[Magick Man]

What does that even mean? I keep seeing posts where people say something to the effect of, "well, that amp won't sound good with those headphones, they have poor synergy". On paper, the specs look fine, it's a SS amp of high quality, there's nothing that stands out about the cans either, but somehow the "synergy" is off.

I guess I'm becoming more of a skeptic, especially now that I know my $80 flea market Kenwood monster can kick the crap out of $3000 boutique specialty amps. I've always believed there's something snake-oily about pricey cables, and now it seems to be spreading.

 

[bellsprout]

any devices that aren't flawed will not be flawed in syenrgy. if one of them is flawed, the synergy will be flawed. they are both flawed, there's a chance they're flawed in a certain way that covers up the flaw subjectively to the listener.
 
headphones are all flawed in a way by nature because it's impossible to build a perfect one. amps are a lot closer to perfect, but some of them are misconceived and flawed in ways they shouldn't be. 

 

[mikeaj]

This is one of the situations where I'm pretty sure that there's not much agreement as to what people are talking about, and a lot of it is imagined or really has more to do with somebody's mood while listening to some combination, than anything with a certain amp with certain headphones.  Sometimes I think synergy becomes a convenient excuse for the situation where somebody doesn't like a certain amp or headphones.  You can blame synergy rather than one or the other, which may be an idea more appealing to the listener.
 
That said, there are many situations where one would expect bad synergy, if you want to call it that:
1.  Headphones (some IEMs particularly) with variable impedance over frequency with amp with high output impedance ->  huge shifts in frequency response
2.  Many amps having trouble driving insensitive headphones of relatively low impedance, e.g. AKG K701, many planar magnetics
3.  Amp with rolled-off treble with headphones with rolled-off treble
4.  Amp with too much gain or too much noise for sensitive headphones
 
and so on.  Most of the times this is probably not what people are talking about.

 

[Magick Man]

Yeah, I get that. In my mind they have more of an esoteric meaning. Something kinda like, "this amp doesn't like those headphones, their Chi is out of balance". The old audiophiles I hang out with on occasion are some pretty eccentric characters. One of them even has special isolators that lift his speaker and power cables, that way they don't pickup resonances from floor vibration. He keeps icons of the Virgin Mary in his listening room to keep evil spirits from distorting the music. But, hey, I guess it works, no demons have possessed his McIntosh monoblocks.

 

[IEMCrazy]

Quote:

This is one of the situations where I'm pretty sure that there's not much agreement as to what people are talking about, and a lot of it is imagined or really has more to do with somebody's mood while listening to some combination, than anything with a certain amp with certain headphones.  Sometimes I think synergy becomes a convenient excuse for the situation where somebody doesn't like a certain amp or headphones.  You can blame synergy rather than one or the other, which may be an idea more appealing to the listener.
 
That said, there are many situations where one would expect bad synergy, if you want to call it that:
1.  Headphones (some IEMs particularly) with variable impedance over frequency with amp with high output impedance ->  huge shifts in frequency response
2.  Many amps having trouble driving insensitive headphones of relatively low impedance, e.g. AKG K701, many planar magnetics
3.  Amp with rolled-off treble with headphones with rolled-off treble
4.  Amp with too much gain or too much noise for sensitive headphones
 
and so on.  Most of the times this is probably not what people are talking about.

Agreed.  I think the vague "esoteric" claims about synergy are more a statement of "I know there are electrical compatibility, ideal measurement combinations, etc that cause headphone A to match better with amp B, I don't know enough specifics about the electrical output of the amp and the electrical requirements and tolerances of the headphone, but I know the result of pairing A with B definitely sounds best for some reason explained by that."  In most cases there are likely measurable reasons for claims of synergy.  Even if the reasons are the result of flaws rather than successes which is common with cable claims.  Sometimes it's the flawed termination on a cable that makes it sound "different", and we all know "different' must be better!

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

In most cases there are likely measurable reasons for claims of synergy.

That's very much arguable. The LCD-3, for example, has a higher sensitivity than the LCD-2 and has nearly the same impedance, yet owners claim it needs a "better" amp. They're both mostly unaffected by reasonable output impedance, so electrical properties aren't likely to be the reason. Their sound signatures are more similar than they are different, so it isn't some sort of coloration compensation. I would argue that the psychological aspects of price, brand name, and appearance have a larger effect on perceived "synergy" than the electrical properties of the amp and headphone in most cases.
 
Exceptions being, of course, low impedance headphones or headphones with large variation in their impedance curve. As well as clearly colored amps.

 

[tvrboy]

You guys are spot on. 95% of Head-Fiers have no idea how to make meaningful comparisons between amps. For that matter, 95% of audio "journalists" don't either. These amp reviews we have are mostly just people listening back and forth with no level matching and an imagination that wants to hear differences because it just spent $1000 on a shiny new toy. Or worse, a judgement made at a meet. There can be audible differences between well-designed solid state amps but most people don't have the patience or the proper test methods to hear them. They just spend some time listening to one, spend some time listening to the other, then make up a bunch of BS. The detail people go into is unreal. Like, "The midrange on this $100 amp is ever so slightly more liquid than this other $100 amp. But it has better PRaT. It made me feel like I was in second row of the concert, instead of the third row."

 

[Spyro]

It is mostly marketing hype.  Synergy is individual to the listener and his equipment and tastes, period.
 
An amp can be transparent with the souce (seen as a positive attribute) but if it doesn't provide the "sound" the listener is looking for...then it is poor synergy.