[Nightslayer]

Out of my iPod into my 1964-Ts, the only overt benefit I can see of using a headphone amp would be the ability to utilize the LOD. What exactly does the amp circuit do besides the adding of more AC power for driving headphones? To myself the gain is redundant as customs are easily driven and too loud as it is, I am more interested in the sound quality amps purportedly have. What exactly gives each amp its signature sound what makes a portable amp able to reproduce a track with supposedly increased detail and why should we regard this as a good thing, given that the nature of audiophillia as I understand it would be to reproduce the track as accurately and true to the source as possible? I look forward to your input

 

[monoethylene]

Maybe you can look here:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/551740/brand-new-and-a-bit-confused-about-portable-amps#post_7438173
 
In short:
 
An amp amplifies the signal for two main reasons:
 
1) Your headphones are really hard to drive with the provided power of your player using headphone out.
2) Improve the SQ by using Line out (bypasses the amplified signal of the player) --> Line out has relatively high output impedance. That means an amp is needed..

 

[ostewart]

so your saying that me using a sansa clip+ and a cmoy is useless as i have AKG K518 DJ's which are fairly easy to drive with just the sansa? I can hear an improvement, even with the panasonic RP-HTX7 there was an improvement, they became clearer and increased soundstage.

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

Maybe you can look here:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/551740/brand-new-and-a-bit-confused-about-portable-amps#post_7438173
 
In short:
 
An amp amplifies the signal for two main reasons:
 
1) Your headphones are really hard to drive with the provided power of your player using headphone out.
2) Improve the SQ by using Line out (bypasses the amplified signal of the player) --> Line out has relatively high output impedance. That means an amp is needed..

Have already seen that and taken it into account when posting this thread, if you notice in my original post I already addressed those two benefits but am still looking for more answers.
 

 

[monoethylene]

Not useless.
 
I have said "An amp amplifies the signal for two main reasons" IMO.
 
If you hear an improvement, I am happy of course
 
I have the Clip+ with the Stepdance and I cannot here such a great improvement. It is "different sounding" in a few ways but this will not justify to carry the Stepdance around. For this reason this is my office amplifier right now
 
But how can you explain that it is clearer technically?

 

[monoethylene]

Quote:

Out of my iPod into my 1964-Ts, the only overt benefit I can see of using a headphone amp would be the ability to utilize the LOD. What exactly does the amp circuit do besides the adding of more AC power for driving headphones? To myself the gain is redundant as customs are easily driven and too loud as it is, I am more interested in the sound quality amps purportedly have. What exactly gives each amp its signature sound what makes a portable amp able to reproduce a track with supposedly increased detail and why should we regard this as a good thing, given that the nature of audiophillia as I understand it would be to reproduce the track as accurately and true to the source as possible? I look forward to your input

What exactly gives each amp its signature sound what makes a portable amp able to reproduce a track with supposedly increased detail
 
Objectively, the technical design and the used parts..
 
..with supposedly increased detail..
 
In my opinion because of the provided power. Maybe it is more relaxing using an amp because it is a specific device only for headphones. The amp amplifies and the headphones "reproduce" the sound. For this, headphones are even more important as amps or rather a headphone without amp is more useful as an amp with a bad headphone..
 
why should we regard this as a good thing, given that the nature of audiophillia as I understand it would be to reproduce the track as accurately and true to the source as possible?
 
If this is a good thing I dont know IMO. Reproducing the track as accurately and true to the source can also turn in this way that you really hear bad recordings. That is why increased detail is not in contrast to the nature of audiophilia I think because the track is reproduced as accurately as it is possible..
 
 

 

[ostewart]

 
Quote:

But how can you explain that it is clearer technically?

 
 
thats very true, i can't tecnically say it is clearer but to me it sounds more clear, it makes the headphones sound a slight bit more analytical to me, less coloured. but thats my opinion. i think the clip+ has a slightly warm/dark sound, and the cmoy has a OP2134 opamp, it sounds to me that it makes the overall sound more even.

 

[DaBomb77766]

I'd say, get a LOD and a moderately priced amp and see for yourself.  Seeing as how you could afford the customs, an extra $60-70 probably wouldn't be a huge deal...but to answer your question, the reason portable amps are used is to bypass the relatively mediocre amp in the iPod.
 
Apple didn't exactly design the iPod for an audiophile audience, so they cheaped out on the amp components since about 99.9% of the people out there can't tell the difference/doesn't need the extra power an amp brings.  I find that the built-in iPod amp, while not terrible, tends to muddy-up the signature a tiny bit compared to using an external amp.  Of course, the iPod's DAC isn't the greatest there is either, but it's still better than the built-in amp.
 
Either way, the difference will be relatively minimal with your average high-sensitivity IEMs.  We're talking about the final 5% or so here, so you're truly going into the realm of diminishing returns if you want a portable amp for your customs.

 

[monoethylene]

When using the Stepdance with or without the Clip+ I have noticed that it was more relaxed as if the Stepdance is born to provide music (actually this is really his task). For that I have an objectively different sound which is really good but the Clip+ without an amp is also really good. I have really to try a Line Out providing player to get into this "special" thing

 

[ostewart]

 
Quote:

When using the Stepdance with or without the Clip+ I have noticed that it was more relaxed as if the Stepdance is born to provide music

 
 
i agree that the amps are made to make the music sound like it was born to be played, like no effort involved.

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

I'd say, get a LOD and a moderately priced amp and see for yourself.  Seeing as how you could afford the customs, an extra $60-70 probably wouldn't be a huge deal...but to answer your question, the reason portable amps are used is to bypass the relatively mediocre amp in the iPod.
 
Apple didn't exactly design the iPod for an audiophile audience, so they cheaped out on the amp components since about 99.9% of the people out there can't tell the difference/doesn't need the extra power an amp brings.  I find that the built-in iPod amp, while not terrible, tends to muddy-up the signature a tiny bit compared to using an external amp.  Of course, the iPod's DAC isn't the greatest there is either, but it's still better than the built-in amp.
 
Either way, the difference will be relatively minimal with your average high-sensitivity IEMs.  We're talking about the final 5% or so here, so you're truly going into the realm of diminishing returns if you want a portable amp for your customs.

If you looked at my profile I have a CMoy with an Arrow coming up. But mainly I was trying to find out what makes the two sound so different? Because clearly they do have vastly differing sound signatures. And is even having an amp which 'improves' the sound a good thing, considering how they each supposedly contribute a certain signature to the sound? There are countless threads and reviews that mention how an amp increases certain aspects of the frequency range or soundstage or so on so forth, but how exactly is that achieved? Simple amplification of the amount of power going into your headphones or a modification of the sound signal? And wouldn't that detract from having the best quality FLAC/ALAC files to achieve the most accurate reproduction of your music in the first place, if you were to modify the analog signal?
 
 

 

[ostewart]

it's the components used, mainly the op amp that changes the sound.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

If you looked at my profile I have a CMoy with an Arrow coming up. But mainly I was trying to find out what makes the two sound so different? Because clearly they do have vastly differing sound signatures. And is even having an amp which 'improves' the sound a good thing, considering how they each supposedly contribute a certain signature to the sound? There are countless threads and reviews that mention how an amp increases certain aspects of the frequency range or soundstage or so on so forth, but how exactly is that achieved? Simple amplification of the amount of power going into your headphones or a modification of the sound signal? And wouldn't that detract from having the best quality FLAC/ALAC files to achieve the most accurate reproduction of your music in the first place, if you were to modify the analog signal?
 
 

Well, the thing is, most DAPs and lower-end DAC/amps do colour the sound and make the quality of the audio worse.  However, the point of an external amp is to bypass all of this entirely and amp the source as well as they can.  Some are more transparent than others, but none are perfectly transparent.  But really, the only way to get truly "analog" sound in that sense, bypassing all interference, would be to simply listen to an unamplified gramophone or something.
 
So, it's not that the amp is "improving" the sound per se, but it's rather just improving over other amps out there.  Some amps are better than others.  And as far as I know, the Arrow is among the best, so if you have a good quality source to feed it with, it should give you very transparent sound.  But the use of an amp in unavoidable, all an external amp is really doing is replacing the amp in the iPod or whatever else your source may be.