 0V and 5V USB power without DC-DC conversion. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:30 seiferoth10 wrote: DACs don't need to be monstrous in size. You only need one DAC chip plus any circuitry for power/input/output to be able to have that function. The amp section is the one that benefits (to an extent) from being large. I'd happily pick up a small but decent DAC to go with a "big" AMP. Admittedly, I want it to be kind of "decorative" as well and not just a little grey stick with wires coming out of it at the corner of the desk. (Makes me sound shallow, but oh well.) TBH I think building an amp would be a lot more interesting and would let you play around with even more parts. Go nuts with a custom enclosure, or just buy a fancy one. I'm not quite that competent with electronics =P | ||
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:30 Myrmidon wrote: This picture is a little clearer. + Show Spoiler [image] + Where's the amp for each channel? If you're talking about the DIP-8 op amp that's located to the right of the green jack (past the green-wrapper caps), that's a 5532, which is definitely not considered a headphone amp. You know what a 5532 is? Besides, most amps behave very well when they're not asked to source much current. All I know is you change the opamps to change the sound signature of that channel. So every opamp is amping the signal to its sound signature. Is it different in this case? Edit: You seem to be an electrical engineer of some sort? Much more qualified than me to help here. On January 10 2012 15:41 Djzapz wrote: I'd happily pick up a small but decent DAC to go with a "big" AMP. Admittedly, I want it to be kind of "decorative" as well and not just a little grey stick with wires coming out of it at the corner of the desk. (Makes me sound shallow, but oh well.) I'm not quite that competent with electronics =P I see what you're saying, and I'd go with tubes just to have something flashy or a conversation piece. Hell, if I was dropping $400 on an amp, I'd probably want it to look extravagant too. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:43 seiferoth10 wrote: I see what you're saying, and I'd go with tubes just to have something flashy or a conversation piece. Hell, if I was dropping $400 on an amp, I'd probably want it to look extravagant too. I'm still shopping and looking around. There's a chance I'll end up picking up a solid state amp. Tube amps are "exciting" in that they can be customized easily and also I hear they sound slightly "different" so the experience couldn't be too bad. The extravagant look is a plus though =) | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:43 seiferoth10 wrote: All I know is you change the opamps to change the sound signature of that channel. So every opamp is amping the signal to its sound signature. Is it different in this case? Edit: You seem to be an electrical engineer of some sort? Much more qualified than me to help here. "Sound signature" of high-end op amps in this kind of configuration, where they're not asked to source much current or be configured with a lot of gain, and so on...is pretty much audiophile BS. 5532 has typical distortion well below audibility, really low noise, etc. There's no way you're going to hear the difference between that and something else that's also very good. If you swap with something unsuitable for the circuit (often more expensive stuff), then yeah, you can get worse performance that may possibly be audible if you screwed something up big time. Most op amps are completely unsuitable for high-fidelity audio, but those are generally just not considered. Anyway, people who change stuff are expecting to hear a difference, so they do hear a difference. Recorded music often goes through many (tens? hundreds?) op amps in recording interfaces, pre-amps, equalizers, mixers, consoles, etc. A 5532 is the most common op amp used for this purpose, unless you want to use something cheaper that's a little worse. Surely an extra 5532 on the playback side is no big deal if your music's likely been through plenty of them on the recording studio's side? I'm an electrical engineering grad student, but I'm unqualified to comment on most of these subjects from a professional point of view, since it's way outside my domain. Mostly I'm just a keyboard warrior.  I don't do anything related to circuits or electronics. | ||
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Deadeight
United Kingdom1629 Posts
On January 10 2012 15:34 diophan wrote: IMO http://www.head-fi.org/ is THE audio site on the internet. It's a bit intimidating at first but once you figure it out there's an absolute wealth of information. I ended up getting an incredibly underpriced pair of studio monitors based on information from there and some in-ear headphones for a steal as well. @firehand101 Head-Fi has some great, really helpful members, but be very careful there. There is a long history of banning people who say bad things about their sponsors, and any talk of blind testing components has been banned from all forums apart from a science sub-forum which is inactive. | ||
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slytown
Korea (South)1411 Posts
On January 10 2012 14:58 Djzapz wrote: Ah thanks for the heads up about question 2, I'll look into it. As for the Little Dot DAC, it's a bit too expensive for me running over $300. I must say it's very tempting though. Audio-GD has some great options for people on a budget audiophile rig. http://www.audio-gd.com/En audio-gd.htm | ||
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HuggyBear
Australia377 Posts
On January 10 2012 19:43 Deadeight wrote: @firehand101 Head-Fi has some great, really helpful members, but be very careful there. There is a long history of banning people who say bad things about their sponsors, and any talk of blind testing components has been banned from all forums apart from a science sub-forum which is inactive. You forgot to mention that majority of its members are prone to jumping on the hype machine. I'd research carefully around head-fi | ||
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DenSkumle
Norway108 Posts
 Edit: nevermind i just unplugged the external amplifier | ||
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FinBenton
Finland870 Posts
On January 10 2012 22:51 HuggyBear wrote: You forgot to mention that majority of its members are prone to jumping on the hype machine. I'd research carefully around head-fi Over hype is common in every forum on every subject (in sc2 too lol) but yeah its the most awsome audio related forum ever but you need to have your filters up and running to get the benefit. | ||
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Cutebone
United States62 Posts
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