[headfirocks]

I think I listen to headphones at a much lower volume than most people.  I'm having trouble finding a headphone amp I like but they do all sound pretty good when I crank em up for a few seconds, but I feel like I'll go deaf if I listen like that.  Is there a headphone amp that excels at low volume listening?  I have LCD-3 headphones.

 

[PaganDL]

Hi headfirocks,
 
I do a lot of low volume listening myself. There are 2 head amps I can recommend & actually have.
 
Presonus HP4
 
http://www.presonus.com/products/HP4
 
Rupert Neve RNHP
 
http://rupertneve.com/products/rnhp-headphone-amplifier/
 
If you have any questions, happy to answer
 
Hope this helps & have a great day !

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by headfirocks /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I think I listen to headphones at a much lower volume than most people.  I'm having trouble finding a headphone amp I like but they do all sound pretty good when I crank em up for a few seconds, but I feel like I'll go deaf if I listen like that.  Is there a headphone amp that excels at low volume listening?  I have LCD-3 headphones.

 

If you listen at "much lower volume"than most people then why worry about the amp? As long as you don't have an issue with the output impedance vs the load impedance then any amp that isn't an integrated audio chip can work, especially on a headphone with a not too low impedance and high sensitivity like the LCD-3.

 

Your problem isn't the amp, but that at higher output levels, any headphone or speaker will sound better until you get distortion, and this is where amplifiers come in - to produce more power with less distortion. A good amplifier can produce much more current and voltage at 32ohms and 300ohms, than a typical integrated audio chip, with enough reserve power to hit peaks that go well above 100dB while probably having even less distortion and noise than some circuits that use such audio chips put out at 32ohms. My Meier Corda Cantate.2 can be cranked up to max volume with nothing playing and you won't get noise, unlike my Pangea HP101 below which gets some tube hum at around 2:00 on the dial and 12:00 can amplify the noise from a smartphone near it if not on Airplane Mode (see below).

 

Essentially, your problem can be more psychological than technical. If anything is on the technical side, what you're not thinking of is the noise floor. You have open headphones, and you're not aware that even without any identifiable noise source, environmental noise can still hit 30dB. That's basically like if you had an acoustically isolated room but you're using a computer with a crappy cooling system. Speaking of computers, what are you using as a source? There's a reason why I prefer using a smartphone, which is fanless (and can be set to Airplane Mode) over a computer, if at least until I build my next one which will have only one intake fan, one center fan in a twin-tower cooler, and the GPU's blower (which wouldn't even spin unless I'm actually using the GPU, ex games or rendering), eliminating the PSU fan as well as the exhaust fan and relying more on positive pressure and hot air rising on its own.

 

If you're using a computer then at minimum you need to lower the speed on all fans; if it's a laptop, tough luck, they don't have the luxury of a gigantic surface area on the cooling system that can utilize low air volume/low fan speeds. Switch to a Core M laptop for example like the Macbook 12in, or a tablet. Alternately you can use a network music player along with an HDD array in another room, or solid state local storage. Or ditch the LCD-3 altogether and get a custom in-ear monitor.

 

Also, not everybody with an amp listens above listening levels all the time. I only crank it up for certain songs, not whole albums, even if it's an awesome album like Imaginaerum or Wishmaster.

 

[headfirocks]

ProtegeManiac, try a Gigabyte Brix. Fanless, 12v input, GPU plays 1080p smoothly, sounds great. I power mine with a Red Wine Audio battery power supply. My entire system is off the grid.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

ProtegeManiac, try a Gigabyte Brix. Fanless, 12v input, GPU plays 1080p smoothly, sounds great. I power mine with a Red Wine Audio battery power supply. My entire system is off the grid.

 

Impractical for me though. My Android phone is carrier subsidized and I always have a use for a smartphone anyway - the Brix or any dedicated music server will just have me spend on something that my smartphone can already do. I don't need it for video playback, just music. And then there's the EQ - Neutron Music Player is already paid for and any Windows apps with the same kind of parametric EQ that allows for changing the center freq, Q factor, and curve type would cost a lot more than this app.

 

Neither can the Brix replace my desktop - I mostly play Total War and that game needs overclocked i5/i7 quads to run more smoothly, plus a good GPU. Even the RX480 has people complaining about throttling with the stock cooler with the blower vs custom coolers on newer titles at 1080P with the settings maxed out. My next build will be whatever the latest unlocked i5 is when I start buying, cooled by the BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro3 with the GTX 1060 6gb powered by a fanless PSU. Case will be the FT03 with the PSU bracket drilled to allow air from the angled 120mm intake to pass through the PSU. No front fan on the DRP3 nor exhaust fan,and the thick aluminum panels won't vibrate from the soundwaves emitted by the DRP3's fan and the Noctua NF-F12 on the intake.