Dac/Amp improve sound quality?

[Whit3Rav3n]

If with the last line you are specifically saying: In that specific case the higher impedance headphone would be easier to drive, but don't fall into the trap of thinking higher impedance headphones in general are easier to drive, then yes, I understand what you are saying. I definitely don't intend to use this as a rule to figure out which headphones are easier to drive simply my glancing over the impedance.

 

What is difference between SPL/"electrical power" and SPL/power?

Actually both of them are electrical power so there is no difference there. The difference is that SPL is sound pressure level and not sound power. Sound pressure level is just the sound pressure at a given measurement point, power is all the energy that is being transmitted by the driver.

[BoredErica]

Actually both of them are electrical power so there is no difference there. The difference is that SPL is sound pressure level and not sound power. Sound pressure level is just the sound pressure at a given measurement point, power is all the energy that is being transmitted by the driver.

Oooohhhh.

Efficiency is "sound pressure POWER" over power, not sound pressure LEVEL. I see, I see. I just read the post wrongly. Ok, so if you had to make one pointer then it would be... maybe I should switch up my definitions a little bit in what I call sensitivity and efficiency? I was originally thinking that I had to make a massive revamp to my amp thread.

 

I've seen Hifiman and Audeze call their headphones "93db/mw efficient", so then technically that would be incorrect.

[Whit3Rav3n]

Oooohhhh.

Efficiency is "sound pressure POWER" over power, not sound pressure LEVEL. I see, I see. I just read the post wrongly. Ok, so if you had to make one pointer then it would be... maybe I should switch up my definitions a little bit in what I call sensitivity and efficiency? I was originally thinking that I had to make a massive revamp to my amp thread.

 

I've seen Hifiman and Audeze call their headphones "93db/mw efficient", so then technically that would be incorrect.

Yes, sensitivity would be the correct term there. By physical definition efficiency should not even have any unit.

[BoredErica]

Yes, sensitivity would be the correct term there. By physical definition efficiency should not even have any unit.

Cool beans. Thanks for dropping that info, I still learned something.

[BoredErica]

Kudos! At least you admit it. One step closer young grasshopper.

You act like hailing from Headfi makes you MORE credible, which is just fucking rich. And seriously? "resident audio elitist"? Who do you think you are, LOL. I am open to criticism from reasonable people who have actual points instead of 'hurrrrrrrrr, go to Headfi meets' (which I've BEEN TO, by the way). Turns out it was a terminology usage problem, sue me. I've asked paragraphs and paragraphs of questions, but they were to reasonable people, not wannabe cool kidz like you.

 

And again: No shit sherlock, of COURSE you can alter the sound with a tube amp. There are a gazillion ways to alter the sound, from taking a hammer and banging it against your amp and thus destroying it, decreasing fidelity via tube amps, getting any other non-transparent SS amp, blah blah blah. NO SHIT. Are you THAT eager to prove everybody wrong to go picking out technicalities with a guy with a gaming laptop trying to get his headsets to work well? What, now you're going to recommend a tube amp to the guy? Are you out of your mind?

 

 

Suuurrrre. Your ears defy science. Powering a headphone is not arcane knowledge, in fact it is very well understood. Tube amp is old tech, there's a reason why engineers left tubes en mass, until of course, some hipsters decided to go back to old tech. Good for them, but don't be a moron when using it. I don't care how many irrelevant engineering degrees you claim to have on the internet, it means nothing. Oh, you're trying to prove how much of a pro elitist you are? Baby, I have the single largest Haswell OC thread on the internet, and I've written a 300 paged book on religion. Is this what you want? A dick measuring contest? You happy now? Last I checked you don't win even if you claim to have a monster 9 feet long cock.

 

Headfi is a cesspool incest orgy of confirmation bias and placebo and sponsorship corruption. So sick of these placeophile audiopeelz that want to justify spending their second mortgage on a few glowing tubes, so they make up new problems that defy science. Once a headphone is driven with correct levels of power and gain to achieve good loudness (factoring in preferred listening levels and dynamic range of the track), with correct FR, low distortion + noise (including no clipping), and low output impedance, THAT'S IT. Mission accomplished. As far as fidelity is concerned (aka, hi-fi, aka hi fidelity), mission 100% accomplished. And don't you even bring up the fucking subjective euphonic distortion argument, this was never about that. Or, you conveyed your frustration so poorly nobody could pick up on that.

[Lays]

You obviously haven't had much experience with many amps. Go to a head-fi meet, then come talk to me. Keep at it with your bitterly asinine comments.

If an amp is already transparent and doesn't change anything about the original music, what exactly qualifies as "better" to you?

Yes amps sound different, and a tube amp may sound better to you, but if it doesn't measure scientifically as well as a different transparent amp, then it isn't scientifically better.

I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, just seriously trying to understand how something can be better than as close to the original source as possible.

[BoredErica]

It's not even up to EQ, the objection was with the ability of an amp to power a headphone, which feeds directly into the thread I made all those weeks ago.

 

Well, technically, that, plus the original claim that I had no clue that tube amps can color the sound, which I think more than half the room knows is the case. And after I've said yes, I know that, basically all he had left was "You think all there is to powering a headphones is loudness? lolololol" when I told him to visit my thread which clearly stated other parts as well...Considering he replied in less than 60 seconds he obviously didn't read the thread before attacking it. Suhprize!

[BrianPena]

You act like hailing from Headfi makes you MORE credible, which is just fucking rich. And seriously? "resident audio elitist"? Who do you think you are, LOL. I am open to criticism from reasonable people who have actual points instead of 'hurrrrrrrrr, go to Headfi meets' (which I've BEEN TO, by the way). Turns out it was a terminology usage problem, sue me. I've asked paragraphs and paragraphs of questions, but they were to reasonable people, not wannabe cool kidz like you.

 

And again: No shit sherlock, of COURSE you can alter the sound with a tube amp. There are a gazillion ways to alter the sound, from taking a hammer and banging it against your amp and thus destroying it, decreasing fidelity via tube amps, getting any other non-transparent SS amp, blah blah blah. NO SHIT. Are you THAT eager to prove everybody wrong to go picking out technicalities with a guy with a gaming laptop trying to get his headsets to work well? What, now you're going to recommend a tube amp to the guy? Are you out of your mind?

 

 

Suuurrrre. Your ears defy science. Powering a headphone is not arcane knowledge, in fact it is very well understood. Tube amp is old tech, there's a reason why engineers left tubes en mass, until of course, some hipsters decided to go back to old tech. Good for them, but don't be a moron when using it. I don't care how many irrelevant engineering degrees you claim to have on the internet, it means nothing. Oh, you're trying to prove how much of a pro elitist you are? Baby, I have the single largest Haswell OC thread on the internet, and I've written a 300 paged book on religion. Is this what you want? A dick measuring contest? You happy now? Last I checked you don't win even if you claim to have a monster 9 feet long cock.

 

Headfi is a cesspool incest orgy of confirmation bias and placebo and sponsorship corruption. So sick of these placeophile audiopeelz that want to justify spending their second mortgage on a few glowing tubes, so they make up new problems that defy science. Once a headphone is driven with correct levels of power and gain to achieve good loudness (factoring in preferred listening levels and dynamic range of the track), with correct FR, low distortion + noise (including no clipping), and low output impedance, THAT'S IT. Mission accomplished. As far as fidelity is concerned (aka, hi-fi, aka hi fidelity), mission 100% accomplished. And don't you even bring up the fucking subjective euphonic distortion argument, this was never about that. Or, you conveyed your frustration so poorly nobody could pick up on that.

lolwut

[ShearMe]

Yes, sensitivity would be the correct term there. By physical definition efficiency should not even have any unit.

 

If you want to get technical, sensitivity doesn't have a physical definition. The "sensitivity" in products specs is the efficiency, though put through the lens of various unit conversions. SPL is mathematically convertible to "sound power" just as easily as watts is converted to volts. http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-efficiency.htm

[Whit3Rav3n]

If you want to get technical, sensitivity doesn't have a physical definition. The "sensitivity" in products specs is the efficiency, though put through the lens of various unit conversions. SPL is mathematically convertible to "sound power" just as easily as watts is converted to volts. http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-efficiency.htm

I would not say it is very easy. To calculate the acoustic power we need to know the SPL radiated in every direction and not only at one point. For that we need the speaker radiation pattern, the pattern also changes with the frequency. So if you have the radiation pattern for the speaker for the full range of the relevant frequency range only then can you convert an SPL measurement to efficiency. This is also stated in your article (the radiation field is pretty simplified though in the caluclator). So the spl measurements of the manufacturers are not enough to convert it to efficiency.

[ShearMe]

I would not say it is very easy. To calculate the acoustic power we need to know the SPL radiated in every direction and not only at one point. For that we need the speaker radiation pattern, the pattern also changes with the frequency. So if you have the radiation pattern for the speaker for the full range of the relevant frequency range only then can you convert an SPL measurement to efficiency. This is also stated in your article (the radiation field is pretty simplified though in the caluclator). So the spl measurements of the manufacturers are not enough to convert it to efficiency.

Okay, so maybe not easy, but still closely related.

Is acoustic power hard to measure in the first place? That'd explain why "sensitivity" is more commonly used.

[Krishtrinity]

It depends on what you want to sound better,a DAC and an amp is a good investment if you own a audiophile stereo or headphones.If you have a logitech surround speakers or a gaming headset go with a soundcard.I personally use a DAC+amp now,i previously used a xonar U7 soundcard but after hearing the audio from DAC+amp,i immediately sold the soundcard.One advantage of a soundcard is that it has a lot of bass which makes it great for movies and games still DAC+AMP combo sound has better overall detail.Just hear a demo from a friend or a shop and see for yourself before you invest.

[Whit3Rav3n]

Okay, so maybe not easy, but still closely related.

Is acoustic power hard to measure in the first place? That'd explain why "sensitivity" is more commonly used.

It takes a lot a of measurements at different angles to determine the radiation field so it is pretty complicated. Also for headphones it is not very interesting, there it is enough to put the headphone on an artificial head and measure the spl at the eardrums. 

[ShearMe]

It depends on what you want to sound better,a DAC and an amp is a good investment if you own a audiophile stereo or headphones.If you have a logitech surround speakers or a gaming headset go with a soundcard.I personally use a DAC+amp now,i previously used a xonar U7 soundcard but after hearing the audio from DAC+amp,i immediately sold the soundcard.One advantage of a soundcard is that it has a lot of bass which makes it great for movies and games still DAC+AMP combo sound has better overall detail.Just hear a demo from a friend or a shop and see for yourself before you invest.

 

A soundcard is truly just a not-so-fancy word for DAC + ADC + amp. I think most products called a "soundcard" are bad simply because they're designed cheaply and advertised to people who don't know better - not because there's something inherently wrong about a soundcard.