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LOD questions

post #1 of 4
6/9/10 at 8:10am
Thread Starter 

Sorry, I have asked this twice already and have not gotten a satisfying answer.  I will be more specific this time.  What is the difference in amping through headphone out and Line Out?  I have heard the line out bypasses an internal amp in the DAP that attenuates the volume, but if the amp is bypassed, the volume is a max(atleast for ipods).  If that is the case, through the headphone out, putting the volume at max, and passing it to external amp would be that much of a difference?  What makes the line out signal so special?  has anybody measured the line out signal to see if there is detectable electrical difference?  I would feel more comfortable with that answer than someone telling me it sounds better.  Also, if your reasoning is that it is being double amped(there is the attenuating amp in the path), please tell me why that would degrade the sound quality.  I am really looking for some reasoning behind it, technical would be great.  For example, RSA's balanced amp has 2 for channel, why would that be kosher, while having internal amp in the path is not?  Like I said, technical or answer based on measurements with graphs would be great.  Thanks.


Edited by High_Q - 6/9/10 at 8:14am
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post #2 of 4
6/9/10 at 12:18pm

Difference in amping the HO or the LO? The LO is generally cleaner than the headphone out due to it not having to bypass the DAPs internal amplifier. Because of this the LO sounds better.

 

In all LOs, the volume is at "max" because it isn't being regulated by an amp; it's a clean signal. 

 

The difference is that instead of regulating that sound with the internal amp, you can use a better, external amp or pre-amp that you have purchased. 

Raising the volume on iPods to a high volume (people sometimes get clipping if it's max; a lot of people leave it around 80% for iPods) and amping the HO would give you the benefits of the amp; although it wouldn't sound as good as amping the LO; albeit iPods don't give you a true line out signal. (Read about iMods for that).

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post #3 of 4
6/9/10 at 6:32pm
Thread Starter 

I would like to know more.  Experts please share your knowledge.


Edited by High_Q - 6/9/10 at 7:44pm
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post #4 of 4
6/9/10 at 8:17pm

To me it is rather simple.  Headamps imbue their own sound.  You take the same source and send its signal through two different amps - you will hear two different sound sigs.  Would you rather chose what headamp to feed a clean signal through to fit your preferred sound sig?  Would you ever take the output of desktop headamp's HO and feed it into another headamp?  You could which is what you are doing when taking the signal from the HO of any DAP and feed it into a headamp.  Not the ideal set up imo.

 

EDIT: Clarified that in my example above, I am talking about going from a headphone out of a desktop headamp and feeding another.


Edited by warrior05 - 6/10/10 at 3:08am
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