[xnor]

Regarding crosstalk, I've created some test files: http://rapidshare.com/files/430363572/pink_r_mp3.zip

 

[budgetboy]

Quote:

This kind of confusion is caused by people who make exaggerated claims, amp A is superb and significantly better than amp B. These headphones need to be amped or else you can clearly hear they are not performing at their best. In reality the differences are tiny.

 
The thing is, all differences are small at first. A lot of people say you won't be wowed at first listen most of the time. Only by going back to your old setup will you hear the differences. So people who have gone and upgraded to an amp, or a better amp, or a dac, etc. - even cables, seem to exaggerate the differences they hear. Because, from their point of view, the difference really is big, but to someone who hasn't upgraded that far, headphones straight from an amplifier can still sound great. Everything seems to be small differences, the deciding factor is how much extra hassle and money you want to go through to achieve those small differences.

 

[budgetboy]

Quote:

Look at the rmaa test I linked. Without load (like in this setup: cowon s9 - amp - headphones) dynamic range is 90.7 dB, with 32 ohm load it still is 90.4 dB. A difference that small is negligible.
So there is no real loss of dynamic range.
 
Frequency response will only be slightly rolled-off at the lower end, dunno if you will even notice this.
 
The only thing that really suffers is stereo crosstalk. If you need/want the left/right channel to be as much separated from each other as possible then adding an amp makes sense.

Okay, so for this setup, the critics were mostly wrong about it sounding "nowhere near its potential". Go figure.
So stereo crosstalk is kind of like turning on the "crossfade" switch on a headroom amp? It gives it less soundstage/imaging?
 
I tried to download your rapidshare link but it gave me the error message "too many parallel downloads from my IP". Can you upload to mediafire/hotfile instead?

 

[xnor]

http://hotfile.com/dl/82209444/1704ee3/pink_r_mp3.zip.html
 
Read up on crossfeeding here: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/headphone-xfeed.htm, if you want to know the technical details.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

 
Quote:

Quote:

This kind of confusion is caused by people who make exaggerated claims, amp A is superb and significantly better than amp B. These headphones need to be amped or else you can clearly hear they are not performing at their best. In reality the differences are tiny.

 
The thing is, all differences are small at first. A lot of people say you won't be wowed at first listen most of the time. Only by going back to your old setup will you hear the differences. So people who have gone and upgraded to an amp, or a better amp, or a dac, etc. - even cables, seem to exaggerate the differences they hear. Because, from their point of view, the difference really is big, but to someone who hasn't upgraded that far, headphones straight from an amplifier can still sound great. Everything seems to be small differences, the deciding factor is how much extra hassle and money you want to go through to achieve those small differences.

When I swap headphones during listening sessions, sometimes I cannot hear a difference and other times it does seem, dare I say say it, clearly different. I also think mood is important and whether i can be bothered to listen to the differences or not.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

If it makes any sense, I owned the DT880/32 ohm, and I SWEAR that it sounded just weak when I hooked it up to my netbook directly. I added a simple E5 without even adding the Bass Boost, and it was (to me) better. Either my netbook's HPO can't handle 32ohms at that level of sensitivity, or there is a real improvement with amping. Less noticeable was amping other 32ohm headphones that I owned, but with the DT880, I could easily tell when it was amped, unamped.

I'm just trying to find logical reason, and not just "OMG PLACEBOZ LULZ". Even straight off my Sansa Fuze, the DT880/32 didn't sound anywhere near satisfactory to me. It was only after adding a seemingly crappy E5, that it sounded fuller to me.

Believe me, I would rather not add an amp when using a portable, but I KNOW I needed it with my 880s.

Let me also mention the D2000 and XB700 which are on paper both easier to drive than my old DT880/32, yet the majority of head-fiers who own either agree almost as a whole that they both benefit from amping.

I'm all for proving that bull**** is bull****, but I refuse to believe that the DT880/32 didn't have any benefit in amping vs leaving it unamped. Sure it sounded fine if you didn't own an amp, but having an amp pretty much highlighted the lack of body that it missed for me.

 

[Currawong]

What people are referring to when the mention using a better amp than what's inside a portable player is, the ability to reproduce a highly complex signal and drive a load with frequency-varying impedance in a linear manner.  This is not the same as a test program playing a frequency sweep through the device (though the measurements do have some relevance).  I agree though that the improvement may not be noticeable with all music. Fast and complex music will become noticeably congested when the amplification can't keep up.  Tracks where the recording has a wide soundstage will sound like everything is coming mostly from the middle. Instruments and voices will be blurred together when you try and visualise the performance.  With higher-end equipment the audible soundstage appears wider and individual instruments or performers appear more as distinct entities on the stage.  It's not to say, however, that one can't enjoy music with it all blurred together, as this is what most people are used to.  Hearing music you've always listened to on the work radio on a high-end hi-fi system can be a shock, as it sounds totally different.  Whether or not this is more enjoyable or not is subjective.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

What people are referring to when the mention using a better amp than what's inside a portable player is, the ability to reproduce a highly complex signal and drive a load with frequency-varying impedance in a linear manner.
 
Music usually is a bunch of sinusoidal waveforms with frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. That's not complex compared to the signals that are used for measurements.
 
I don't see a problem with frequency-varying resistance. In fact, amps should be happier with a load that is more efficient and needs less current near the resonant frequency (this is the case with headphone drivers) than compared to a low, fixed resistance, which is a tough load regardless of frequency.
 
That's one of the reasons why you can assume that an amp will need to supply roughly a quarter or third less current with headphones as load instead of resistors.
 
This is not the same as a test program playing a frequency sweep through the device (though the measurements do have some relevance).  I agree though that the improvement may not be noticeable with all music. Fast and complex music will become noticeably congested when the amplification can't keep up.
 
The rhythm and speed of music has nothing to do how simple or complex the signal is and how easy/hard it is to reproduce. (see above)
 
Tracks where the recording has a wide soundstage will sound like everything is coming mostly from the middle. Instruments and voices will be blurred together when you try and visualise the performance.  With higher-end equipment the audible soundstage appears wider and individual instruments or performers appear more as distinct entities on the stage.  It's not to say, however, that one can't enjoy music with it all blurred together, as this is what most people are used to.
 
Aka crosstalk or channel separation measurement. And eliminating unnatural stereo separation can make a lot of sense, see crossfeed.

Replies in bold.

 

[JerryLove]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xnor /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Music usually is a bunch of sinusoidal waveforms with frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. That's not complex compared to the signals that are used for measurements.

 
There are certainly differences in demand between a sine wave and music (which is the statement you are responding to).
 
Imagine a sine wave signal of 100Hz at an amplitude of 28V RMS. For an 8 ohm load, this equates to about 100W (98 actually). The same amplitude at 1000Hz will be exactly the same power. Now add the two signals together, in the same way that signals add together in music. We are interested only in the peak amplitude, the RMS value indicates that the power is only 3dB higher, but it is only when an oscilloscope is used that the true picture emerges.
 
We will now see a low-frequency waveform, with a higher frequency waveform superimposed - the high frequency signal will be riding up and down the path of the low frequency signal. If we were to perform a calculation (or simply measure the combined signal with an oscilloscope), we will see that the peak amplitude has doubled. The effective RMS value (most multimeters will get this wrong unless they are true RMS types) is 40 Volts, and this would imply 200W. Although this is the real RMS voltage, it totally underestimates the amplifier power needed to reproduce it cleanly. An oscilloscope shows 80V peak for the same waveform, so the amplifier must be capable of passing an 80V peak signal - a 400W amplifier.
 
Quote:

Aka crosstalk or channel separation measurement. And eliminating unnatural stereo separation can make a lot of sense, see crossfeed.

Personally: I think too many things are attributed to crosstalk.
 
That said: the interaction of an amplifier and speaker is more complex than it might first appear. The amplifier, for example, acts as a damper: it is responsible both for extending the speaker but also pulling it back in place. Also, as ohm load changes, the voltage required to keep the magnets energized increases. An amp which cannot keep up, even if not clipping, will create poor sound. Most times I've heard this the result was "harsh" mid-range and "loose" bass.
 
While many of the claims of amps are snake-oil... it is indeed very easy to under amp a demanding speaker (I'm still trying to get enough to properly drive my N801's). I would not at all be surprised if one change is a better soundstage.