[ColtMrFire]

I've had my Senn hd600 (plus audioengine d1 amp) for a few days and have been enjoying them.  But tonight I was lying in bed far from the computer and listening to some music with the help of an extension cable...I had my wireless mouse next to me so I could control the computer from the bed.  I was listening to Danny Elfman's remastered Batman score in VLC player, and the volume was a bit too low so I leaned forward with the mouse to get a closer look at the (very small) volume control on VLC player...when I tried to move the slider up a bit, the mouse suddenly went haywire and cranked it nearly all the way up, but only for a split second until I got control back and lowered the volume...but in that split second I heard the music distort in the headphones.
 
Suddenly I am certain I've done some damage to the cans...though I am not really certain because they sound the same, but for some reason I think they're suddenly less detailed.  I am listening to other recognizable music in my collection to make sure everything sounds the same, I don't know if it is my paranoia playing tricks on my ears, or what...can something like what just happened ruin headphones?

 

[ColtMrFire]

And now that I am remembering...before, there was a point when I first got the cans that I was testing the balance between the VLC volume and the gain on my amp and there was a certain point where the VLC volume got high and would distort the sound but the actual sound in the cans was not loud...so maybe that is what happened here.

 

[K_19]

It typically takes much more than a sudden loud burst of volume to destroy headphone drivers. Well, the decent ones at least. I've had things like that happen to many of my headphones... they all survived. Perhaps It'd be possible with a more powerful amp (I'm thinking like a Lyr/EF-6/Dark Star/speaker tap level of power), but since you had this happen with the software volume control it's irrelevant in this case anyway.
 
You might have just heard the music clip or something like that I bet.

 

[ColtMrFire]

I think I am just paranoid because I've been playing around with it and I think after the incident the volume was too low and I was mistaking low volume for loss of detail...it just really freaked me out for a while because they're expensive cans and I just got them.  Now they sound fine.

 

[kramer5150]

I also wonder if you temporarily blasted your hearing, and did something to "numb" it up a bit.?  I would think the cans should be OK, so long as theres no audible signs of distortion, cracking or other artifact.  When I was burning in my HD580 I had them on my desk and used them as PC speakers.  They seemed very durable.

 

[ColtMrFire]

Quote:

I also wonder if you temporarily blasted your hearing, and did something to "numb" it up a bit.?  I would think the cans should be OK, so long as theres no audible signs of distortion, cracking or other artifact.  When I was burning in my HD580 I had them on my desk and used them as PC speakers.  They seemed very durable.

 
Naw, now that I think about it they didn't really get that loud, it was just the distortion that freaked me out....but I am convinced it was the high gain on the VLC that made everything distorted at a certain point without cranking more volume.  It's weird though because sometimes I will hear flaws in a recording and am not sure if it's the cans or the recording, because they are so f-ing accurate.

 

[philask]

I wouldn't worry, VLC has an "over crank" feature, it distorts easily as it'll go over 100% and suddenly sound distorted.  Why not use a decent player like Audirvana?

 

[ColtMrFire]

Quote:

I wouldn't worry, VLC has an "over crank" feature, it distorts easily as it'll go over 100% and suddenly sound distorted.  Why not use a decent player like Audirvana?

 
Never heard of it...I'll give it a try!
 
EDIT: Seems it doesn't support OSX 10.5.8 which is what I have...bummer.  Any alternatives?

 

[streetdragon]

VLC can go from 0% till 200% and i suspect they didn't call it '200%' for nothing if they didn't boost the gain by +10 db

 

[ColtMrFire]

So I tried amarra because it works with osx 10.5 and WOW...I can't believe how much better it sounds...there just seems to be more detail, more muscle and more overall clarity to the music, especially in higher rez recordings.  I have a FLAC version of the score for E.T. The Extra Terrestrial ripped from a SACD to 88khz and on VLC it didn't sound any different from the FLAC CD 44.1khz rip...on amarra I can definitely hear a difference!  Gosh, I honestly didn't know players made a difference, I thought it was all hardware.

 

[Katun]

Pretty sure a driver can't "partially" lose detail.
 
If they sustained any damage, you'd know it. You should be fine.

 

[streetdragon]

So im conclusion... Op is doing good. Even got a software upgrade because his mouse slipped on the volume slider control

 

[Maxvla]

Headphones are fine. You should be using a pot to control volume though, not software. You are losing bits by controlling via software. There are some DAC/amps out there that use digital volume, but most of those control well above the signal level (say 32bit) so that you have plenty of headroom before you drop into the actual signal. I understand you were across the room, but if you were in a dedicated listening session, it makes sense to have your music at it's best quality. Perhaps get extension RCA cables and a second power cord and move the amp with you and plug it in next to your bed.

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

Quote:

Pretty sure a driver can't "partially" lose detail.
 
If they sustained any damage, you'd know it. You should be fine.

^

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

You should be using a pot to control volume though, not software. You are losing bits by controlling via software.

 
Also, one other problem of using the software volume control on VLC is that it has a booster of some sort - the max setting is 200%. I don't know what they do that for. I tried it on my older laptop because the codec for Widows Media Player was causing driver issues, then I used the laptop recently to check if the HDD was still working properly (couple of bad sectors though) and that 200% volume thing was there after an update.