[overgang]

Hello.

Will Astell&Kern Kann provide a significtant boost in audio quality over iPod Touch if listened via Bluetooth headphones – Bose QuietComfort 35?

Currently I stream FLACs from a NAS to the iPod and on to QC35. I'm looking to upgrade my listening experience, but since Bluetooth headphones have their own DAC I doubt that the expensive Kann will bring any advantage. Or will it?

Please, enlighten me.

 

[Muinarc]

I doubt you'd notice much if any change in the sound between the 2.

 

[overgang]

I doubt you'd notice much if any change in the sound between the 2.

Thanks. And wired headphones are another story, right?

 

[Muinarc]

Even then it wont be a "a significtant boost in audio quality" to most people. I do like how the KANN sounds but people shouldn't expect huge differences in sound. Changing headphone models will result in the biggest changes in quality.

 

[overgang]

Even then it wont be a "a significtant boost in audio quality" to most people. I do like how the KANN sounds but people shouldn't expect huge differences in sound. Changing headphone models will result in the biggest changes in quality.

What about Kann + Sennheiser HD800?

 

[Muinarc]

I listened to the Kann with the HD800 for maybe 30 minutes at a CanJam and enjoyed the experience, they are a pretty good pairing. You might want to ask in the KANN thread for more in-depth impressions of that pairing. I'm sure someone in there has HD800s

 

[obobskivich]

Something to note with the Bose QC (and other ANC headphones) - if they're running in "active" mode (e.g. ANC is active) they are bringing their own amplifier as well (it's part of how the ANC system works). So they're just presenting a very high impedance "line level" load to whatever device, and then providing their own amplification (you can see this in measurement results to verify if you like). My experience with the QC15 is that they're "amp invariant" apart from channel balance problems that some amps have (or if there's tons of noise on the signal) - there's literally no benefit to hooking them up to fancy amplifiers vs the output of an mp3 player or DAC or soundcard or whatever. Conventional headphones can be more amp dependent, but again the biggest differences, as @Muinarc points out, will be from changing cans. I'm not familiar with the Astell&Kern products so I have no idea what they do or do not offer.

 

[overgang]

Something to note with the Bose QC (and other ANC headphones) - if they're running in "active" mode (e.g. ANC is active) they are bringing their own amplifier as well (it's part of how the ANC system works).

Good to know. Thank you, obobskivich.
And will this remain valid if I turn off noise cancelling and Bluetooth? I guess in this scenario QC35 turn into ordinary headphones, right?

 

[obobskivich]

Good to know. Thank you, obobskivich.
And will this remain valid if I turn off noise cancelling and Bluetooth? I guess in this scenario QC35 turn into ordinary headphones, right?

Anything wireless is not only providing its own amp, but also its own decoder too (and you've got the compression of Bluetooth in the way too - this right here will probably kill any dreams of fidelity no matter how many thousands or millions you throw at the gear). If ANC is off (in wired mode) its a bit less clear - it depends on the specific model of headphone and how it handles it more than anything else afaik. Looking at the QC35 on InnerFidelity's measurements/review, it does seem to indicate the QC35 are running off whatever amp they're plugged into, but Tyll makes a good point about why this may not mean what you think it means:

Often with DSP headphones (Parrot Zik, for example) designers don't worry about the sound in passive mode; they're mostly looking for a situation where the driver is well behaved regardless of tonal character. Ten they fix the EQ in DSP to make the headphones match their target response. The problem here is that when you run out of battery power and listen on the wire, the sound sucks.

Remember there's a lot of EQ and whatnot going on when in "active" mode, so running with all of that off is going to significantly impact the sound (and this is very apparent in the measurements too).

Stepping back - I think throwing a $1k player at a $300 headphone is kind of bass ackwards. The headphones are where the focus and money should go, and going out of ANC headphones, away from Bluetooth/anything wireless, etc is going to be a good step in that direction too. If this is for mobile (ab)use you probably want to look for IEMs instead of full-size cans.

EDIT
Forgot to link the review I was quoting, it's here:
https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...comfort-35-wireless-noise-canceling-headphone
I was quoting from Page 2.