HifiMAN HE-6 Planar Magnetic Headphone - Page 540

Quote:

Originally Posted by conquerator2 

 

Do you think the Mini can "eat" the HE-6? (read kill it)?

 

How should I know! But from all these things one can read here, I am starting to confuse the HE-6 with a nuclear powerplant.... My bad probably 

I wouldn't try it.  After all it is a speaker amp with very high gain when compared to your average headphone amp.  So the HE-6 was probably the one distorting at the max volume level of that amp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by preproman 

 

 

I wouldn't try it.  After all it is a speaker amp with very high gain when compared to your average headphone amp.  So the HE-6 was probably the one distorting at the max volume level of that amp.

Ok. I am sure that right driver died independently though....  It couldnt have killed it. It was on 2-3 oclock at that time,

I repeated that scenario afterwards to make sure and the left driver, although distorting, stand tall through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by matti620 

Can the Objective2 drive the HE-6? If I recall correctly the O2 is rated for about max of 400mA.

If you read my earlier posts in this thread, you will have noticed that I don't think HE-6 needs a huge speaker amp to sound its best. However, I doubt that 400mW is enough. This is based on experience with two amps delivering 440mW: Matrix M-Stage and the Balanced Amp module for the HiFiMan HM-801.

While the first was unbearably brightsounding (including with the AKG K-701) the HM-801 with Bal. amp is much better, but this is with a source which obviously is on the dark side / with rolled off highs. I expect you to find 400mW to be inadequate - especially if your source isn't on the dark side of neutral. If you read between the lines, I am saying that if you underpower a headphone, you can get away with it better if your source is dark sounding, though it obviously never will give the headphone its best possible sound.

Burson Soloist is 4 Watts in 16 Ohm (and thus aledgely doing at least 1,28 Watts in 50 Ohms) and sounds terrific in my opinion. I wouldn't at all consider amps with less than 1 Watt in 50 Ohm, no matter how good it may be on other accounts.

Soloist is 4W when running at 100% distortion ;)  The real usable number is 1W into 30ohm. 600mW into 50.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude 

Soloist is 4W when running at 100% distortion ;)  The real usable number is 1W into 30ohm. 600mW into 50.

Are you trying to be funny?

Burson specifies it to deliver 4 Watts in 16 Ohms, but doesn't say at how much distortion. Usually the limit is 1%.

They also say that at 1 Watt in 30 Ohms it is <0,03% THD, but this is a different story.

Anyway - I actually have the Soloist and have played unhealthy loud to try make it distort with the HE-6, but it didn't. It just scaled up and played lots of powerful bass.

Quote:

Originally Posted by conquerator2 

 

Hell, It can eat the Mini-X for lunch! 

You can max the Mini-X and it is still not THAT loud (read unbearable) and the Mini starts to distort! 

Damn those cans! They are more demanding than regular speakers themselves!

Is there a preamp or some kind of volume control somewhere before the amp?

The HE6 with the mini X amp rarely goes past 9-10 o clock for me. I would never max out the volume with the HE6 or any headphone for that matter.

As far as the O2 with the HE6 the answer is no. The only headphone amp I've had success with the HE6 is the Mjolnir. That's not to say all headphone amps are no good it's just that there are not that many that can drive the HE6 well.  I would say the Mjolnir does a good job but not great.

Not trying to be funny at all.  And look at my sig ;)  0.03% is already pretty high up for SS and likely the point it goes vertical.  Ignoring advertised specs, the rails only allow 8rms tops, not into low impedance, and the BJT outputs are current limiting so... ya 600mW give or take.  That's a clean 105dB.

If you look at the other Burson products... they play this game a lot.  The HA-160 for instance barely reaches 2Vrms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude 

Not trying to be funny at all.  And look at my sig ;)  0.03% is already pretty high up for SS and likely the point it goes vertical.  Ignoring advertised specs, the rails only allow 8rms tops, not into low impedance, and the BJT outputs are current limiting so... ya 600mW give or take.  That's a clean 105dB.

 

If you look at the other Burson products... they play this game a lot.  The HA-160 for instance barely reaches 2Vrms.

I've really liked my Audio GD SA-31 amp with the HE-6. Speaker amp style Toshiba transistors let it put 8 W into 50 ohms.

Solude, my intro to EE knowledge escapes me. How would you calculate the actual output for an amp? Stats for the SA-31 are here: http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/SA/SA31/SA31EN_Specs.htm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude 

Not trying to be funny at all.  And look at my sig ;)  0.03% is already pretty high up for SS and likely the point it goes vertical.  Ignoring advertised specs, the rails only allow 8rms tops, not into low impedance, and the BJT outputs are current limiting so... ya 600mW give or take.  That's a clean 105dB.

 

If you look at the other Burson products... they play this game a lot.  The HA-160 for instance barely reaches 2Vrms.

I think most - in not all - max power spec's are based on 1% THD and this is often if not always after the distortion curve goes more or less vertical, yes. In other words I don't think Burson is exaggerating more than other companies and thus we are comparing numbers with approx same spec's. 0,03% THD isn't very high if it's a non feedback design.

By that logic, HiFiMAN could only claim the EF-6 did 1W into 16ohm since it crosses the 1% line at 4Vrms.  If the distortion isn't listed, it's advertising.  Still a great amp, just not a powerhouse which ad press aside is obvious when you actually lay hands on the thing and it's cold.

Also the Soloist isn't non feedback, gain switch=feedback.

Sorry Steve without knowing the THD% or having scope results there is no real way to know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude 

By that logic, HiFiMAN could only claim the EF-6 did 1W into 16ohm since it crosses the 1% line at 4Vrms.  If the distortion isn't listed, it's advertising.  Still a great amp, just not a powerhouse which ad press aside is obvious when you actually lay hands on the thing and it's cold.

 

Also the Soloist isn't non feedback, gain switch=feedback.

 

Sorry Steve without knowing the THD% or having scope results there is no real way to know.

I think just about all (if not all) amplifiers has a rated max power using 1% THD as limit, and then the rated THD at a much lower power. That's how it's done - unfortunately - but that's how the industry is specifying these things (as far as I know and have seen on many measurements by magazines/reviewers).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rawrster 

Is there a preamp or some kind of volume control somewhere before the amp?

 

The HE6 with the mini X amp rarely goes past 9-10 o clock for me. I would never max out the volume with the HE6 or any headphone for that matter.

 

 

As far as the O2 with the HE6 the answer is no. The only headphone amp I've had success with the HE6 is the Mjolnir. That's not to say all headphone amps are no good it's just that there are not that many that can drive the HE6 well.  I would say the Mjolnir does a good job but not great.

Only the PC volume is maxed out (in Foobar as well)

Thats not to say I turn the volume past 10 often.

In fact only very rarely and only when thee song calls for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LarsHP 

I think just about all (if not all) amplifiers has a rated max power using 1% THD as limit, and then the rated THD at a much lower power. That's how it's done - unfortunately - but that's how the industry is specifying these things (as far as I know and have seen on many measurements by magazines/reviewers).

In this digital age, everything has become a numbers game.

If you look at this published specification for an amp, taken randomly for a modern amp on sale at Audiogon, you can tell  that the specs below are written so as to show the lowest THD and IM numbers and don't tell the whole story. The amp is rated at 250 watts @ 8 ohms/450watts @ 4 ohms

Total Harmonic Distortion + noise 0.003% at 1kHz up to 90% power, into 4 or 8 Ohms
< 0.007% 10Hz to 40kHz at 12.5 Watts into 8 Ohms
Intermodulation distortion 0.002% at 12.5 Watts into 8 Ohms

Great integrated amp that would work well with the HE-6 for a very decent price.

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/solid-state-coda-continuum-unison-ultra-integrated-amplifier-2013-02-03-amplifiers-29803
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurus 

In this digital age, everything has become a numbers game.

 

If you look at this published specification for an amp, taken randomly for a modern amp on sale at Audiogon, you can tell  that the specs below are written so as to show the lowest THD and IM numbers and don't tell the whole story. The amp is rated at 250 watts @ 8 ohms/450watts @ 4 ohms

 

Total Harmonic Distortion + noise 0.003% at 1kHz up to 90% power, into 4 or 8 Ohms
< 0.007% 10Hz to 40kHz at 12.5 Watts into 8 Ohms
Intermodulation distortion 0.002% at 12.5 Watts into 8 Ohms

Agree 100%. That was my point, in fact.