MinorPrelude
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2017
- Posts
- 1
- Likes
- 0
Can anybody explain to me exactly why a headphone amp is necessary to drive high-end cans properly? I know it sounds like a naïve thing to ask in such a place, but as many posts and articles as I've read, I can't seem to get a grasp on what a good amp actually does that the amps built into consumer electronics cannot do, aside from the obvious such as producing coloration or greater volume.
To put things in perspective, I've got Sennheiser 700s and 800s, as well as an entry-level tube amp, the Bravo Audio Ocean. The Ocean sounds nice and adds some pleasant warmth, and in particular it makes the 800s less fatiguing, but it's nothing special and doesn't exactly add a "wow" factor to the already superb sound of either pair of headphones.
I've been considering buying a quality amp that's known to pair well with the 800s, and in that regard I'm leaning towards something transparent rather than colored, but before I spend many hundreds of dollars in that pursuit I'd really like to know the nitty-gritty of what benefit I'll attain from the investment.
My understanding is that truly transparent DACs are now so cheap that nearly everything of decent quality has them—plug your headphones into an iPhone and maybe you'll get a bit of unwanted noise, but as far as the fidelity of the audio signal coming out of that little jack goes it should be nearly perfect, right? If you're just driving a pair of earbuds, everyone seems to say, you're not going to reap a significant benefit from a fancy-pants amp or DAC because there's almost nothing you can do to better that signal except improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which nowadays is already so high on cheap electronics as to be insignificant under most listening conditions.
But then there seems to be this nebulous notion that such low-powered outputs are not capable of driving good phones for whatever mysterious technical reasons. I'm wondering, if the outputs on my iPhone and MacBook and ASUS motherboard can produce more than enough volume for an enjoyable listening experience on the 800s, what's the element that's missing from that signal that an appropriate amp would afford me? All I can seem to find are subjective claims about the superiority of a good amp-headphone combination, but very little in the way of details about why this is—let alone, say, ABX results demonstrating the audibility of a high-end transparent amp over built-in DACs.
Your responses will be appreciated, thanks in advance.
To put things in perspective, I've got Sennheiser 700s and 800s, as well as an entry-level tube amp, the Bravo Audio Ocean. The Ocean sounds nice and adds some pleasant warmth, and in particular it makes the 800s less fatiguing, but it's nothing special and doesn't exactly add a "wow" factor to the already superb sound of either pair of headphones.
I've been considering buying a quality amp that's known to pair well with the 800s, and in that regard I'm leaning towards something transparent rather than colored, but before I spend many hundreds of dollars in that pursuit I'd really like to know the nitty-gritty of what benefit I'll attain from the investment.
My understanding is that truly transparent DACs are now so cheap that nearly everything of decent quality has them—plug your headphones into an iPhone and maybe you'll get a bit of unwanted noise, but as far as the fidelity of the audio signal coming out of that little jack goes it should be nearly perfect, right? If you're just driving a pair of earbuds, everyone seems to say, you're not going to reap a significant benefit from a fancy-pants amp or DAC because there's almost nothing you can do to better that signal except improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which nowadays is already so high on cheap electronics as to be insignificant under most listening conditions.
But then there seems to be this nebulous notion that such low-powered outputs are not capable of driving good phones for whatever mysterious technical reasons. I'm wondering, if the outputs on my iPhone and MacBook and ASUS motherboard can produce more than enough volume for an enjoyable listening experience on the 800s, what's the element that's missing from that signal that an appropriate amp would afford me? All I can seem to find are subjective claims about the superiority of a good amp-headphone combination, but very little in the way of details about why this is—let alone, say, ABX results demonstrating the audibility of a high-end transparent amp over built-in DACs.
Your responses will be appreciated, thanks in advance.