You should have addressed that to Mark. I didn't want to pull him up on the use of SPL as a measurement of a headamp, but replied nonetheless to his calculations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werner Berghofer
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You should have addressed that to Mark. I didn't want to pull him up on the use of SPL as a measurement of a headamp, but replied nonetheless to his calculations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werner Berghofer
Where did I do this? I simply said about driving the headphones to realistic levels on peaks when listening to symphonic music at a fairly realistic level most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
I can't see at any point I mentioned that a headphone amp has to produce X amount of SPL, that's down to the headphones & nothing to do with headphone amp other than being able to cleanly supply enough voltage & current to achieve it :)
So what were all those calculations of the headamp calculations all about? Was that not to drive the headphone to a certain sound pressure level in order to cover the dynamic range of an orchestra at 12m?
Stanley,
sorry for this, I stand corrected, but I see that Mark already has replied. However, I still miss an explanation from you why even headphones with far more popular and common impedances of 300 Ω or less sound better when driven by a stand-alone headphone amplifier.Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
Now, I fully understand that your DACs are budget products which are targeted for different buyers, and I’m pretty aware of marketing speech, but I wouldn’t dare to claim:
“The new generations of high-end headphones have up to now only been able to operate properly on expensive stand-alone headphone amplifiers. The Caiman inbuilt headphone amplifier is designed to drive even the latest range of high-end headphones and reproduce musical detail that these new headphones are capable of.” (quoted from your website)
You see, last year I really tried hard to believe this was true. Then I found out that at least for me and my demands your statement is slightly exaggerated.
Werner.
If you go back & take a look you'll notice it was to supply the headphones with there full power capabilty. IE 600 ohms at 100mW in the case of the Beyer Dynamic DT990 (600 ohm version).
The calculations were about the voltage needed to fulfil that & the current needed to run a full class A push pull output stage into lower impedance headphones (in this case 4 ohms).
In other words a headphone amplifier that will drive any standard moving coil headphones without compromise in either current or voltage.
I'm surprised you'd need me to explain this to you Stan? I thought it was plainly obvious to an electronics engineer :confused:
The above two paragraphs are an example of what I was originally referring to when mentioning the fact that customers were asking for the removal of the headphone section on the Bushmaster. You are mixing a discussion about headphone circuit design and my DACs. This is what is giving many readers the impression that the headphone amp section on my DACs must be crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Werner Berghofer
However, quite a few people have tried the headphone output of my DACs against stand alone headamps and were pleasantly surprised how good they were on most circumstances when stacked against the standalone headamps. Of course, using the K701 as a yard stick of performance is in itself questionable. The K701 is notoriously poor in its ability to reproduce bass properly. The cone tends to exhibit sound break up quite easily when driven with bass heavy audio. That observation has been made many times over by numerous K701 owners using a variety of DACs and headamps.
You consider 4 and 600 Ohms headphones standard?Quote:
Originally Posted by Reid Malenfant
I don't think you are quite getting my point Stan. I mentioned that If I built a headphone amplifier I'd design it to drive just about anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
I find it a bit silly to make something that will only work on more generally available stuff & then find you can't drive something properly just because it's non standard ;)
I'm talking about myself, what anyone else does is entirely up to themselves.
Nobody is condemning you for designing a headphone amp that can drive just about anything. But for the general commercial market it is not a practical option. Like everything else, products are designed for a particular level of use and options, not an all encompassing one. To wish otherwise only goes to show your total lack of knowledge on a commercial scale. The more options a product offer, the more expensive it is, and the more customers look for a product that does cover their needs without crippling them financially.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reid Malenfant
Thank you :) I also agree with your last sentence, though it does depend on what market you are aiming for of course. As I pointed out with the KSA5 though, some manufacturers do go the whole hog (though that thing is simply OTT).