[mrconfuse]

The purpose of it really? I understand that it ups the volume but considering that no one wants to listen to their music at 80% volume with IEM anyway(to avoid hearing loss) what is the purpose of having a device that just makes the audio from IEM sound as loud as 80% when set at 40%. The volume knob might say it's low but if the loudness is the same it doesn't really change anything.  And if you say "well I can go > 50% without distoration", well that's great but what's the point? At that rate you're blasting your music way to loud and you're going to get hearing loss with IEM.
 
Does a amp make the audio sound better besides making it louder or adding more bass?
 

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

 
 
Does a amp make the audio sound better besides making it louder or adding more bass?
 

 
No. Its all a sham, really, but we are happy to spend thousands to ensure that old guys like Ray Samuels can afford to retire. Poor old guy.

 

[mrconfuse]

Quote:

Quote:

 
 
Does a amp make the audio sound better besides making it louder or adding more bass?
 

 
No. Its all a sham, really, but we are happy to spend thousands to ensure that old guys like Ray Samuels can afford to retire. Poor old guy.

I'm asking a honest question because I don't understand what the amp is really doing. Is it so wrong for someone not to know? I'm new to the audiophile equipment and I just don't quite understand.
 

 

[Taowolf51]

I'm not going to give the best explanation, but the gist of it is that larger and better headphones need more electricity to move the drivers as best they can. Without an amp, you're not getting the needed electricity to really take advantage of your headphones. The amp gives you that needed power.
With an amp, you usually get more clarity, better base, and more of the headphone "shake" (when you can feel the drivers of your headphones move) I love so much.

 

[mrconfuse]

So if I have a IEM tha has a impedance of 56ohms and my dap has an  Impedance of 32 ohms, i guess a amp would help
 move the drivers as best they can move the drivers as best they can  move the drivers as best they can move the drivers as best they can move the drivers as best they can     dfdsfsdf     move the drivers as best they can.

 

[soviet911]

I think you are confusing several things, volume is achived by increasing the voltage provided to the driver, in most cases IEM's need very little and Full headphones need alot, thats why some amp's have 12V swing for large headhpones and why IEM amps can get away with 5-9V swing . 
 
Current is what actualy does the driving of the headphones, the more current amp can provide the better but generaly balanced Armature IEM's and high end headphoens require alot of current (reason for those capacitors...and a headphone will always try draw maximinum current that it needs, if there is not enough current giveing the the headphone well then it wont perform as well) 
 
Hope this helps.

 

[rroseperry]

Taowolf51's covered the simplest reason for a headphone amp. There are headphones that simply can't be driven to advantage with the amps that come with most sources, like mp3 players. However, once you get past that there are a couple of other reasons why people buy amps.
 
From what I've read on the iBasso threads, the circuit design and the components of really good (and not so cheap) amps allow you to color the music in ways that you like, getter a darker or brighter sound.
 
What I've found is that a small amp (I've got a PA2V2 and a Headsix) give you more control. With the source turned up to 75%, I can get finer increments on the volume. I also think that there's better detail, but that could be pure psychoacoustics.  Amps do make a difference, but you need to have decent headphones and a good source.  No reason to amp a 62KB bittorrent file for ibuds, you know.

 

[mrconfuse]

my music are all losseless and I'm using the Um3x, would you think that I need an amp on my ipod?
 
I'm thinking about purchasing the fii0 E5 as my first entry amp (it's cheap) as a test or should I just forget it since it won't do anything for me? Or would you say the E7 is better? I saw the Ibasso but they are to expensive to me at this point.
 

 

[rroseperry]

I don't know anything about the Fii0 products. Maybe you should hop over to one of those threads and ask someone who'd bought one.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

Amps do make a difference, but you need to have decent headphones and a good source.

And that, right there, is the part that many of us completely disregarded the day we discovered Head-Fi. The next question, of course, is whether my definition of a 'good source' lines up with yours. And so it goes, hence my initial reply to the OP.
 
Contrast that with someone who has come from a speaker rig and wants to explore the headphone world. Chances are that they know what an amp does, particularly with insensitive speakers. They know that its only ever going to be as good as the weakest link, and that this hobby empties wallets faster than Vegas on a Saturday night.
 
It must be Friday - I need beer. Bad.

 

[mrconfuse]

Quote:

I don't know anything about the Fii0 products. Maybe you should hop over to one of those threads and ask someone who'd bought one.

Regardless whether or not they are a good brand, would you recommend that I use an amp with my current setup: um3x + losseless music on ipod to get the most out of my music/iem? 
 

 

[rroseperry]

I could use a beer or three, but it's Thursday and I've got meetings all day tomorrow.
 
Ok, on topic
 
Quote:

Quote:

I don't know anything about the Fii0 products. Maybe you should hop over to one of those threads and ask someone who'd bought one.

Regardless whether or not they are a good brand, would you recommend that I use an amp with my current setup: um3x + losseless music on ipod to get the most out of my music/iem? 
 

Not necessarily. I mean do you feel like you're missing something?  Um3x are supposed to be great headphones, lossless music is good (though I can't tell the difference between FLAC and 320 myself), ipods are supposed to be ok sources, more than ok if you've got an older Classic.
 
Are you happy when you listen? Can you hear detail? To me, these are the main criteria.  I've got a very mid-fi set up and to me it's audio nirvana lots of the time. Yes, I think an amp has made a difference, but I can't promise that a Fii0 will do it for you. They're pretty cheap, so you could just go ahead and buy one to see. Alternately, if you live where there's a meet, go and listen to other people's set up. Get a sense of what's possible and what you want.
 
Of course, if you've got upgraditis, there' not much you can do for that but buy something.

 

[no_mas_123]

Without getting into the technical stuff about voltage, current, impedence and the rest, I'll give the explaination I gave my son.  And besides its 2AM and I'm tired

.   Most people think you get an amp to make the music louder, which is just one aspect of amplification.  Sound quality is another.  To reproduce music, the highs(treble) and lows(bass) take more power to reproduce.  When the music has a large or busy transient passage(i.e., a sudden bass note, or alot of treble and/or bass), a good amp has the reserve power to reproduce the music correctly.  When you have a small amp or poorly designed amp, it doesn't have enough reserve power to reproduce the music correctly.  And with an amp integrated into any box with other non-amp components(think any dap with a hpo), there are always trade offs in quality due to design restrictions.   Therefore, stand alone units usually perform better in general.  I know this is very basic and overly general, but it got the point across.  I took my son to my local independent stereo shop and let him listen to a good system and just had them switch out the amp to hear the difference while trying to keep the volume level the same.  Just my .02.

 

[mrconfuse]

I could be missing something but what I do know is that if I listen to the same songs on my computer they sound different than out of the iPod or the iPhone 3GS. I guess the best way to describe it is "the music is more room filling, bigger more enveloping". (The EQ is off on my computer). I ordered the fii0 e5 just to see if it does anything. I've order the fii0 e5 and I'll see if it changes anything. It's cheap so what the heck, I also got the dock line out so that i bypass the iPhone/iPod hpo.