[Albert2233]

I just bought (from someone here) the Klipsch HP-3, which I really love. I am new to the world of Hi-Fi headphones, so my apologies if this questions seems obviousl. I was planning to ge the ifi Gryphon to pair with this, but the sound just from my iphone is really pretty good. I don't need it to be louder, but not sure how much the amp will enhance the sound at lower levels. I know the DAC will also expand the sound. Also, I am not sure if I have ears that are not that discering. Anything reccomendations here would be appreciated.

 

[o0genesis0o]

I used to believe that “if I can hear the sound, I don‘t need any amp or DAC.” Of course I learned that from “famous influencers” and I went around and parroting to people like an “expert.

Nowadays, this is my latest setup:

Here, I use the DAC side from one device with the amp side from another device. All of this for a measly little IEM. Why? because it sounds darn good. The frequency response might not change, but the sharpness of attack of the notes, especially the the bass, is very noticeable. Everything is just more dynamic and snappy.

My advice: grab a good source (DAC+amp) if you are going down the rabbit hole. Your future self would thank you.

If you can audition, have a look at FiiO Q7 and Shanling H7 as well. But the G5 (in photo) is also a very solid piece of kit at a good price. I reviewed it previously here: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/topping-g5.26030/review/29798/

I personally consider the Q7 because it has playback buttons on the side, and it can be used without battery, so I can use it as a desktop device as well.

 

[Tanalasta]

Quite simply. Audition.

As you spend more in the chain ; it is often squeezing just that little bit of extra and value for money falls into a black hole of a money pit.

Better IEM's scale with better equipment. If you're happy with what you have ; be happy. Ignorance is sometimes bliss.

For the sake of IEM's, most DAP's will drive them just fine without the need for an amp. An amp may open up the soundstage, improve the dynamism and timing. It may also colour the sound depending upon the amp resulting in a subtle sonic difference. It's a bit like turning up the gain but lowering the volume slider. Is it necessary? Probably not.

Then again I say this whilst I'm currently listening with a pair of Oriolus Trailii ... with the A&K SP2000 with the Cayin C9 amplifier. Because I find it adds that improvement I've described above to the sound.

 

[Rackhour]

Me personally, I don’t bother. Most of my gear is mainstream stuff. They sound great as is.

The Qudelix gives me wireless access with wired headphones of my choice, and the ability to EQ, though I don’t mess with the latter much.

 

[pbui44]

All of the above statements need equal consideration, but your daily use environments play another big role with many here arguing that its consideration is even larger than what was said above (I don't care that much when OTG, personally).

If you want an amp and DAC for your desktop, then the JDS Atom amp+/DAC+ will work just fine for the Klipsch HP-3 (I own the amp and HP-3 and both are a perfect pairing with the HP-3's over-ear sensitivity and how well the amp tries to focus on a more linear sound over power), but for portable use, the Topping G5 pictured above should also work just fine as well.

 

[Monsterzero]

Most headphones will benefit from an amp, and in some cases an amp is absolutely necessary. In the case of the HP3, this is a headphone that is quite sensitive (97db) and a low impedance of 25 ohms. This is a headphone that can be driven to brain melting volume levels by a potato.

That being said, sheer volume is just one aspect of headphone listening. Many headphones can be loud straight out of a phone, but you may notice improved bass response, better dynamics and expanded staging when inserting a quality amp into the mix. OTOH, some headphones do not scale upwards much with better gear.

I would read and/or ask in the HP3 thread about suggested amp pairings with the Klipsch and go from there.

 

[Amorph]

From an IEMs user perspective I would say that an apple dongle is more than enough to run all the IEMs I have tried and more. I have tried IEMs up to the 400$ price point with different setups ranging from full blown desktop amps to the Fiio M11 ESS and I kept coming back to the BTR5 2021 just for the convenience of having my phone free in my hands when I go for a walk outside. At home I usually just use speakers and when I want to have a full audio session I would use my AKG K612 Pro with the Fiio KA3. In my opinion you should only start thinking about upgrading your source setup when you get into the endgame price bracket, like in the range of 1000$+, anything below you will just be wasting money. That only applies to IEMs though, when it comes to full sized headphones, having sufficient power to power them up is a must. One thing to mention though, you could look into buying a DAP for your IEMs usage, if you want to be disconnected from social media and other distractions that you usually encounter when you are using your phone, and you just want to have a pure music listening experience, in addition to that using a DAP in public can feel really nostalgic sometimes and people will just be staring and wondering at that huge brick in your hands.

 

[tomb]

Unfortunately, your thread title is misleading. It should've said, "How important is a Headphone Amp With a Very Sensitive IEM." The use of the word, "Headphone," is also a bit of a stretch when discussing an IEM.

All of that made one think that you really wanted an amp for a headphone, which is not the case.

 

[Albert2233]

Unfortunately, your thread title is misleading. It should've said, "How important is a Headphone Amp With a Very Sensitive IEM." The use of the word, "Headphone," is also a bit of a stretch when discussing an IEM.

All of that made one think that you really wanted an amp for a headphone, which is not the case.

I have the Klipsch HP-3, which are not IEM... so not sure how I was misleading

 

[aoimaiden]

I'm new to this too, but I ordered two seperate amps to try on my hd600. One amp put out half the power of the other. Both got loud enough for me, but one of course was higher up the knob. The problem was that the one that put out half the power didn't sound rich, full, and colorful. Could have been a connector problem, or a dac problem, but there certainly seems to be a difference other than simple loudness.

That said if you are satisfied with the sound from your phone, why bother, save your money and enjoy yourself.

 

[Elegiac]

No need to go to Gryphon levels straight away. Get a nice Shanling DAP or something similar, then you'll understand.
Pretty sure you can take the Klipsch balanced... ? So, yeah. A decent DAP and a balanced cable, then you'll be smiling.

 

[o0genesis0o]

I'm new to this too, but I ordered two seperate amps to try on my hd600. One amp put out half the power of the other. Both got loud enough for me, but one of course was higher up the knob. The problem was that the one that put out half the power didn't sound rich, full, and colorful. Could have been a connector problem, or a dac problem, but there certainly seems to be a difference other than simple loudness.

That said if you are satisfied with the sound from your phone, why bother, save your money and enjoy yourself.

I'm pretty sure some dudes would come and say "volume match", "blind test", "placebo", blah blah blah to put you and your observation down.

Your confusion is somewhat a problem of the Internet where so many pseudo-intellectuals going around bullying people in these audio forums that people don't even dare to believe what they hear. One amp is stronger than the other, and because everything has been kept the same, then it is simply because the amp is stronger. Why do one has to justify "maybe connector or DAC problem"? It's the amp.

For the "volume match" folks, since matching volume is a nightmare to do without proper tools, let just boost the volume of the worse-sounding audio chain to be noticeably louder and see if it is better than the other chain.

Even with IEMs, there are noticeable differences. You can see my quoted discussion on another thread for some details.

I think “currently body of knowledge cannot provide definite answers” (because no one cares enough to fund the research) rather than “science cannot describe”. I mean psychology people manage to quantify and form theories on optimal experience. They will be able to figure about why an IEM sound more dynamic or resolving, or why that DAP is more pleasing. Heck, maybe engineers in ChiFi companies look at us right now and laugh at our naives arguments.

---

I have been playing around with DAC and amps lately, and here are some findings with some supporting “evidence” (sample size 1, so no statistical generalisation, I’m afraid ):

• Amp plays a significant role in controlling IEMs. Dynamic, sharpness of note attacks, layering, all depends on the amp. Evidence: day and night difference between these chains: apple dongle -> aria vs apple dongle -> G5 -> aria. Everything stays the same, only the amp stage changes. Most of the blurriness and lack of dynamic that I complain about is gone.
• There is no scaling up, only reaching full potential when it comes to amping. Evidence: when running through Shanling M6U -> G5, even the Andromeda 2020 can get close to the dynamic of 64 audio IEM. Most good IEMs do not differ significantly from each other when running on this overpowered chain.
• No, the amp stage in most dongles and even DAP are not enough. That’s why there are phenomena of “scaling” or “desktop sound”. Evidence: Hidizs S9 Pro -> IEM is very different from S9 Pro -> G5 -> IEM.
• DAC implementation mainly influences tonality, micro details, and illusion of depth. Slightly warm DAC implementation, likely due to even-ordered harmonic distortion, tend to do better on these aspects. Evidence: Shanling M6U vs Megatron vs FiiO KA3 -> G5. The KA3 is still flat and in your face, the M6U is mellow and deeper. Onboard DAC of G5 is not as good as M6U.

Why discovery folks should care? We talk about transducers all the time here, yet it might be the source side that you need to upgrade. I say when you have something around Aria level of sound, it’s time to up the source game. Best bang for the buck from my findings is Apple dongle -> amp -> IEM/headphones. I don’t know whose genius idea to drive Monarch II with apple dongle. It’s not “very smart”, “so scientific”, “beating audiofools”. It’s wasting your money by gimping your expensive IEMs.

 

[Monsterzero]

I'm new to this too, but I ordered two seperate amps to try on my hd600. One amp put out half the power of the other. Both got loud enough for me, but one of course was higher up the knob. The problem was that the one that put out half the power didn't sound rich, full, and colorful. Could have been a connector problem, or a dac problem, but there certainly seems to be a difference other than simple loudness.

That said if you are satisfied with the sound from your phone, why bother, save your money and enjoy yourself.

not to derail this thread, but the output impedance of any given amp can have a profound impact on the HD600, which is a high impedance headphone, coming in at 300 ohms
I have no clue as to which amps you tried, but OTL amps have a higher output impedance than most any other amp type out there, hence why OTL amps are typically preferred on high impedance headphones.

 

[BS5711]

When you say from your iPhone I assume you mean with a lightning to 3.5mm dongle because it has been years since iPhones had a headphone jack.

The lightning to 3.5mm dongle is actually a DAC/Amp and despite the criticism it gets by “audiophiles” that equate more money with much better it is a clean well measuring DAC and while the amplifier is quite limited in power it does generally provide sufficient volume even if you have to max it out.

The HP-3 are 25 ohm and 98db/mw so are neither very easy to drive nor especially hard either. They are a nice headphone and probably just based on that alone probably deserve a nice DAC/Amp to run them off.

I have a Gryphon and it does a great job with everything from IEM to higher impedance HD600 to low sensitivity DCA Aeon Noire planars. It has all manner of connectivity options and use cases from desktop via USB, line in, SPDIF in or on the go via bluetooth so it will likely cover any reasonable current and future use case. It also has XBass which is occasionally handy and XSpace which is less so. It sounds great but you might not notice any immediate dramatic improvement over what you are currently using, it most certainly won’t be worse.

Alternatively if you wanted to keep the budget down you could get a nice dongle DAC/amp. I have a Go Bar that is less than half the price of the Gryphon and it to does a great job but because it uses the phone battery it obviously drains that much faster than the Gryphon which is of course self powered. I use it at my desk for certain use cases but don’t like it swinging around off my phone when out for a walk.

The Go Bar is a powerful dongle but does have known issues connecting to late model iPhones, seem 14 in particular.

Of course you could get a modest priced but very good desktop option like a FiiO K7 if you are using the headphones at your desk but that is less convenient if you want to be able to listen in different parts of the house.
The practicalities and specific use case may be more important than some potential minor improvement in sound quality.

I don’t hear differences from DACs and amps like a lot of people on these forums talk about so for me use case, connectivity, convenience and just having a few nice toys is what guides my choices.

Of course YMMV.

 

[Runrunsmithfly]

Total WASTE OF MONEY! Except for all the ones I have owned and own now.