SilverEars
Headphoneus Supremus
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- Sep 18, 2013
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Yes, I believe the distortion measurements, unless it's terrible, is in the orders of magnitude lower than that of headphone distortion, but both distortions are in different domains. One electrically measured and the other acoustically or mechnical parameter. How does electrical distortion translates to acoustical is the question.And that lower distortion could come from its design (it certainly has lower measured distortion) rather than the fact that it has more output power.
The DAVE only outputs up to 154 mW at 300 ohms anyway. That's less than plenty of $100 headphone amps. And the HD 800 gets up to 600 ohms at some frequencies. All this isn't that relevant, though, because to reach 110 dB, the HD 800 only needs roughly 21 mW at 300 ohms. (Sure, it's 210 mW for 120 dB, but it's doubtful you'd ever get that loud, even with dynamic peaks.)
There just isn't any credible evidence that supports the notion that having excess power does anything at all to the sound, as long as the amp meets the basic requirements. (Which I linked to before.) If there is a difference in sound with a particular amp or DAC/amp and all of them have enough power for the headphone to reach the desired SPL, the difference must come from other aspects of the design aside from output power.
I know the difference between driven well vs sound signature of the headphones or the source. You make it sound like it's black and white, that if it gets loud, it's driven well and it's outputting the source's sig. If you tried iem, headphones, to speakers with various sources, you know it's not so black and white.
Also, there is a difference in being drive well to headphones sound refinement varying with sources. M1060 was more refined sounding out of CMA600i and Hugo 2. It's quite obvious.
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