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New Head-Fier
I'm having trouble getting quality audio at louder volumes. I've tried two different playback chains, both sourced from the Tidal streaming site, set on HI-FI quality. In both cases, I'm using my AKG K240 600 ohm headphones.
I first tried using my iPod as the source. If I plug the headphones directly into the iPod, I get good quality, very clean sound, but the maximum volume is limited to quite a low level, because the iPod can't supply enough juice to drive 600 ohm headphones to high volumes. So I got myself an external amplifier, the FiiO E12, fed from the headphone jack on the iPod. With this I can get sufficiently high volumes, but when I turn up the volume much beyond the level that I can get from the iPod directly, it starts sounding very "electronic", "harsh", like it was clipping or something. I can't listen at high volume for very long before I get tired of it. I experimented with the relative settings of the iPod volume control and the amp control, but that didn't help.
Then I tried another playback chain, using my desktop computer with an M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interface. This is an older but professional-level unit with 10 channels of A/D and D/A conversion, of which I used 2 of the D/A channels to feed a 300W Carver home theater receiver. I plugged my AKG headphones into the headphone jack on that. This gave me vastly higher levels than the FiiO amp, much louder than I could tolerate if the volume control was turned way up. But when set to comfortably loud listening levels, it still didn't sound very "natural". I didn't hear the sort of "harsh" clipping-like distortion I got with the FiiO, but it still sounded somewhat "electronic" and "unnatural". (I wish I had a better vocabulary for describing sound
I tried a third experiment, feeding the iPod headphone output into a 600 W Nikko amp to drive two large 3-way speakers, and this sounded really good, even at very high volumes. But unfortunately I can't listen to speakers all the time I want to listen to music, so I need to find a way to get decent sound with headphones as well. (The Nikko doesn't have a headphone jack, so I couldn't try my headphones with it.)
So it doesn't seem like the problem is either Tidal, or the iPod's DAC or headphone amp, or the Delta 1010 DAC. That leaves the headphones or both the Fiio E12 and the headphone amp in the Carver amp. Could both of those be mediocre?
Has anyone else with 600 ohm headphones had this problem, and what amp do you use? Is there a portable (or even "transportable") amp that can drive 600 ohm headphones cleanly and loudly? Any other ideas I might try?
Thanks for any advice...
I first tried using my iPod as the source. If I plug the headphones directly into the iPod, I get good quality, very clean sound, but the maximum volume is limited to quite a low level, because the iPod can't supply enough juice to drive 600 ohm headphones to high volumes. So I got myself an external amplifier, the FiiO E12, fed from the headphone jack on the iPod. With this I can get sufficiently high volumes, but when I turn up the volume much beyond the level that I can get from the iPod directly, it starts sounding very "electronic", "harsh", like it was clipping or something. I can't listen at high volume for very long before I get tired of it. I experimented with the relative settings of the iPod volume control and the amp control, but that didn't help.
Then I tried another playback chain, using my desktop computer with an M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interface. This is an older but professional-level unit with 10 channels of A/D and D/A conversion, of which I used 2 of the D/A channels to feed a 300W Carver home theater receiver. I plugged my AKG headphones into the headphone jack on that. This gave me vastly higher levels than the FiiO amp, much louder than I could tolerate if the volume control was turned way up. But when set to comfortably loud listening levels, it still didn't sound very "natural". I didn't hear the sort of "harsh" clipping-like distortion I got with the FiiO, but it still sounded somewhat "electronic" and "unnatural". (I wish I had a better vocabulary for describing sound
I tried a third experiment, feeding the iPod headphone output into a 600 W Nikko amp to drive two large 3-way speakers, and this sounded really good, even at very high volumes. But unfortunately I can't listen to speakers all the time I want to listen to music, so I need to find a way to get decent sound with headphones as well. (The Nikko doesn't have a headphone jack, so I couldn't try my headphones with it.)
So it doesn't seem like the problem is either Tidal, or the iPod's DAC or headphone amp, or the Delta 1010 DAC. That leaves the headphones or both the Fiio E12 and the headphone amp in the Carver amp. Could both of those be mediocre?
Has anyone else with 600 ohm headphones had this problem, and what amp do you use? Is there a portable (or even "transportable") amp that can drive 600 ohm headphones cleanly and loudly? Any other ideas I might try?
Thanks for any advice...
