[djembeplay]

Is it bad for an MP3 player to be played at full volume? I mean, obviously this wouldn't be good for your ears with headphones... but I'm only wondering about the player.

I might want to have the volume all the way up when feeding it into an external car amp, for example...

I know this can be bad for full size speaker amps, so I thought the same might apply to the head-amp in a portable player.

 

[GreatDane]

I run my i7 at full volume into amps,still going strong after many months.

 

[peter73]

I think that the interesting point here would be whether a DAP with a digital volume control will not actually benefit from being played at 100% volume.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the digital volume attenuates the signal at any setting other than 100%, thus introducing digital processing with all consequencies to the sound quality and battery life. If my assumption is correct, playing at full volume will give the best SQ and battery life.

 

[djembeplay]

Interesting... thanks for the responses.

Isn't there a little amp in MP3 players though? And can't this be overdriven / overheat like a normal amp?

 

[dan1son]

I run my H320 full tilt everytime it's plugged into an external device (amp, car, receiver) which is probably about 75% of the time. It's now almost 5 years old and still going strong. Only thing I've ever done is replaced the battery, once.

It's hard to say exactly how each device attenuates the sound. Some very well could be running the opamp full all the time, others probably have a standard volume control. The amount of power you're talking about is minimal... I wouldn't so much worry about battery life differences or anything. It's going to take far more power to read and decode.

 

[ericj]

I don't think it would hurt the device, but if it's clipping at the output you should back it off for SQ reasons.

 

[djembeplay]

Alright, good to know. Thanks guys.