@Hifimanrookie Argh, many questions... Stax first: They need a special amplfier, and there aren't that many to chooe from. Simple as that, if you want power and enough of it, you gotta pay for it. Proper Stat amps are expensive.. Also, there is the fact that Stax in general has charged more for the amp than the headphone throughout history. That is when you buy a typical Stax system and don't go for the cheapest one available... So there are more expensive amps on the market compared to the actual headspeakers, I guess.
You seem to talk about how you can always hear the differences on high quality files. Must say I am sceptical. You should try for yourself and see how hard differentiating something as simple as 128 kbit/s ogg or aac can be.
Anywayz, speaker amps are made to deliver a hell of a lot of current compared to many headphone amps. Most speakers have an impedance around 2-8 ohms, and you need amps that can deliver enough current into those bastards. They are even way more insensitive than headphones. Else, I guess the difference between speaker and headphone amps are minor...
General question: How does output impedance of an amp affect fullsize speakers?
thanks for the explanations about stax and speaker amps davidsh...didnt know that about the staxes...good info!
yes..ofcourse i can hear a difference between a 128Kbits/s and a flac/wav of 1500Kbits/s everyone can! i mean...on my amp i can!! i can guess if ur amp is not very good in detail and instrument placement and soundstage u wont hear a lot of difference..or not so easy to hear...
as i said...the more i improved my rig..the better the output became...being amp modding/balanced cables/powercables/anti vibrations thingies (tube amps are horrible with microphobics!), tube rolling or headphone modding...it got better and better..and so i could hear differences easier and easier...
now a 128-256 kbit/s sounds awfull..as if i am listening in a tunnel (narrow soundstaget and depth) compared to a <1000Kbit/s lossless flac or wav..(on my mstage i didnt hear a big difference between the two by the way..!) or directly from a cd from my OPPO...but once again..i dont use a pc as source! i use a very musical DAP as my source with a very high gain.
but its all to my ears ofcourse (or my brain
)..and they are very sensitive as i said before....loud volume is painful to my ears...as is extreme treble in music..it gives me headaches and ringing in my ears...but i can hear the smallest nuances in music...i see that as a challenge..everytime i do something to my rig (like the jerg grill mod the other day) i lay down on my comfy chair and start a many hours listening session to see if i can hear new (or changed) things in the music...and until now..i did with every change in my rig.....and i will keep on doing this until the sound will get worse or no change will be found...i think i am at the max for this rig now..with everything i changed or upgraded...next step would be selling my hm602 (or only use it portable as it is intended with a good portable smaller headphone) and my 337 and get a new better amp/dac instead and guess what i did just recently...
