Pharmaboy
Headphoneus Supremus
So with regard to dropping or increasing gain on the unit, what is the best approach to take with a difficult to drive pair of cans such as the Hifiman He-6 (Sensitivity - 83.5 db ; Impedance - 50 Ohms)? I've always kept my v281 at unity gain, and it has performed adequately with many of my cans, but if some messing with the gain system can improve performance with the power-hungry He-6, I wouldn't mind trying it.
The HE-6 is legendary for being difficult to drive. Not sure if my experience with other headphones on the V281 will have much relevance to that one...
How does the unity gain V281 do with the HE-6? Does the sound live up to your expectations? I guess what I'm asking (based on my own uniformly positive experiences w/the V281 on 3-4 headphones, including ZMF Ori [planar] & Eikon [300 ohm dynamic])--does the V281 do as much good for the sound of the HE-6 as it probably does for your other headphones?
Here is what I can tell you at this point:
- Until yesterday my V281 was at unity gain, like yours.
- That was clearly too much gain for the powered monitors; it also was too much for relatively efficient, low-impedance headphones like the Fidelio X2. They sounded wonderful on the V281 (sounding good is never the issue w/the V281). The real issue is I had to keep the volume pot very low in its range (ie, 7:30-9:00 o'clock on the dial). That meant I had relatively few steps available, and each step caused a relatively large/coarse change in volume.
- My power-hungry planar (ZMF Ori), of course, played by different rules on the V281, like every other amp on hand. At unity gain I could run it comfortably between 9-10:30 on the dial, but pushing it up to 11:00 o'clock produced too-loud volume.
Tomorrow I'll listen in depth to the Ori at the lower gain. My hope is the V281 will be in the 10:00-2:00 o'clock range for moderate-to-loud listening w/the Ori. I expect these headphones will sound at least as good w/the lower gain than they did at unity gain. As Arthur from Violectric USA put it, "The less resistance in the circuit the better. This goes for all volume controls" (ie, higher up on the volume pot dial is better). I doubt the sound would be noticeably less good at lower gain, and it may be a bit better. I'll report back w/whatever I hear. In my expeirence, headphones, way more than monitors, allow me to disciminate relatively small sonic differences.
Getting back to the HE-6...if they sound good at unity gain on the V281, you win--in the sense that plenty of other above-average SS designs are said to not really be up to driving it. I somehow doubt lower gain would benefit the HE-6 (though it's not impossible it would); and that higher gain would only help the HE-6. In fact, it's just the only headphone I can think of that might need above-unity gain on the V281.