Headphone enthusiast thread! - Page 166

On May 15 2012 11:23 Logan-nagoL wrote:
Steelseries Siberia V2 White _b. Great headphones.

On May 15 2012 12:58 Rollin wrote:
I'm looking for a pair of circumaural closed headphones for ~$150 AU. I saw earlier in the thread these ones (ATH-M50s) were recommended a few times. However, my main concern is how much sound leakage there is from closed headphones, as I hate it when other people have leaky earphones/headphones, and I equally hate it when other people can hear what I'm listening to. I've only had experience with IEMs, so I have no idea.

As for the sound response I'd like, I'm probably looking for something with a clear mids - highs, as well as a not too overdone high end bass response, yet nice and responsive in the very low end (ie. I want to be able to hear all the bass without the higher bass cutting over the top of the lower end).

For reference, I'm using some Pl-50's at the moment, but the soundstage is far too constricted, being an IEM, and I wanted to experiment with some full-size headphones. I will be using my clip+ and xonar dg when on the fly and at home respectively. Would a cheap amp be helpful for these headphones (or any others that get recommended), or are they fairly easy to drive without?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

On May 17 2012 04:11 Mordanis wrote:
So on my new computer, the motherboard has a pretty decent onboard sound. The problem is that I can't get it very loud at all on my AD700s. I have a $5 soundcard from my old build, and that gives plenty of volume, but the sound from it is pretty bad. I can also plug my headphones into the headphone jack in my speakers and that enables me to increase the volume, but there's also a slight, annoying hiss. So my question is whether I should buy a better soundcard or an amplifier? Also, I'm probably a month or two out from either of these, and I just want to be ready the instant I can afford it.

On May 17 2012 04:31 Myrmidon wrote:
Helpful advice.

On May 17 2012 05:24 Twistacles wrote:
More helpful advice.

On May 17 2012 11:50 kineSiS- wrote:


I'd also like to mention that in all likelihood the hiss is caused by a high gain of the headphone amplifier built in to the combined with the noise due to how the electrical components are set up inside your laptop and finally the sensitivity of your headphones. All of these factors in tangent with one another will lead to HISSSS!

Just get a FiiO E17 if looking for portable use.

Just get a FiiO E10 if looking for home use only.

On May 17 2012 16:13 Mordanis wrote:


1st off, my computer is a desktop. Also, I have the soundcard installed at the far end of the motherboard, so it is as far away as possible from the graphics card and cpu. And it made the same hiss in my old computer. I'm no expert but I think its just a bad card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829270007. Other people seem to think its not a very good card as well, but if there is any way to improve the sound without spending any money, I'd be ecstatic, because I won't be able to afford any amp for at least 2 months :D Thanks for the advice though, I appreciate it.

On May 18 2012 08:43 kineSiS- wrote:


Sorry but there is no such thing as just a bad card. First off, it may be far away, but there is probably still disturbances that are occurring. With expensive headphone amplifiers, people actually build separate PSU's in order to minimize EMF interference and other variables. Another probable reason is clipping. It means that the amplifier can't actually support the headphones a.k.a. it will lead to distortion of the sound at higher volumes even though it can reach them.

On May 19 2012 06:48 Myrmidon wrote:

"Bad" in what way? Those low-end C-Media audio chips can be significantly worse than typical Realtek onboard audio chips, with much higher distortion and noise, and other issues. If the circuit and PCB aren't designed right (or maybe just choose the lowest-cost option everywhere, which wouldn't be a stretch at a $12 cost), that can create even more problems. Some designs just are prone to more EMI issues than others, and something like that might not be properly filtering the power supply rails gotten from the motherboard either.

As for separate power supplies for expensive dedicated headphone amplifiers, this is a side note, but I'm not sure if you're conveying the right information and context there. A better power supply is about better power filtering mostly (so the output looks more like a constant DC voltage and less like a DC voltage with a lot of wiggly noise riding on top), not really EMI, and being able to handle the power draw of the amp when operating while maintaining those hopefully clean outputs. This can help the performance of all sensitive analog electronics like headphone amplifiers and DACs. However, some designs are affected a lot more by power supply performance than others. A lot of fashionable, expensive audio equipment use very low-performance designs—mostly for marketing purposes, because people want to buy certain things—that require exceptionally clean power supply rails to reach the same kind of noise levels (or worse) as some cheap yet effective design using a cheap integrated power supply.

The sound card might be clipping, but it advertises having a "built-in 32 ohm earphone buffer" (read: very cheap integrated headphone amplifier), so I would guess not. In the least, it has something designed for headphones in mind. It might be.


Anyway, there's not really any solution that doesn't involve spending more money, unless there's just some kind of software/drivers/configuration issue making the onboard audio softer than it should be. Do you have a multimeter? That could confirm a couple of things.

And like I said, depending on what the issue is, a < $20 shipped FiiO E5 may be all you need anyway. You still can't afford that for another couple months?

On May 19 2012 06:49 _Ice_ wrote:
Got my ATH-M50 on the way! Totally stoked!