[Sonic Defender]

Haven't been listening to headphones much lately, but the last time I did a few days back man do I love the 560s with the A18 (seeing as how were talking amp synergy). Still planning on having my speaker taps made, but lately I've been dumping plenty of cash into another passion of mine (a revitalized one) collecting mineral specimens. Damn I wish I hadn't done that first e-bay search! I have enough money tied into my minerals (very small collection at present) to buy the TH900 I have been wanting to try for a few years now. That will have top wait like my speaker tap until this new run on mineral purchases ends!

 

[money4me247]

Well, if you've been paying attention while you purchase your gears... I'd say that pretty much any number on a specs sheet would be useless overall. Just plug the amp in and have a listen, right?

That was my goal to begin with... to make an amplifier that sounds good to me regardless of technicality.

I only threw out a number because someone was curious.

hahah I am curious!!! I didn't mean that statement in a negative way. I just want to hear the other specs as well & how they relate to performance as my knowledge with amps is quite limited. sounds like "moar power is betta = highest max output" to me =P heh but also sounds like you are saying that "moar stable power is even moar important = which would be RMS power ratings right??" ...or is my understanding of the physics completely off? hahah. been years since my last physics class.
 

  Music is odd, because it has peaks (duh) that are very short. A pure sine wave requires about 3x more energy than music with the same peak (iirc, don't quote me on that). But ideally an amp should never be pushed to it's absolute limits, because that's where distortion will be worse.
 
So, ideally, you'd want to know max voltage and current your amp can output into your hp's resistance continuously to make a decision. Vrms is definitely extremely useful, but for planars max current is also useful due to their low resistance. That said, current still isn't as important.
 
There are a few DIY amps around, which you can build if you're good with a soldering iron - the real trick is in designing a good amp, not building it.
 

hahaha... I honestly just went with the tube amp with the highest RMS W/channel & was generally well-reviewed in my price range, but would love to understand more about what specs are important & what specs translate to in terms of real-world sonic performance & which specs to think about when looking for he-560 pairings. kinda weird though, different amp include different specs & difficult to directly compare, doesn't seem like any one amp usually lists a totally complete spec sheet.

 

[saxelrod92]

 
hahaha... I honestly just went with the tube amp with the highest RMS W/channel & was generally well-reviewed in my price range, but would love to understand more about what specs are important & what specs translate to in terms of real-world sonic performance & which specs to think about when looking for he-560 pairings. kinda weird though, different amp include different specs & difficult to directly compare, doesn't seem like any one amp usually lists a totally complete spec sheet.

I spent some time learning on head-fi and other sources (people who gave nice explanations about the way amps and output power work with headphones). Simply put you need to look at the headphone's sensitivity rating: like for he-560 its 90dB/1mW. So putting 1mw of power through them, meaning max volume on an amp that outputs 1mw, will get you 90dB of sound pressure. But the power needing to go above that is exponentially greater. there are charts floating around that easily tell you what power is needed for what sensitivity/impedance, but I cant remember where to find them. As a reference point, I was able to learn it takes about 500mW or so to properly power a pre-fazor lcd 2. If the amp could output 500mw at 50-60 ohms, it could properly power an lcd 2. but you would need to have the volume up very high. So for amps like my V281 which in single ended mode output 2.7 watts into 50ohms or even 4.2 watts in balanced, what you get is proper headroom, and an ease to the sound. the magnets get access to more power when they need it, so even at low volumes the sound is full spectrum. Also if you look at any innerfidelity pdf graphs for headphones, at the very bottom right there is always a listing that says how much actual power is needed to get 90dB spl. Even for the he-6 it only takes 20mw to reach 90dB (obviously you need way more for the reasons posted above) but technically the amp is only putting out that little amount at most instances aside from peaks. the he-560 takes like 2.5mw, and the lcd 2/he-500 take like 0.75 or so.
 
Short Version:
 
Think of your amp as always running in idle and it mainly just moving forward idling in gear, but sometimes it needs to go over a peak and the more power it has the easier time it will have getting over the peak (different headphones create different sized peaks). and planars are like going up a slight incline all the time, the less efficient they are the steeper the incline, but they dont really have peaks as much (like the hd800 peak at 100hz or so that goes up to 650ohms from 300).
 
Nothing I just said is set in stone, but as an idea of whats going on and what specs are important to look at, this should help a bit.

 

[Bill-P]

  hahah I am curious!!! I didn't mean that statement in a negative way. I just want to hear the other specs as well & how they relate to performance as my knowledge with amps is quite limited. sounds like "moar power is betta = highest max output" to me =P heh but also sounds like you are saying that "moar stable power is even moar important = which would be RMS power ratings right??" ...or is my understanding of the physics completely off? hahah. been years since my last physics class.

 
Oh no, I didn't take it as negative.
 
Just that in general, a discussion about numbers won't truly lead anywhere because audiophiles have had this debate since forever.
 
I am in the camp that is half-and-half, and most often, I tune my designs by ears rather than via specs although I do measure things properly to make sure nothing nasty is going on that my ears couldn't catch.
 
The reason is simple... it is not supremely hard to make a headphone amp that measures so well, it exceeds the capabilities of most past and current measurement devices to detect even the slightest fault.
 
That also includes having enough power, current, voltage, etc... to drive pretty much anything in existence... including speakers.
 
But the other problem is... headphones and speakers, as electro-mechanical systems, are not perfect. There exists no headphone that has a perfectly flat frequency response, a perfect square-wave response, and perfect impulse response.
 
Having a headphone amp that measures super well simply means the flaws of the headphone are amplified along with the signal. That's just... not ideal. And in the pursuit of true "neutrality"... as in having the output be exactly what the input was, having such a headphone amp would be... less than ideal.
 
So really... that's why I don't think numbers can be trusted. A good headphone setup, IMO, should be able to push the output signal closer to absolute neutrality, and should not be an attempt to show off the flaws of the headphone by itself.
 
Granted, introducing distortions in the amp to "counter-act" the distortions of the headphone itself is probably not ideal on papers, but it has been proven that the end result (sound) is often better with some distortion... such as in the case of tube amps.
 
And on that note, measurements show that the HE-560 is pretty close to being perfect in stock form. It's only lagging behind the SR-009 by a very small margin. So... unless measurements lied, I'd think that having the right amp can probably allow the HE-560 to more or less catch up to the best e-stats in the world.

 

[mlxx]

And on that note, measurements show that the HE-560 is pretty close to being perfect in stock form. It's only lagging behind the SR-009 by a very small margin. So... unless measurements lied, I'd think that having the right amp can probably allow the HE-560 to more or less catch up to the best e-stats in the world.

 
Ever listened to the 009?

 

[garunamodi]

 
 
But the other problem is... headphones and speakers, as electro-mechanical systems, are not perfect. There exists no headphone that has a perfectly flat frequency response, a perfect square-wave response, and perfect impulse response.
 
Having a headphone amp that measures super well simply means the flaws of the headphone are amplified along with the signal. That's just... not ideal. And in the pursuit of true "neutrality"... as in having the output be exactly what the input was, having such a headphone amp would be... less than ideal.
 

 
This x10. It's the reason why, as a scientist, I have nothing against amps introducing distortion - because all we want it for the end result to sound better 

 
It could be that using graphene we can make diaphragms so light that a "perfect" hp could be achieved - but that's a while away yet. Until then, it's about finding a hp with the best "base" that we can build on, like quick decay. If you wanted you can EQ the HE-560 to reduce the 4kHz peak and still benefit from it's speed (even more so now).
 
And as a slight note about amps - I could design one that had only 1Vrms, but a giant current buffer letting me output many, many watts. This is a deliberate imbalance, sure, but the reason why knowing the max Vrms is the most useful stat an amp can have.

 

[MattTCG]

   
Ever listened to the 009?

 
I've listened to both Stax many times. And the he90. While 560 is a very good hp, it simply does not have the technical capabilities of the stats...IMO. 

 

[mandrake50]

   
I've listened to both Stax many times. And the he90. While 560 is a very good hp, it simply does not have the technical capabilities of the stats...IMO. 

Just curious, I see the term technically, and technical capabilities used quite a bit. I am not sure exactly what it means. I am especially interested in what "technical capabilities" sound like.
Can somebody help me understand this?

 

[MattTCG]

 
Just curious, I see the term technically, and technical capabilities used quite a bit. I am not sure exactly what it means. I am especially interested in what "technical capabilities" sound like.
Can somebody help me understand this?

 
Speed, decay, sound staging, instrument separation, ability to reproduce sound accurately across the spectrum as it relates to the material in the recording...these are a hp's technical capabilities in my view. 

 

[Sonic Defender]

 
Just curious, I see the term technically, and technical capabilities used quite a bit. I am not sure exactly what it means. I am especially interested in what "technical capabilities" sound like.
Can somebody help me understand this?

You scientist types, always operationalize your variables right?

 

[Moonhead]

Anyone own both HD800 & HE560 ?

Some say they are Quite similar even though one is dynamic and the other a planar.

Sorry if this has been discussed.

 

[Nitori]

Not even close IMO. HE560 has much more impact in the midbass region, noticeably smaller soundstage and less treble energy (yes this might be arguable but it's my personal impression).

 

[olegausany]

Anyone own both HD800 & HE560 ?

Some say they are Quite similar even though one is dynamic and the other a planar.

Sorry if this has been discussed.

I have both and while there is similarity between them they are great addition to the other one but not the replacement which means if you are thinking to get HE-560 instead of HD800 to save some money this will not work, sorry

 

[Moonhead]

I where considering one high end open can with a good portable headphones, but I'm just snoozing around
To see if something interesting comes up, might just go with some HD650.

Thanks anyway, guys

 

[olegausany]

And yes difference in bass presentation is what makes them different most of all and that's why HE-560 are great addition to HD800. And while sound stage is narrower in HE-560 you can improve it by applying grill mod. If you're looking for a sound in between, but not sure about soundstage difference yet, look for just released Edition 12 but they way more expensive