[LightDarkSonic]

Well I didn't know where to post it in the forum so sorry if it's the wrong section but I was wondering what is the difference between driving a headphone with an AV receiver and a dedicated headphone amp, I know it's not gonna be the level of some dedicated amps but how good is it? It compares to amps that sell for what price? What is the usual sound signature, imaging, soundstage and overall technicalities? I'd like to know about Denon receivers more exactly or to be even more specific, an AVR-3312CI that my father owns.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Modern A/V receivers usually do better with higher impedance headphones, like 250-Ohm to 600-Ohm (maybe even a 120-Ohm headphone).
Most receivers do not offer real headphone surround sound (my opinion), but you can have something else pre-process a headphone surround sound signal, before the signal is sent to the receiver.
If your mostly into music, you really have no need for any headphone surround sound features.
 
Headphones with a higher impedance.
Beyerdynamic DT880/DT990/T70/T90 or Sennheiser HD600/650 or AKG K612 Pro.

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Yeah so my HD 598 isn't a good match to my receiver then. But my DT 880 pro do fit the bill perfectly. I decided to go on a Bravo Ocean, it's a budget hybrid headphone amp and as far as I know it's pretty good for the price. Maybe in the future I will buy a Project Sunrise, Darvoice of Little Dot but before that I will want better SS too as my only amps at the moment are two Fiios, E6 and E17. I'm thinking about going for an Asgard 2, Magni 2 Uber, Objective 2 or Matrix M-Stage. Do you havê any thoughts about these amps?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Yeah so my HD 598 isn't a good match to my receiver then. But my DT 880 pro do fit the bill perfectly. I decided to go on a Bravo Ocean, it's a budget hybrid headphone amp and as far as I know it's pretty good for the price. Maybe in the future I will buy a Project Sunrise, Darvoice of Little Dot but before that I will want better SS too as my only amps at the moment are two Fiios, E6 and E17. I'm thinking about going for an Asgard 2, Magni 2 Uber, Objective 2 or Matrix M-Stage. Do you havê any thoughts about these amps?

 
So you currently own the Senn HD598.
Have you already tried the HD598 with the Denon 3312ci receiver?
My HD558, which uses the same 50-Ohm driver as the HD598, sounds fairly decent plugged into my Yamaha RX-V671 receiver.
 
I'm guessing the HD598 will do well with a hybrid (Bravo Ocean), the Bravo Ocean seems to get good feedback.
May not ever have to buy another amplifier, for use with the HD598.

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Yeah it sounds good on my receiver. It gets some serious bass too and I don't know if it's because of its power or a big output impedance. It feels pretty powerful. Much more than my E17 but not as refined which is the reason why I want an amp. Today to watch an anime as they are pretty quiet. I had to turn my E17 all the way to 60 on 6db gain to get a good volume. That's why I think maybe my DT would benefit from one. Also the soundstage from the receiver feels massive compared to E17. I also heard the E17 can be just a bit bright and that it has a forward sound. For being brighter I'm not sure but the highs doesn't feel as smooth as with the receiver for sure. And its pretty forward. For the DT I quiet enjoy this forwardness. But the 598 do happen to already have forward mids and its bass isn't that strong. But from the receiver I love its bass, sometimes I wonder if a better amp would be able of bringing the bass up and that is the reason I'm gonna buy the ocean. But maybe later I would like to hear how a good SS can sound. Can you suggest a good AMP for both?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Yeah it sounds good on my receiver. It gets some serious bass too and I don't know if it's because of its power or a big output impedance. It feels pretty powerful. Much more than my E17 but not as refined which is the reason why I want an amp. Today to watch an anime as they are pretty quiet. I had to turn my E17 all the way to 60 on 6db gain to get a good volume. That's why I think maybe my DT would benefit from one. Also the sound stage from the receiver feels massive compared to E17. I also heard the E17 can be just a bit bright and that it has a forward sound. For being brighter I'm not sure but the highs doesn't feel as smooth as with the receiver for sure. And its pretty forward. For the DT I quiet enjoy this forwardness. But the 598 do happen to already have forward mids and its bass isn't that strong. But from the receiver I love its bass, sometimes I wonder if a better amp would be able of bringing the bass up and that is the reason I'm gonna buy the ocean. But maybe later I would like to hear how a good SS can sound. Can you suggest a good AMP for both?

 
I'm guessing the Denon receiver's high impedance headphone jack is causing a bloated (louder, less detail) bass, with the HD598.
The Bravo Ocean still seems like a good choice for driving both headphones.
For an SS amp, the Magni 2 should easily drive just about any headphone you get.
What sources do you have connected to the Denon receiver?
What sources would you be connecting an headphone amplifier to?

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Well the really interesting thing is that for the reason my DT 880 were my new toy I was a little overwhelmed. But I ended up picking up my HD 598 again. And I got myself enjoying the way the HD 598 puts the bass at the background and a little more integrated with the rest of the music. I was really missing the killer mids from my 598. The highs are very present, but are more smooth and and go so easy on the ears and blends so well with the midrange. I was missing the warmness too and the musicality. Music is so much more fun in the 598 but there are specific music that are really delightful with the 880 because how much detail it has. The problem is that the 880 is an all-arounder but I feel like the 598 is even more so. So what genres and songs make the DT 880s shine?
For the source I will be buying a Fiio L7 so I can use my E17 with my amps. Maybe will be upgrading my DAC in the future. I'm interested in the Modi, Dragonfly, ODac and IFI Nano DSD. But I wonder how better is the Bifrost compared to Modi? Also why is the Magni so recomended around here?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Well the really interesting thing is that for the reason my DT 880 were my new toy I was a little overwhelmed. But I ended up picking up my HD 598 again. And I got myself enjoying the way the HD 598 puts the bass at the background and a little more integrated with the rest of the music. I was really missing the killer mids from my 598. The highs are very present, but are more smooth and and go so easy on the ears and blends so well with the midrange. I was missing the warmness too and the musicality. Music is so much more fun in the 598 but there are specific music that are really delightful with the 880 because how much detail it has. The problem is that the 880 is an all-arounder but I feel like the 598 is even more so. So what genres and songs make the DT 880s shine?
For the source I will be buying a Fiio L7 so I can use my E17 with my amps. Maybe will be upgrading my DAC in the future. I'm interested in the Modi, Dragonfly, ODac and IFI Nano DSD. But I wonder how better is the Bifrost compared to Modi? Also why is the Magni so recomended around here?

 
What sources do you plug the E17 (with future L7) into?
What sources do you plug the Denon into?

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Well I usually use my E17 with my computer (usb and optical) and smartphone trough OTG. My Denon I use as a player itself by plugging a pendrive in it. I also use my PS3 and notebook through HDMI sometimes. The notebook was can be used with optical as it has optical output.

 

[derbigpr]

   
I'm guessing the Denon receiver's high impedance headphone jack is causing a bloated (louder, less detail) bass, with the HD598.
The Bravo Ocean still seems like a good choice for driving both headphones.
For an SS amp, the Magni 2 should easily drive just about any headphone you get.
What sources do you have connected to the Denon receiver?
What sources would you be connecting an headphone amplifier to?

 
 
High output impedance doesn't have much effect on the HD598's, they have a high impedance spike at the bass frequency region,  basically, below 300 hz they go up in impedance and reach a peak of about 400 ohms at 100 hz.  That means that they're not prone to much effect from high impedance sources. I don't hear much difference on HD558's between my 1k dollar headamps and an integrated amplifier. In fact, even with low impedance headphones, effects of high impedance output are very small, maybe 1-2 db more in the bass and slightly less tightness.
 
The reason why 598's sound better out of the receiver than out of the E17 is simply because the receiver has plenty of headroom and can power them properly. You have to remember that E17 puts out a certain amount of power and voltage by design, and it can't go over that.  Receiver naturally puts out FAR more power and voltage than any headphone could ever take, but that output is tamed by adding resistors between the the amp section of the receiver and the headphone jack. That's why receivers or integrated amplifier outputs sound so "powerful" and "big". I noticed that when testing them, I've tested a lot of them, over 60 models so far, from cheap amps to expensive ones, and not one had a bad headphone output, and all of them shared this characteristic of making the headphones sound more dynamic, like they're breathing full so to speak, something you get only with very expensive headphone amps.

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Yeah, my 598 sounds pretty much like that FULL. The bass most of the time seems pretty powerful actually. The DT 880 may have more low bass and sub bass. But besides that it's a lot less. It may hit harder but it's a lot less apparent because it's very clear and very tight. I don't know if it's only because I know better the sound from my 598's but the sound from it change a LOT more than the Beyer. Its bass gets so satisfying. It's no good for low synthetized bass but pretty much everything else is wonderful. I think the 598 don't get what they deserve because people insist in the idea that if it doesn't need an amp so why bothering buying one? They can be powered fine by everything and still sound good and musical but these boys scale pretty well. I also suspect the receiver would have a somehow warm amp. Not sure about that though. Do you have any idea of an amp that can give me this kind of sound? Would a Magni 2 or Asgard 2 bring them to this level of sound? What about the Bravo?

 

[LightDarkSonic]

Only today I found out the culprit, why I suddenly started to find the bass so lacking, actually I haven't been enjoying my tunes for a long time, for weeks to be exact, I always used the E17 with my notebook, but a month ago I started using it with my computer, I was really troubled why I didn't enjoy listening to my music nearly as much. Today I've used my notebook and decided to use the E17 with it and then everything is back to normal, the music started to be so detailed, so real, so FUN! I was missing so much! I wasn't even comparing! I didn't believe an usb port could make that MUCH difference, I didn't even need to focus to notice, It's totally diferent. It also explains why I didn't liked the Beyers that much, Because I never knew his potential and so couldn't fall in love with it, It's just plain BAD the sound through the computer, also I'm sure the USB port from my notebook is pretty good because I used to compare it with the optical input of it (Yes, it has one), and couldn't notice enough of a difference to say it's better or worse, It seemed the same to me actually, guess I was pretty lucky with my notebook. Now I'm actually pretty happy with my setup but I already pulled the trigger on the Bravos and the L7, so guess I will have to enjoy it!

Also I tried one of these days to send a very clean signal from my receiver (It acted as the DAC too) to some pretty nice speakers I have, and I wanted so badly to have tried it before! It's in another level! Now I learned how important a clean signal can be, and will never forget again!

PS: The sound from the receiver may be more powerful and refined, but when the E17 is at its best its sound can be so addicting, so fun, I simply love it!

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Only today I found out the culprit, why I suddenly started to find the bass so lacking, actually I haven't been enjoying my tunes for a long time, for weeks to be exact, I always used the E17 with my notebook, but a month ago I started using it with my computer, I was really troubled why I didn't enjoy listening to my music nearly as much. Today I've used my notebook and decided to use the E17 with it and then everything is back to normal, the music started to be so detailed, so real, so FUN! I was missing so much! I wasn't even comparing! I didn't believe an usb port could make that MUCH difference, I didn't even need to focus to notice, It's totally diferent. It also explains why I didn't liked the Beyers that much, Because I never knew his potential and so couldn't fall in love with it, It's just plain BAD the sound through the computer, also I'm sure the USB port from my notebook is pretty good because I used to compare it with the optical input of it (Yes, it has one), and couldn't notice enough of a difference to say it's better or worse, It seemed the same to me actually, guess I was pretty lucky with my notebook. Now I'm actually pretty happy with my setup but I already pulled the trigger on the Bravos and the L7, so guess I will have to enjoy it!

Also I tried one of these days to send a very clean signal from my receiver (It acted as the DAC too) to some pretty nice speakers I have, and I wanted so badly to have tried it before! It's in another level! Now I learned how important a clean signal can be, and will never forget again!
PS: The sound from the receiver may be more powerful and refined, but when the E17 is at its best its sound can be so addicting, so fun, I simply love it!

 
The FiiO E17 headphone amplifier has a less then 1-Ohm output impedance, which helps the 50-Ohm HD598 bring out detail the the audio (better damping).
And I'm sure the E17's WM8740 DAC chip also helps.

 

[Amish]

Many receivers can handle headphone duties well. What is yours missing? I'm just wondering what you don't like. My HK 3490 pushes 5 watts to the cans according to an email I received from HK when I asked them.
 
Now don't get me wrong. It doesn't sound as good as my headphone stack. Good luck dude. If you are handy at modding there are some good mods for the Bravo.

 

[LightDarkSonic]

My receiver wasn't missing nothing, it's just upgraditis calling after all! My Bravo arrived and I bought it together with the tube 12AU7 from Electro Harmonix, the stock, well I wasn't aware of how fragile a tube was so i ended up breaking it before being able of testing, then I decided to research how to do it with the EH, Well differently from SS it's quite accepted that tube amp benefit a lot from amping but I'm already enjoying mine, tube sound is really different! I know it's not 100% accurate but OH BOY! Beyers do love tubes! The only problem I'm having is that I read that these boys do happen to have shrill highs in the beginning but that it can be solved with burn in, so I will be putting these to test till it happens!
To be able of using only the Bravo I ended up having to learn how a pre-amp works, I connected it to my E17 using the L7 but I was using the (headphone input that doesn't work as a pre-amp, then I ended up researching a little bit, after that I tried flipping the switch and turning the LO Bypass on my E17 and I could hear sound coming from my Bravo! But the E17 still was there together with it as it acted as pre-amp and I could hear the familiar sound from my E17 blended with the Bravo sound, then I realized that I should try using it with the RCA as it was intended to work as pre-amp, then IT finally worked as I flipped the LO Bypass back to off and it still worked! I'm so happy with my purchase, I happen to have a microphone from Shure and will be using the Bravo to play a little bit with it too 

Also I'm probably hearing for something like thirty minutes, I don't know it's just my mind playing tricks on me or me getting used to the sound but they seem to be improving as time goes on!
It may not be that great in technicalities but it does sound good, also I heard its really represents the tube sound, so I ended up pulling the trigger and don't regret it!