draytonklammer
Headphoneus Supremus
It's not about loud, it's about quality. If you can get the impact of the music at a low volume, then you have an AMP that is driving (has the current) your headphones properly. Loudness just fools you into thinking it sounds good. If you have to turn it up loud to hear (or pretend to hear the detail) then your AMP isn't enough.
THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE -- IF YOU DISAGREE, THAT'S GREAT, WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT THOUGHTS ON THE HOBBY.
Let me give you a counterexample... I agree with Junglebook3, within reason.
I do believe the Susvara would benefit from more current and power than $200 would provide, but his sentiment is something I firmly believe.
For reference, I've driven various "hungry" TOTL headphones with a Holo stack, Chord Dave + Woo/Wells, etc...
I used to say the same sort of stuff you did, but I can't anymore. Not in good faith, at least.
I'm able to drive ANY HEADPHONE I WANT, PERIOD, with Topping's flagship stack, among other "cheaper" equipment. This includes AB-1266 and Susvara.
A year ago I did a test with some of the cheapest stacks I could find and still found them to drive everything I wanted fairly well. There's definitely a sweet spot somewhere around $1,000 for TOTL gear.
Sure, you could get tubes or something with a frequency response tilt or intentionally added distortion, but that's just a preference.
I practice what I preach. I could easily own whatever gear I want but have found no reason to keep expensive equipment around if it doesn't actually do anything for me.
My various $xx,xxx speaker setups are all driven very well by excellent hardware that does the job but doesn't cost money just for the sake of fleecing audiophiles.
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