KeithEmo
Member of the Trade: Emotiva
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2014
- Posts
- 1,698
- Likes
- 868
Hi guys, I currently have a DC-1 and love the little thing. Before I go on, please forgive my readily apparent naivety.
I also own a pair of Hifiman's HE-400is which I usually power through the single-ended outputs at the front of the unit as you're supposed to. I recently learned that the Hifimans (I think) can be run in balanced mode. So I got to thinking, rather than using the single ended outputs, can I hook up the Hifimans to the DC-1 in balanced mode where the 'phones would be fed from the XLR outputs at the back for example?
Please let me know if what I suggest is disastrous or dangerous in any way
You won't risk damaging anything by connecting your HiFiMan 400's to the balanced outputs on the DC-1. Unfortunately, however, I don't think you're going to be especially pleased with the results.
The reason is that the balanced outputs of the DC-1 are really line level outputs and aren't intended to drive headphones. Because your HE-400's are relatively high-efficiency for planars, they will probably work on the balanced outputs, but it's doubtful that the balanced outputs will be able to drive them to very loud listening levels. Beyond even that, since the balanced outputs aren't intended to drive headphones directly, they have a relatively high output impedance (which means you will have very little damping, and the interaction between the outputs and the headphones may well add some odd colorations to the sound as well). On the DC-1, you're really better off using the front panel headphone outputs (which go through output buffers specifically designed to drive headphones).
You also need to understand that all headphones are internally "balanced" (each ear has a speaker - which is an inherently balanced device). The reason your HiFiMan's "can be wired as balanced" is simply that you can get to both wires coming from each ear speaker. However, since each speaker is a "floating two-wire device", there is no specific benefit in using balanced wiring in and of itself. (Any benefit you get by "using them balanced" would be because the amplifier you're using works or sounds better when used that way.) Therefore, with the DC-1, using the (proper) headphone output on the front panel is going to give you much more benefit that using the (line level) outputs simply because they're balanced.