[gregorio]

Not only that, but transients often require magnitudes more power than the steady state signal.

It’s rare to find transients that are 10 times (20dBSPL) above average levels in music and never as far as I’m aware with popular/rock genres that always have audio compression applied.

Baring in mind the vast majority of HPs produce about 90-110dBSPL with 1mW, even in the rare cases of extreme musical transients, you’re going to need 100mW or less. If you pair this rare condition also with the rare condition of insensitive HPs, that’s still only 200-300mW or so.

An amp with a big power supply that can supply a lot of voltage or current fast (depending on the load) can really help with music with a lot of dynamic range.

1. Does <100mW require “a big power supply”? Maybe in the triple rare scenario of extreme musical transients, very loud listening levels, insensitive HPs and allowing amp headroom, it’s possible to justify a 500mW requirement. That’s still a fairly small power supply though, certainly not “big”.

2. As to supplying the voltage “fast” to help with the dynamic range, that really is audiophile myth! You’re talking about slew rate and even cheap amps have a slew rate many times in excess of the rise times we actually find in even the most dynamic music transients, so this is a red herring. Where we do find fast rise times is in the very high freqs, so distortion in the very high freq range is what we’d see, not some issue with the dynamic range. Again though, even cheap amps typically have a good enough slew rate to avoid such distortion until we reach inaudible freqs.

G

 

[gimmeheadroom]

He said, she said. No point continuing. Carry on, I'm unsubbed.

 

[gregorio]

He said, she said.

You mean; what the facts/science “said” vs. What audiophile myth “said”?

No point continuing. Carry on, I'm unsubbed.

Apart from an opportunity to repeat audiophile myths, there wasn’t any point in starting, let alone continuing!

G

 

[Dogmatrix]

He said, she said. No point continuing. Carry on, I'm unsubbed.

Thats a shame , I wanted to ask how opp amps fit into the cult of power given they tend to run comparatively low power
I have two , an RME and a Violectric both balanced no monster power supply no high voltage rails yet they measure and perform very well