[Joe Bloggs]

OK, I don't get this at all. Two companies put together portable headphone amps that by themselves cost more than most portable CD players, and they can't even make a decent pot to go with it??

The pot on my Porta Corda (the new one, not the one that had the pot fried) has audible channel imbalance from 7 to 11 o'clock--which happens to be about the only region I ever use!

I'm asking Jan about changing the gain of the PC (DIY) or making a attenuator cable to be placed between the line out and the PC line in (DIY) to let me use a better part of the pot--but even then I'm worried that I might need to make two attenuator cables with different resistance for 2 headphones, or lower the gain to allow me to use the past 12 o'clock part of the pot with the HD580 and still have to make an attenuator cable to go with the EX70!

And HeadRoom says that their new Airheads always produce scratching sounds when you turn the pot because this is a 'design compromise'. What kind of compromise is that, I ask you??

Why is it that both my old analog pot equipped discman and my new digital pot equipped pcdp have better volume control than my Porta Corda?

And in all probability the Airheads too

I regret upsetting Jan Meier and HeadRoom, but I'm pissed off myself

I just don't get it

 

[john_jcb]

The pot on the TOH is not the cause of the noise but rather due to tradeoffs in circuit design. Danny of Headroom's post on the subject:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showth...threadid=11151

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I know that. Nevertheless the end result is an amp that crackles whenever you turn the volume knob, and my questions stands: what the ****** is up with that?

 

[john_jcb]

I have the 9V TAH and noticed the noise when changing volume. I do not know why but it is not nearly as noticable now after considerable use as it was when I first got the amp. Nothing else has changed except that that there is no battery installed now. I use a variable regulated power supply set at 9V to power it. I also found that I do not change the volume very much when switching CDs.

 

[dhwilkin]

Even the Max's pot has a channel imbalance. It's only noticeable at low volumes w/ very efficient headphones, though.

 

[mezzman]

So what if the TA crackles while you turn up/down the volume? It never crackles once I stop messing with the dial, while I'm listening to the music. I can accept the tradeoff if my gains are high quality for low cost and compact size.

 

[FlurkingShnit]

The pot on my CHA-47 is smooth as silk and doesn't make any noise at all when I'm playing music and tweaking the volume. And it's cheaper than a TA to boot. GO JMT! woO!

 

[kelly]

Work this formula:

Start with the price of your headphone amp.

Deduct one third of it. This covers the sales staff, telephones, web presence, customer service issues, return policies and related overhead.

Deduct another third of it. This covers the salaries of the engineers, research and development costs, parts, defective components and related overhead.

With the remaining one third, deduct the cost of the actual labor in the assembling of the units and related overhead.

Now what you are left with is the "budget" for the price of components. With that amount of money in your head, visit digi-key and other DIY recommended web sites and shop the price of the components. Ultimately, you may reach the same conclusion as Headroom and Meier-Audio: that at this price point, an expensive potentiometer does not warrant the opportunity cost of sacrificing other components.

If you disagree with the design at this point, you are left with one of two options: 1) you disagree with the basic design decisions of the amplifiers or 2) you didn't spend enough money to result in components of quality meeting your newfound standards. Be reminded that choosing option number 1 pits you directly against Danny and Jan has designers and is, frankly, a battle I doubt you'd win.

Thus, the option remaining is that you should spend the extra money to buy a better component using higher quality parts. If you'd like to circumvent this formula, you'll have to operate outside of the system. Headroom and Meier-Audio are businesses and require their margins to stay profitable. To circumvent this, consider taking on a DIY project or paying one of the many people on HeadFi who volunteer to make amps for you. Then you can, if you choose, dedicate an exaggerated amount of your parts budget on the poteniometer.

For what its worth, I really like the pot decisions both Meier and Headroom have made. If I were buying a MOH or higher amp, I would opt for their stepped attenuator too, which is an option.

Getting "pissed off" is unlikely to solve your problem. These decisions were not made randomly nor without consideration.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by Joe Bloggs I know that. Nevertheless the end result is an amp that crackles whenever you turn the volume knob, and my questions stands: what the ****** is up with that?

What is "up" with that is exactly what Tyll and Danny explained in that thread: at that price point, you can get worse sound with no noise during volume changes, or better sound with a bit of scratching that occurs *only* during volume changes. As someone who values good sound, I'm glad they picked the latter.

If you don't like this design compromise, spend more money on your amps

As for your question about why your portable CD player's volume control doesn't make any noise... the fairly obvious answer can be found after one listen to its headphone jack compared to an amp

 

[jpelg]

kelly, et al...

i originally decided to keep quiet when i saw this post. but then some reflection on my own personal frustrations when making some of my own posts here, have caused me to reconsider, if only to lend my public support of joeblogg's opinion. i come to forums such as these, first and foremost, to get unbiased information about products. plain and simple. ALL opinions, especially thosed backed by actual experience, should be able to be expressed without fear of being trounced upon.

that being said, no one disputes a business' right to make a fair and decent profit to support itself and continue to operate. that all should go unsaid. heck, i WANT them to continue operating. it is the very fact that there is so little competition in this field that lends itself to opinions like "choosing option number 1 pits you directly against Danny and Jan has designers and is, frankly, a battle I doubt you'd win".

but since we are talking about audio products, obviously "sound" is the most important consideration. high-level design factors do not always yield good products or good sound. they, along with parts costs, do, almost always impact on profits. obviously if more people agree with a company's design decision than not, then the company stands to please more customers and therefore make more money, and so on. but i personally cannot fathom how so many people cannot understand another's admonishmnent of a design that produces nasty, extraneous sound into the audio chain. not only that, how so many would fervently support it (even if they have never actually heard it)! hey, to each his own, i guess. but sound product companies cannot simply dismiss such opinions, and in fact as kelly points out, i am sure that they don't nearly as much as some people here do.
Quote:

For what its worth, I really like the pot decisions...Headroom have made. Getting "pissed off" is unlikely to solve your problem.

Headroom has said that even their Cosmic and Supreme amps exhibit some noise when making volume adjustments. if i spend $500+ on an amp that made noise, i'd be pretty pissed too. they will not get my money for THOSE products. maybe HR cares, maybe not. but someone, sooner or later will get my money.

 

[ai0tron]

I agree with Kelly.

But one thing Kelly forgot to mention was that BLOGGS you use to many GDAMN smiley faces!!!!!

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpelg Headroom has said that even their Cosmic and Supreme amps exhibit some noise when making volume adjustments. if i spend $500+ on an amp that made noise, i'd be pretty pissed too. they will not get my money for THOSE products. maybe HR cares, maybe not. but someone, sooner or later will get my money.

I think the Cosmic is a good product and the pot is adequate. I'm sure there is some amount of measurable noise while the volume is being adjusted but I didn't find it noticable or distracting in the Cosmics I've gotten to listen to (four of them now, I think).

Unfortunately, it's not practical to get a stepped attenuator into the small body of the Cosmic. If it were, I'm sure they'd offer that as an upgrade option.

jpleg, I notice that you have 200 posts now. In a couple of months, you'll likely have hit 500. If you can't make it to one of Headroom's tour stops by then, consider getting one of the Cosmic loaners. I don't think the Cosmic is the world's greatest amp but I'd defy you to find something better that is both portable and battery powered. Your standards were obviously too high for the modest Airhead amps (mine are too, this isn't an insult) but I'd rather you have the opportunity to hear the company's better products before condemning them on the whole. Please keep in mind that while the Airhead isn't for you or me that many people are pretty happy with them--pot noise and all.

Meanwhile I certainly agree that I'd like to see more competition in the marketplace and I'm all for new innovation and new designs. If you're bored or as obsessed as I am, spend some time at the Headwize archives and check out the designs other people have come up with. As I mentioned before, it might be worth persuing a DIY project either yourself or by contracting a fellow HeadFier if you're trying to keep costs at a minimum and want to upgrade part quality.

 

[jpelg]

kelly,

I fully realize that there are those that ARE happy with their new TA's. OK, fine. I am just far happier with the barely-used, old (3V), silent Airhead I have now than the newer TA I tried. It is definitely not the end-all, be-all of amps. But for $40, I am much more satisfied for the money spent, than with the more expensive purchase i originally made.

I am also not completely dismissive of HR's products. You are correct in your assment that the Airhead will not be my last amp, and I look forward to trying out other amps. But as the saying goes: "Sell me a bad TA - shame on Headroom, sell me a Cosmic after telling me it is noisy - shame on ME." I don't need a battery powered amp of that calibre anyway, and my money is more efficiently spent on other factors. Maybe a "Home", or maybe I'll go "tubes". Who knows? It is just that my recent experiences have led me to question the opinions posted here alot more. Something like a noisy volume control, was not a factor I ever thought would be necessary to discuss. But I live and (constantly) learn.

And that is always a good thing.

In the end, I may come to a point where a DIY project (or two, or three...) is warranted. No, I predict it! I am sure it will be a satisfying learning experience once I get around to it.

 

[The Quality Guru]

Quote:

. . Your standards were obviously too high for the modest Airhead amps (mine are too, this isn't an insult) . . .

JMT amps solve this problem considerably. Not modest in sound at all, with noiseless potentiometers and are better in value when compared the Total Airheads AND Porta-Cordas.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpelg but i personally cannot fathom how so many people cannot understand another's admonishmnent of a design that produces nasty, extraneous sound into the audio chain.

It's not that people can't understand such a point of view as yours. It's that rather than saying you would personally choose a different design compromise, you continue to assert that HeadRoom's product is faulty, or that HeadRoom clearly should have chosen the alternative design.

There are two reasons why some of us disagree with your viewpoint:

1) The design doesn't add nasty, extraneous sound into the audio chain to many people. I consider the "audio chain" to be what I listen to. I don't listen to anything at constantly variable volumes; I spend far more time listening to audio at a constant volume. I want that sound to be as good as possible, given a particular budget.

Consider another example: stepped attenuators are generally considered to be significantly superior to standard pots. Many stepped attenuators actually cut out all sound when switching between one detent and the next. By your argument, stepped attenuators are "bad" because they affect the sound during volume transitions. Yet most people who are serious about audio would gladly take a stepped attenuator over a standard pot. And, like the AirHead issue we're discussing, if you spend enough money you can get a stepped attenuator that doesn't cut out.

2) More importantly, it's important to remember WHY they made the decision they did. If the two options, listed over and over again ad nauseum, are accurate, the alternative to the chosen design would be silence during volume transitions, but wouldn't sound as good during the important time spent actually listening to music. As Joe's comments on the PortaCorda illustrate, it's difficult to make the "perfect" volume pot at this price point.


Quote:

not only that, how so many would fervently support it.

Because those of us who are ultimately concerned with sound quality and a component's ability to reproduce audio with the highest level of fidelity are tired of design compromises that make equipment "easier to use" or "quieter during volume changes" while sacrificing audio quality. If people like us don't make it clear that our ultimate goal is sound quality, manufacturers will only hear the complaints of people who want convenience and other "consumer" features.

Again, to be clear, I think we'd all like great sound with a silent pot -- but given a limited budget, compromises have to be made. Some of us are just ultimately concerned with sound quality.