teb1013
100+ Head-Fier
I just got the 800S. So far the Woo WA-7 seems fine for driving them. I have been using a Yamaha CDS300 as a CD player and a DAC for my iPhone 8+.
Using Sennheiser HD800 with an iPad
- Thread starter ankoru
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That’s a 1.2 litre engine in your Mustang. It’ll move but it’s lacking.
I tried my HD600’s for a laugh just now and the magic disappeared. Back into my dac and amp and at this moment Radiohead sounds space age again.
I tried my HD600’s for a laugh just now and the magic disappeared. Back into my dac and amp and at this moment Radiohead sounds space age again.
Eagle_Driver
Headphoneus Supremus
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I wouldn't recommend it. It's not because of volume, but because it requires a certain minimum amount of input voltage. And that is all because the electrical damping factor becomes too great between a portable device and such high-impedance headphones. The damping factor, in the case of the iPad/HD 800s combo becomes far greater than 100. And when the system damping factor becomes that high, you will get a rather thin and lifeless sound unless fed sufficient voltage.
On the other hand, there are quite a few portable devices that I had in the past that didn't sound good at all with anything. You see, many if not most of the vintage portable CD players are very overrated in their sound quality, especially out of their headphone outs. These portables in question are not only relatively low in output power, but are also relatively high in output impedance. That puts them in no-man's land: Feeble with high-impedance headphones, wretched with lower-impedance headphones. No wonder why the manufacturers included a bass boost function such as Sony's MegaBass, to compensate for the severe bass roll-off with their included pack-in headphones (which typically have 16- or 24-Ohm impedances, but the headphone outs actually have a measured output impedance of greater than 10 Ohms). This resulted in a damping factor of less than 2 with their stock headphones; as a result, engaging the bass boost function would only exacerbate the problem by substantially increasing the likelihood of clipping at even extremely low volume settings. The electrical damping factor between the source and the headphones should be 8 or greater (with the headphones' impedance being greater than the source impedance) to sound best.
On the other hand, there are quite a few portable devices that I had in the past that didn't sound good at all with anything. You see, many if not most of the vintage portable CD players are very overrated in their sound quality, especially out of their headphone outs. These portables in question are not only relatively low in output power, but are also relatively high in output impedance. That puts them in no-man's land: Feeble with high-impedance headphones, wretched with lower-impedance headphones. No wonder why the manufacturers included a bass boost function such as Sony's MegaBass, to compensate for the severe bass roll-off with their included pack-in headphones (which typically have 16- or 24-Ohm impedances, but the headphone outs actually have a measured output impedance of greater than 10 Ohms). This resulted in a damping factor of less than 2 with their stock headphones; as a result, engaging the bass boost function would only exacerbate the problem by substantially increasing the likelihood of clipping at even extremely low volume settings. The electrical damping factor between the source and the headphones should be 8 or greater (with the headphones' impedance being greater than the source impedance) to sound best.
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Presumably the HD800's much vaunted soundstage would suffer from ipad usage. A cheap Objective O2+ODAC solves the problem quite neatly.
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