EPTPersonal preference wins!
Headphone enthusiast thread! - Page 154
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Ckalvin
Australia150 Posts
Personal preference wins! | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
If you're thinking about EQ to "correct" the inherent FR of the headphones or just want to have a better idea of what's going on, you can have a general idea of the shape of the FR from data here (note they use different normalization or weighing function): http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD598.pdf http://doctorhead.ru/images/misc/catalog/sennheiser/HD598/fr.png and near the bottom here you can see the effect of the different EQ settings on the E17: http://www.head-fi.org/t/587912/fiio-e17-alpen-first-impression-final-thought | ||
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essencez
342 Posts
On March 23 2012 12:20 Myrmidon wrote: Really? Most OTL tube designs tend to have higher output impedance and higher noise levels, and as such don't play nice with lots of IEMs and many headphones unless you want potentially big frequency response variations and some hiss and mains frequency hum in the background with your music. Some forum post says Jack Woo said WA2 has 60 ohms output impedance. That's enough for about 10 dB shift in frequency response with some IEMs. Even on some fullsize headphones like some Sennheiser HD 5xx series, you'll effectively get +5 dB at around the ~100 Hz resonant hump. For many others it's no big deal though, but what does "support a wide range of impedances" really mean? It's less flexible than many cheaper options. Of course the sound can be enjoyable from a lot of headphones, but it just seems a backwards example to bring up. The high output impedance is limiting the power that can be delivered to lower-impedance loads, which helps them not get burned up by accident, but that's at a cost of significantly changing the sound on some models. On a side note, you can always add extra impedance to a low-impedance output source, so having this inherently built in is not really an advantage. It's possible to just use an output stage that's current limited, which will have the same effect without the extra baggage, but that's not a real solution either because some headphones just need a lot more or less power than others, and you don't want to be so conservative that you actually do not have enough to drive some headphones. Better is just to offer more gain options, though a careless user could still set a gain too high for some headphones and accidentally turn the volume too high, and so on. edit: maybe the tone came off wrong here...just being befuddled from the response. I'm not trying to make an example or blanket statements about quality. I just don't think it's technically correct that a lot of higher-end gear (well, more expensive, which is what people mean, I think) are more "impedance friendly" or "support a wide range of impedances." It's not just theory; issues happen with real products. I guess the actual term might be impedance/load switching? For example if I plug my low impedance iems into my WA2 OTL amp the power drive significantly decreases compared with a high impedance headphone. It is stated in the manual to provide: 310mW@32ohms 4000mW@60ohms <-- hopefully thats a typo 550mW@120ohms 640mW@300ohms 480mW@600ohms with stock 6080 tubes I am using an tube with a higher drive so my power output might be somewhat slightly higher than state in the manual. I can also verify this with the preamp speaker output. The moment I plug an low impedance headphone, the speaker output (feed to a basic power amp) will immediately sound like a FM radio and significantly decrease volume levels. I am sure the drop is to due to the decrease drive by the amp. But what I am not sure of, is if the drop is in voltage or current. I am assuming its voltage because lower impendance headphones are better with higher current and higher impendance headphones with higher voltage. This features helps in many ways as I can switch between low/high without worrying about burn outs. I am sure if the same drive used to power my 600ohm beyers will absolutely destroy my custom iems, jh16s. And this also allows me to much more percisely control the volume when I have low imp headphones plugged in. On other amps I can sometimes barely move the volume pot by 5-10 degrees and with the WA2 I can use the entire first half or so of my volume pot. @DSPs'. True HiFi mentality likes neutral and leaves everything else off.  | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KJ6RJ.png) You're just getting a voltage divider circuit for each of the L and R channel (well actually, L and R channels share some very small impedance at the headphone jack, so they're not quite separated). Z_1 is the output impedance of the amplifier and Z_2 is the impedance of the headphones. The amp is essentially driving the series combination of the amp's own output impedance plus the headphones. V_out = V_in * Z_2 / (Z_1 + Z_2) V_out is the voltage the headphones see. V_in is the voltage from the amplifier output. Note that Z_2 is a function of frequency; for some IEMs it could be like 10 ohms at some frequencies and 80 ohms at others in the audio frequency range, for example. P = V^2 / Z Power is voltage squared divided by impedance. If Z_1 is large compared to Z_2, like if you have a OTL tube amp and low-impedance headphones, then you'll lose a lot of voltage across the output impedance of the amp. You're losing a certain percentage regardless of the output level. Actually if you run the math, based on the given power handling figures, you'll see that the amp is furthermore a bit current limited into the lower impedances. This means it'll start clipping at a lower V_in (if you're really running it to the max power levels, which generally doesn't happen). Note that if Z_1 is close to zero for an amp, you can add a resistor between the headphone jack and the headphones to get the same effect (adding in your own Z_1) if you really wanted. edit2: As another example, if you had an ideal voltage source that's voltage limited, also with Z_1 = 0 (some headphone amplifiers more or less behave this way into some or most headphone impedances), then the power delivered at any load is just the max voltage V_in squared divided by the impedance Z_2. So you get a different amount into different loads regardless if the source has high output impedance or not. This is nothing special. However, in this scenario you see that the max power into low impedances is higher than for high impedances. | ||
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Dacendoran
United States825 Posts
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BroodToad
United States22 Posts
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CorsairHero
Canada9491 Posts
On March 24 2012 06:32 Dacendoran wrote: I just ordered a pair of T50RPs and XB500's along with Sure 840 pads for my T50rp's I can't wait to recieve them later this week and mod them =3. I got the xb500's as a fun headphone they reproduce subwoofer-ish bass punch that I wanted for dubstep listening I hope I don't ruin my T50rp's regardless it will be very fun ^.^. Did you ever hear one of these? ![[image loading]](http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9728/dsc7859.jpg) | ||
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Ckalvin
Australia150 Posts
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Kewlots
Australia534 Posts
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
The $400 Beats (which I admit look sexy, the metal headband is sick) sound very similar to the $15 Koss KSC-75 (fairly clear sound, bass was present, if a little weak). The $200 Beats (the ultra-portable ones, that are similar in design to Senn HD-25-I-II and Beyer DT1350) sound... worse than my $15 Koss KSC-75 (the sound was incredibly veiled, bass nonexistent).. Even though I think the KSC-75 are worth much more than $15 (I'd probably put them somewhere around $40), the takeaway is that the Beats line doesn't deliver in the sound department relative to its price. I've reflected on this and I think this comparison is fairly accurate, at least to me. | ||
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CorsairHero
Canada9491 Posts
On March 24 2012 11:51 Ckalvin wrote: Holy crap that is some incredible modding. What wood is that? Not sure. More information can be found at: http://home.comcast.net/~garybutcher/Thunderpants_TP1/Home.html | ||
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Zokkar
Israel128 Posts
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kineSiS-
Korea (South)1068 Posts
AHAHA Thunderpants by Smeggy. That guy. While not world-class I would say (as some have exaggerated and put it to the level of the T1 by Beyerdynamic and the HD800 by Sennheiser, I would say from what I have read that it is indeed a great headphone with great finish and a vintage/novelty feel. + It shows you how well a Foster T50RP can end up with proper modification. | ||
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kineSiS-
Korea (South)1068 Posts
On March 26 2012 08:59 seiferoth10 wrote: I was at Bestbuy one day and was pretty curious about the Beats line, so I tried them out at the little demo stand. The $400 Beats (which I admit look sexy, the metal headband is sick) sound very similar to the $15 Koss KSC-75 (fairly clear sound, bass was present, if a little weak). The $200 Beats (the ultra-portable ones, that are similar in design to Senn HD-25-I-II and Beyer DT1350) sound... worse than my $15 Koss KSC-75 (the sound was incredibly veiled, bass nonexistent).. Even though I think the KSC-75 are worth much more than $15 (I'd probably put them somewhere around $40), the takeaway is that the Beats line doesn't deliver in the sound department relative to its price. I've reflected on this and I think this comparison is fairly accurate, at least to me. Forgive my crass language. Actually, no. Fuck Beats, Fuck Bose. For that price point you can get so many better headphones. Although I highly don't agree with FR graphs due to relativity of testing and how different systems are set up and again different methods of testing. You can even see Skullcandy graphs matching those of high end headphones which is ridiculous. However, what I want to say is that for 400$ I would buy a pair of Sennheiser HD-25 i-ii adidas version and an E17. Also people might find it kind of ridiculous. But my next set of IEM's are the Heir Audio 8.A Beautiful gems. ![[image loading]](http://www.heiraudio.com/upLoad/CaseAlbum/2011/10/original/1024043138472209.jpg) | ||
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CorsairHero
Canada9491 Posts
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kineSiS-
Korea (South)1068 Posts
On March 27 2012 09:57 CorsairHero wrote: at the promotional price of $1,099? (Will be) Worth every penny. Don't forget to factor in international shipping, audiologist fee's, and the time spent. But again... worth it. | ||
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Don.681
Philippines189 Posts
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Don.681
Philippines189 Posts
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Flicky
England2675 Posts
Just need to get used to hearing bass in songs again. But they're awesome. I'm going through my test playlist as I type. | ||
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Ckalvin
Australia150 Posts
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