Just because it has been said many times doesn't make it true. Way too much BS around "properly driven". "Loud doesn't necessarily mean properly driven?" What does it mean then? Please explain how an amp can drive a headphone to loud, but a more powerful amp is needed to drive it "properly"? Apart from a different sound signature (IE distortion) how does more power (over louder than necessary) "improve" the sound, and if that is the case won't every headphone sound better using an amp with more power?
Volume will make a difference as to how we perceive the sound signature, but volume match an adequately driven headphone with a considerably more powerful amp, and difference will come down to (sound variation) added/less distortion, which won't always go the way of more power, it will favour amp design and materials, and subjective listener preferences.
I have a desktop amp that could blow Diana up, and it sounds great, but Diana also sounds great straight from an A&K SR15.
Unnecessarily powerful amps, expensive DACS, $1400 superconductor cables LOL; expectation bias.
Chimney189, your Diana will sound brilliant from the A&K Kahn cube. Those that say there is no low end, lacking bass, must be comparing the sound to a fart cannon. I am not sure if some of the people on Head fi have ever heard live music, that is a benchmark, not a Sony MDR XB1000 extra bass.
Actually, I was a professional sound engineer. Definitely heard live music. Definitely not comparing to fart sound cannon. And also, physics and mathematics and driver design is against your statement.
Less distortion from better gear isn't the only thing making is sound better. More power helps certain driver designs sound better,because they need more power to vibrate at the correct speed and wavelengths necessary to reproduce the sound properly that the music is displaying. I'll give you an example of why gear that has the low end sounding mostly removed or "Heard" rather then "felt".
Low end, let's say bass waves, like 20hz or 50 hz, are waves that are vibrating 20 or 50 times per second. In the spectrum of sound, this is very, very slow. The wave length is also very large because it's so slow the wave spreads out more before it's next vibrational wave and the space created between the wave is larger then higher frequencies, which are faster and shorter. So, when a low frequency like 20hz is being reproduced, it needs a lot of air and space to fully form the wave before starting to reproduce it's next wave in the cycle. To actually power a diaphram to move this low and slow it requires a lot of energy and air to be shifted. This energy and air being moved requires a lot of power to do. This is why a sub woofer for example can run on 1000 watt amps and such because low frequencies, by literal physics, require a lot of power to reproduce. Then, to reproduce accurately and handle as much power as they need, without distorting of course, is a difficult trick to achieve and takes a lot of design and work.
Higher frequencies are much faster, they require less space and less air to move, thus they don't need as much power or space to move within, but, the driver needs to be able to move incredibly fast back and forth to produce each wave. So it needs speed and flexibility. 20,000 hz is literally 20,000 vibrations per second. That's a lot of movement. This can cause jitter in the driver's and mechanisms which can introduce sound distortion or just mechanical vibration from the rapidly moving parts. So, another feat of engineering is to make sure a well designed driver doesn't introduce extra noise when moving that fast.
Why planar magnetics are difficult to drive in comparison to other headphones, but also sound so amazing? They're magnets sitting above and below one another (depending on how you're looking at them - basically they're on opposite ends) and through electrical energy they're vibrating at rapid pace, with each vibration they pull and push on the electric coils resting in the middle between the magnets which moves the diaphram contained within the coil.
The fact that they're two magnetic fields pushing and pulling means the speed at which they can move is faster then most normal physical mechanics that we invent. This gives you the amazing rapid pace that a planar magnetic can move at, which gives it beautiful articulation and the ability to fully move every single hz per second it needs to, no matter how fast for high frequencies. This means they are never skipping over wave forms and doing incomplete vibrations which don't fully express each waveform because they're not able to move quick enough. Other driver types suffer from that issue but not the magnetics. However, to power 2 magnetic fields which then move a diaphram coil between them requires more energy then is necessarily needed to power directly a diaphram and coil to move, such as a Dynamic driver does.
Also, since the planar magnetic can move so rapidly in such a small space, it can articulate so well, with little mechanical resistance.. but it doesn't exactly have the space needed to move lower, big and powerful wave forms. It needs air and space to properly do this. Which again, to create those long drawn out big waveforms, it requires more energy. So to articulate the low end, get that vibrational "felt" sensation, you need more power, In all drivers, but especially drivers with little air and room in which they move because they're designed to move rapidly.
Sounding loud doesn't mean sounding good, this isn't a statement. It's fact. Have you ever listen to your phone's free included earbuds? You can crank them up max volume that doesn't mean they sound good. Voltage and resistance are big factors that come in to play that help the driver's properly articulate each waveform across the spectrum so it's not just about power, and it's not just about volume. It's about dispersion, cohesion, power, speed, air and space, resistance voltage, etc. All of these things are factors. So just saying that you could blow something up with a desktop amp, doesn't mean that gear is the best the headphones could possibly produce.
Also, each piece of gear has their own way in which they attempt to reproduce the audio signals transmitted through then, they all induce noise and jitter and have different ohms and resistance and such. So they all can offer upgrades in sound depending on how the engineering is done to minimize some of the issues that each price of gear with introduce into your listening.
Yes, a headphone might sound good out of a singular piece of gear, but just because the volume is super loud, doesn't mean you're not hearing distortion, clipping, volume but not enough speed and energy and power to reproduce depth accurately, space accurately, speed, etc.
This is pure physics of how the moving parts function and the resistence they meet withing their function. Good gear does it's best to illuminate the limitations of physical moving parts that all introduce their own vibrations as they move, which are their own sounds which are introduced into our song which distorts some of what the song was meant to display.
Im not speaking about the price of gear. The amp I recommended is $800. It's not crazy expensive I'm not speaking about that at all, you can have good gear at good prices. I'm speaking about having the right gear that has the right power, voltage, articulation and all other things I just spoke of, to properly allow your headphone to perform to it's peak potentials as designed.
And if you are happy with the gear you have and how it sounds, there's nothing wrong with that, I'm only introducing the idea of a headphones signature sound and how when it's not being fed what it needs to perform to it's potential, youre not getting it's peak sound, or in this case, even an accurate reproduction if it's true sound due to its limitations. But again, if you're happy with the sound you get as is from your gear, there's nothing wrong with that. But don't say just because it's loud that's as good as it gets and it's been driven correctly.
