[raymond8246]

I'm sorry for asking this question, but I am a complete newbie. I was wondering if LODs are completely necessary for portable headphone amplifiers for a clean sound. Or is it possible to just use a double male 3.5mm jack into a portable amp without compromising sound quality?

 

[Pomp]

Bump for curiosity. I've been wondering this also (assuming OP is referring to iDevice LOD->usb/3.5mm)

 

[ostewart]

if you use just a 3.5 to 3.5 you are dual amping, which is never good. Using a line out signal via LOD is much better as it is a cleaner signal, meaning you amplify a clean signal rather than a noisy/lower quality signal from the headphone out.

Regards

 

[raymond8246]

Well, I do know that not using a LOD is definitely not a good thing, but is it recommended to do if the LOD never existed for the music player? For example, the Zune HD has a slot for a 22-pin LOD but the LOD doesn't actually exist because it was never put into production.
 
Quote:

if you use just a 3.5 to 3.5 you are dual amping, which is never good. Using a line out signal via LOD is much better as it is a cleaner signal, meaning you amplify a clean signal rather than a noisy/lower quality signal from the headphone out.
Regards

 

 

[ostewart]

if you can get a LOD for it then yes it would be better. The Line Out bypasses the internal headphone amp (which tends to be pretty bad quality) so you can use a better external amp. If you amp the headphone out you are amping the distortion and noise too.

 

[raymond8246]

But from what I've heard, the Zune HD has a pretty good headphone port. It's such a shame that they never produced any LODs for it.