Do I need an amp? How much power do headphones ACTUALLY need? - Myths about power
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- Do you need an amplifier? How much power do you really need? And what misconceptions exist about hard to drive headphones in general?
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0:00 - Intro
0:43 - Headphone specs
1:40 - How much power do I need?
4:09 - Myth 1: High Impedance = Hard to Drive
5:13 - Myth 2: Volume knob indicates headroom
7:04 - Myth 3: I need lots of power
7:45 - Myth 4: High powered amps are better at low power than low powered amps
9:59 - Myth 5: Class A watts are better than others - Zábava
I'd like to see a video on how using an amp vs not using one affects the sound quality of headphones, i.e. what things can I look for to know whether my headphones are underpowered, or how much performance am I leaving on the table by not using an amp on a headphone that is supposedly hard to drive.
My phone could only derive DT 770 pro at say around low-half volume, where as Macbook pro was able to derive it to very high volume. As for quality of sound it doesn't change, maybe loudness effect can appear like a change.
how many ohms @@ManoharSingh-dg8ih
@@Phoenix_of_the 80
@@ManoharSingh-dg8ih This is flat-out wrong. Rarely is an amp actually required to get adequate listening volumes, the reason you amp is to supply adequate power to properly control the driver through any dynamic swing you may throw at it. A properly-amped driver is faster, more dynamic, detailed, and more controlled as a whole.
would love a vid of an explanation of the differences between class a, a/b, d amps
Yes plz
Only Class A amp that I consider as 100.00000% Class A is a pure single ended triode (no parallel tubes, directly or indirectly heated or triode strapped without any option to switch to pentode) output transformer coupled amp. The rest of them that claim Class A are not Class A in my book since they have tricks to switch to A/B when power requirements increases beyond a certain point or has a push-pull /pentode/ultra-linear mode, or it's a balanced driven triode amp).
@@NexusS4GIceJelly why does it being single ended matter?
@@williamsteven5613 A balanced amp uses push-pull which is Class A/B because each op-amp or tube or transistor only amplifies one set of peaks (positve amplitude peaks for example or R+/L+) and that other tube / op-amp / transistor that amplfies the negative peaks (R-/L-) is momentarily off (50% duty cycle). Manufacturers add something called "Class A Bias" and claim that at a certain power requirements, these transistors can turn on 100% of the time (aka 100% duty cycle) thus amplifying all signals (one tube is R+/R-, complete sine wave in pure Class A) while the other tube/op amp etc amplifies the L+/L-
Easy, a, a-b sound different and interesting, d is dull shite. Bit of an overarching generalisation, but an opinion nonetheless.
Very succinct, very clear and very *needed* tutorial on this subject.
I design vacuum tube amplification gear professionally, and the subject matter you cover here is *very* commonly misunderstood by audio enthusiasts.
Kudos!
I really enjoy your thorough descriptions. You have a way of delivering lots of information in an entertaining way!
Great video. I appreciate your vids and how you cover these topics. You somehow manage to keep it simple while hitting all of the important tech points that we need to understand. Thank you Golden Sound!
I'd like the topic of balanced cables for headphones explored in a similar way.
There are a lot of myths surrounding the use of balanced cables with headphones, not helped by the different cable topologies different brands headphones have, and whether the headphones are passive transducers or an active (e.g. noise-cancelling) one.
For "traditional" topologies where each L/R capsule has its own 2-core cable feed and the "grounds" are tied together at the headphone jack end of the cable, if switching to a balanced cable results in an audible difference that means there is something wrong with the grounding topology and/or termination inside the non-balanced headphone amp.
A passive headphone itself (excl. cable) is by definition a balanced device as both "ground" and "live" feeds terminate in the same impedance.
This has to be one of the best videos explaining the spl and amp power requirements I've seen for quite some time, extremely informative and detailed, thankyou, my btr5 dac amp no worries with a 300 ohm drop 6xx or sennheiser 650, cheers mate.
Wow this video was extremely helpful thank you. More people and reviewers need to see this. Alot more misconceptions about amps out there than I thought.
Brilliant as always Cameron, thank you. That was such a clear and succinct explanation of the matter at hand.
I've been waiting for such a vid to spread around for an eternity. Tanks a lot
Love every video with goldensound! Such great explanations. Could you explore the topic of what constitutes a well mastered song, and how best to music songs for testing headphones?
This is super insightful even for someone who has been in the hobby for 5 years. Thank you golden.
Very nice, excellent explanation of all power details! Exactly what I needed to know. Thanks!
Thanks, that was a knowledgeable and succinct presentation. Very well done! Am wondering if a presentation on this topic with a small assortment of amps and headphones would be appropriate for events such as CanJam or other HiFi shows? There is nothing quite like personally engaging in the points mentioned, (watts, impedance and sensitivity), than through first hand experience for those new to the hobby that is a passion for many. Really enjoy the conversations between and collaborative attitude of the people on The Headphone Show.
Thank you, it is the clearest explanation on this subject that I have seen!
Amazing video and wonderful analysis/explanation 😁
So many people get tripped up on impedance != efficiency and more refers to voltage vs current driving.
This is a great video to send to most people asking about headphones, succinct overview and hits all the main points really well. Cheers.
Great info, thank you! Keep up the good work!
Excellent video! I learn more really. Thanks team!!
Great video. Im a beginner and you taught me everything I needed to get my first dac amp. Thank you!
Also you should have mentioned that the impedance of dynamic headphones varies significantly with frequency.
Yep! This is also an important factor to consider
Although it's worth noting that the nominal impedance should be near to the lowest impedance, so that variation in impedance can only make for LESS power draw at some frequencies. For more power to be drawn from a voltage source, impedance must fall (which does happen in some IEMs), and technically the standard is that headphone impedance is "supposed" to be specified at or near the very lowest impedance.
There are certainly a lot of misconceptions about this.
@@GoldenSound But since the impedance bump of dynamic drivers are at the same place as the resonance frequency, the power required ends up at plus/minus zero, right?
Wow! Thank you so much @goldensound and @HeadphoneShow for this more straightforward approach and explanation, another added knowledge.
This was extremely helpful thank you!
Excellent vid! I've been vaguely concerned that my 2W Bottlehead amp might be under-driving my HE6SE's. They sound lovely to me though and the amp is easily able to power them beyond comfort-level. With a more nuanced view of power, I now see I needn't have worried.
Great video, Cameron. I use a digital db meter ($20 Amazon) and shoot for 80-85db at abut 50-60% amp volume at low gain setting (I typically only use high gain for a little more note weight at low listening levels, like the old-fashioned loudness function). After doing this with about a dozen sources I have gotten to know my headphone driving need rather well. Now I can more easily look at the impedance and sensitivity of a headphone and basically know the ballpark power source needed.
Just pointing a db meter at a headphone cup isn't a good measure of their SPL, you'll end up underestimating it by a lot.
He also literally said % of amp volume is doing it wrong
@@koustuvkanungo9873 the meter tip inserts between the pads as I press them to seal around the meter tip. It is not meant to be scientific measure. I use this for benchmarking. Very useful to protect me ears too. Thanks.
@@dukdive Cameron's method is more accurate but my method is a quick way within an acceptable SD to benchmark my listening levels for understanding my headphones power needs and to protect my ears. Thanks.
Nicely Done.
Since your asking.
How about a video taking tier groups of iems & headphone (well known ) priced from $50- & up
and pair them with a dac/amp price appropriate for that specific gear.
Showing how an inexpensive stack will handle the iem or headphone just fine and what a tier up in price offers :)
Including the info. from this video and the power calculator :)
Thanks
This was a topic that needed a good video, and ggood this video is. Thank Golden, good shit!
This is a great video, favorited for future reference as it saves a lot of writting time when explaining to people how headphones work.
Personally i found out that people tend to understand better the concept of power to sound pressure conversion when you explain to them that the headphone impedance determines the amplifier maximum power, and then sensitivity is how efficiently a driver can convert that power to sound pressure. For some reason explaining it as "steps" makes that information easier to digest.
I find that most people who arent WILLING audiophiles really don't care about this. Audiophiles care...most people will still buy those crappy Bleats, Bosé and Cowin Headphones off Amazon. I've seen this too many times where most people dont care about better sound and the technical of a headphone as much as we do. They just don't and I'm resigned to say that's okay.
@@DJ_BROBOT we are not taking about those people.
Extremely informative video!
100% informative goodness I need in my life
Very informative video great job.
Great video ! 👏This is what everybody should watch before buying an headphone amp!
This helped me a lot, thanks!
Amazing video, I learned alot. How about a video about rise time and slew rate in different classes of amps. Thanks!
Good one.
Very enlightening video. Thanks! If you were a headphone amplifier, which one would you be?
Just what I was looking for, thanks.
Lovely video great info, could you maybe explain things like ratio and gain the compressors of amps like power amp in mobile devices
Wonderful video, thank you.
Great content. If there are more visual demo or flow chart showing, that'd even be better.
Thank you for this ❤
Fantastic and informative, Goldensound. Despite being in the hobby for a bit now, and having nice gear, I learned quite a bit from this video. Thank you!
Excellent info.
would love specific review of the confusing aeon noire power requirements! also recommendations for desktop or mobile amps!
This was very helpful, thank you. However, I would really like to see you display some various spec sheets from different amps and headphones and stare and compare the voltages and wattage and sensitivity specs so we can take this theory and apply it to a real world shopping situations.
The thumbnail for this video made me chuckle. I mean this in no disrespect, but the picture reminded me of Elmo St. Peters from The Brave Little Toaster lol. Love your videos!!
great video, thank you.
Just find this video,omg best explanation ever pal.I just start my hifi journey,hifiman sundara and I’m testing it with FiiO 7 and if zen dac,everyone say fiio is better cuz is more powerful but I also like zen dac and don’t feel
Like is not loud enough or lack of power.Did you maybe review zen dac?
Golden Sound - great video. I have Audeze LCD-5 headphones. My DAC is the Gustard X26Pro. I'm currently using an iFi iCan Pro Signature amp. Any suggestions on a new amp and or DAC to drive these cans? Thanks in advance.
This is really useful
Technically sensitivity should be expressed as a function of voltage not power, the way many (but far from all) speaker manufacturers express it nowadays. If you express 'sensitivity' as a function of power (wattage) what you are actually describing is 'nominal' efficiency. Nominal because it depends on impedance and the quoted impedance is 'nominal' because it often varies with frequency.
would love some explanation for the formula/equation used in your Headphones Power Calculator.
I've just found the equation to convert the sensitivity from dB/mW to dB/V:
SV = SP + 20•Log(sqrt(1000/Z)),
where Z is the headphones impedance.
just wondering about the formula for required Voltage and Current. while Power I believe is the result of V*A
Thanks in advance for the explanation!
It's like wine. You enjoy to explore different grapes, taste, and their texture. My reference i HD-600 (open) and DT-150 (DT-100 pads, closed) and Etymotic ER2XR (IEM)
A lot of my music library of the 80s doesn't get remasters so I have music that's so quite then the next track gets absurdly loud
Would it be possible to have a review of the Schiit Lyr headphone amplifier?
Thank you
This was great
What tube do you have in your Vali? I was hoping for a review of that thing :)
Would be cool if in the calculator you could select the most common headphones, s.t. their values would be filled in automatically.
Excellent video, but I kept waiting for that vacuum tube to get whacked, lol.
Another suggestion, I have an original version Grado 225. I am considering a 325x but...what about a diy upgrade? Specifically how do diy drivers compare to factory Grados?
A good amp with output transformer will have no problems with any impedance load. IMHO, the sensitivity rating is a more important factor to look at when researching headphones.
Voltage is voltage and current is current but impedence is not resistance. Ohm's Law in an AC circuit is V=IZ. Impedence also varies depending on frequency. How this factors into a headphone circuit I have no clue.
There is one sense in which high impedance headphones are hard to drive. A lot of digital electronics, like the output stages of computers, phones, and digital audio players, do not have any form of impedance transformation (such as transformers) in their output stages, nor do they employ any kind of voltage boost in their power supplies. The amount of voltage they can supply on their outputs is strictly limited by the power supply voltage of the device. A device of that type may work well at driving a low impedance headphone, even if it requires a lot of current, but will fail miserably at driving a high impedance headphone because its maximum output voltage is 3.3 or 5 volts.
Yes, I think he missed this point, along with his outright blunder with his statement about class A/ab/d.
Unmatched for my HD58X is my Pioneer sa8800 - haven't found better for black background and simple WEIGHT of sound. I play at very low volumes.
Plus more caveats. Since most people over the age of 1 and increasing with age, need to adjust balance. I need more wattage at 60 ohms since I attenuate the right channel down 15db. Always better to have enough power and gain reserve so error on the more power side.
New to the hobby, stiill so much to learn......
Watt’s a Watt, no matter what!
Nicely stated 👏
High impedance means it doesn't draw enough power (but theoretically you could run lots of them in parallel on one amp so it's not the same as low sensitivity or efficiency). Low sensitivity means it needs lots (comparatively) of power to get loud, although sometimes sensitivity is measured in terms of voltage needed to get loud - which can also mean high impedance cans simply receiving less actual power, not just inefficiency.
excellent
Class A sounds better though.....more often then not...
Good video !!
the position you put the tube amp and the way you waving you hands when talking really made me anxious.
how to choose one for your phone where it is a normal small headphone jack and how to know it will work'?
I got the Light Phone 2 and got all my Apple Music and podcasts on it as well some recordings from Logic Pro... Now I use the beyerdynamic DT 1770 PRO and want to use them as well as with my phone to listen to music...
Does it means that a Focal Utopia 2022 for example will sound fine even with a less powerful amplifier? Or even a dongle DAC/AMP like the iFi Go bar or the AudioQuest Cobalt will be more than enough?
Please explain OTL/non OTL tube amps vs hi/low headphone impedance.
High impedance headphones often sound divine on an OTL tube headphone amp: Dark Voice, LTA MZ, et. al.
i didnt really get the part about planar (9:27)
so let me recap if i've understood correctly: so if i listen at 85db the bass region in most song could be at 20db higher due to human hear stuff, so i plug 110 db in the calculator to see if i can drive it in the full range
so in planar the bass is particulary hard to drive so the amp will output even more power towards those frequency and therefore i need an amp that drives cleanly even at higher power?
so in practice what happens and how i check this? i have a fosi audio q5 that is rated for 400mW @32ohm and i'm intrested in a
5:30 If anyone's got this down, care to explain?
How does higher gain not equal higher output voltage in this description? And how does it not alter power as consequence?
What about use a AV Receiver, such as Marantz SR-7013, to drive wired headphones? Is it any good?
Hi, What you think about pairing Denon ah D 5200 and aune x1s GT pre amp dac`? do you have any recommends for those headphones? i have cables 4,4 mm so i prefer mostly same output amp. thank you. portable i have ifi hip da v3.
One thing I dont quite understand is how to know from specs, how much power can put a certain amp in to a 300ohm headphone if the specs are given in mW for an headphone of 32ohm of impedance. Ca someone explain it 🙏 ? (the video is quite useful tho)
You can't really. At most you can assume that the amplifier outputs the same amount of voltage at these two impedances and work out the amount from P=U^2/R equation.
In the context of headphones and IEMs, what does “scales with power” mean?
I recently ordered the Ananda BT because it's an open headphone with bluetooth, I expect it to come in a few days. I have 0 experience with open headphones, dacs, amps etc. so I was wondering if I should invest in let's say the Topping E50 + Topping L50 to up my game or wouldn't it do anything? I suppose it won't in BT mode, but when wired should I notice a huge difference? And I've read that this headphone has a build in DAC because that's needed for BT, so maybe just the AMP will be sufficient for it?
You are defacto teaching people physics. This makes me happy.
I can listen you day and night.
Yes, you do!
One thing I still don't understand:
Is there a good reason to still buy and use an amp if I am using headphones which can be played at ample good enough volume across all my devices? Or maybe in more concrete terms, would something like Campfire Andromeda or the new Sony MDR-MV1 benefit from amp when both can be driven easily on a smartphone? Lots of people seem to suggest so, but what is the science behind that?
NOISE! Never mind the science. Isnt it enough for you to be told over and over again that phones and computers are horribly noisy? And we are not just telling you about audible noise (which may actually even be present). Get a separate dac/amp and you will hear for yourself.
A question for the experts: Is the Ifi Zen Dac V2 powerful enough to power a Hifiman Edition XS? And does it absolutely need an external power pack, or is the power from the USB port sufficient?
Thanks :-)
Yes the Zen DAC is more than enough... The Edition XS requires 63.1mW of power to get to the standard 110dB SPL as listed by Golden Sound. The Zen DAC can do roughly 350mW into 32 Ohm so yes it should be able to run the Edition XS no problem
What's the tube in that little Schiit amp?
Though I respect you for being a great bridge between objective and subjective world, this video, though being quite informative, went zipped past. Would have been lot informative with bit lesser speed and with examples! 👍
came for the reviews, stayed for the hi-fi science, left with no money
Still waiting for that deep dive into pcm vs dsd.
Good job… it will make it so much easier to just link to this video in my future replies on head-di threads…;)
Do a planar get sound from cellphone or dsd
Good explanations !
Just one little thing @ 3:15 and latter, you have to be careful with FFTs. An FFT will show a white noise (which is bright) flat and a pink noise (which is flat) downward slopping 3 dB/Oct.
There is a difference when plotting sines (one freq) vs plotting spectrum. A basic spectrum analyzer will show equal loudness when there is equal volume per linear bandwidth. It's because for an FFT, 20 to 40 Hz is the same bandwidth as 20020 to 20040 Hz. So to get a better representation, you have to tilt 3 dB per octave. Still it doesn't change the point, bass are louder, but not as much as a basic spectrum shows.
Does the Lotoo Mjolnir have enough power for most headphones? Or is it consider weak? What is average power and what is exceptional amounts of power?
Joshua Valour needs to watch this...and someone teach him how to pronounce HIFIMAN
Why? 🤔
How does he pronounce it? Hiffyman?
@@CaveyMoth “Hifeeman”
@@oioionionone Oh, wow. What's next? Pronouncing Focal like focal?
@@CaveyMoth maybe pronouncing it “Fokle” who fucking knows, you asked how he pronounced it so I told you, he pronounces it oddly for sure, if you like you can pronounce it “I wank dogs off” I dgaf what you do on your day off
I don’t see a video on best headphones with glasses. Can you guys make on?
An excellent video in terms of coherent explanation of key concepts but he doesn’t actually answer the question he poses in the title of the video. Do I need an amp?
My ZMF Atriums sounded fine coming directly from my iPhone so what is the point of a DAC or headphone amp?
Can we have a database for THD vs Voltage?
I wouldnt say that higher impedance headphones draw less current. Transducers are moved by current and they need enough of it so higher impedance headphones need more voltage to flow enough current. In other words yes they can draw less current at given voltage, but they can be underpowered when the voltage is too low. I =V/R, where R means load impedance (headphone). The higher the R is the lower the value of the current flow (as u said), so u need higher value of voltage to achieve good amount of current flow to the transducers.
So the max voltage of the amp is constant as you change the load (headphones)?
@@SlashThePriestnot sure if I understood your question correctly, but voltage will be attenuated by the volume knob (so it depends on the loudness you are listening on, using given headphones). I hope I dont say bullshit, though 😅
@@matusjurcik6974 Yes exactly, that was what I was trying to say with max voltage.
As long as you don't change anything but the headphones the voltage should be the same. The output of the amp is limited by the voltage, so if I wanted to calculate the power of an amp with different impedance (headphones) than the spec sheet of the amp I would be able to do so with Ohm's Law by assuming that the voltage is constant.
@@SlashThePriest ok :) my OG comment was purely, about ohm law though (without consideration of volume adjustability ,,feature,, of an amp). Its alright to send control questions, though. I do it all the time 😁