What did I do wrong? (8 Ohm Amp on 250 Ohm Headphone?)

[_Art3mis_]

Hey there!

 

I am new to the whole AMP thing and got one from my family after moving out into my own home (this one was formerly used to power 2x8 Ohm 50W Speakers which were more then enough for the around 80m² of space) - as the title implies I do know that this is by far not the best combination but it definitely works and I am having great fun with it, HOWEVER:

 

What do I miss by using this combination?

 

I have a MSI Z87 MPOWER Motherboard without any Software from Creative (just Realtek's 6.0.1.8004 Software for the ALC1150 Codec)

https://de.msi.com/Motherboard/Z87-MPOWER.html

 

Connected directly into my NAD302 Ampifier on the front "phones" port...

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/302.shtml

 

... are my brand new Beyerdynamic DT990 250 Ohms

https://viva-telecom.org/SHOP/FILES/BEYERDYNAMIC/dt-990-pro-rp.pdf

 

 

I would love to hear (lol, savage joke) from you about what I could change in order to improve my hearing experience (without big investments) even further! 

Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Front "phones" port isn't the best. Have you tryed to plug the amp in the back?

[GamerDude]

43 minutes ago, Dutch-stoner said:

Front "phones" port isn't the best. Have you tryed to plug the amp in the back?

If I'm reading what you'd said right, you've gotta be kidding! The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6.

[Max_Settings]

Typically the headphone out on speaker Amps is crap. It's much better to get an actual headphone Amp. If you have a super tight budget go with a Fulla 2 for $100, and if you have a little more go with a Magni 3 and Modi 2 for $200.

[_Art3mis_]

1 hour ago, Max_Settings said:

Typically the headphone out on speaker Amps is crap. It's much better to get an actual headphone Amp. If you have a super tight budget go with a Fulla 2 for $100, and if you have a little more go with a Magni 3 and Modi 2 for $200.

Heard plenty of good things about (this) Schiit - sadly not in my Budget yet... but I'll keep them in mind (I live in Austria/EU so shipping costs would be killing me)

 

2 hours ago, GamerDude said:

If I'm reading what you'd said right, you've gotta be kidding! The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6.

First off - as I said I am NEW TO THIS TOPIC. If you don't mind really helping me you could start with explaining what you mean by "The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6." and how this relates to my (bad) setup. Thanks.

 

2 hours ago, Dutch-stoner said:

Front "phones" port isn't the best. Have you tryed to plug the amp in the back?

Hm, the Back just has Coax Cable in and outputs but I could get myself a Coax to AUX/Phone(6.35mm) cable if that should help?

[Max_Settings]

2 minutes ago, Hawkins said:

Heard plenty of good things about (this) Schiit - sadly not in my Budget yet... but I'll keep them in mind (I live in Austria/EU so shipping costs would be killing me)

 

First off - as I said I am NEW TO THIS TOPIC. If you don't mind really helping me you could start with explaining what you mean by "The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6." and how this relates to my (bad) setup. Thanks.

 

Hm, the Back just has Coax Cable in and outputs but I could get myself a Coax to AUX/Phone(6.35mm) cable if that should help?

Can you afford the FX Audio DAC X6? 

[Ahoy Hoy]

4 hours ago, Hawkins said:

Hey there!

 

I am new to the whole AMP thing and got one from my family after moving out into my own home (this one was formerly used to power 2x8 Ohm 50W Speakers which were more then enough for the around 80m² of space) - as the title implies I do know that this is by far not the best combination but it definitely works and I am having great fun with it, HOWEVER:

 

What do I miss by using this combination?

 

I have a MSI Z87 MPOWER Motherboard without any Software from Creative (just Realtek's 6.0.1.8004 Software for the ALC1150 Codec)

https://de.msi.com/Motherboard/Z87-MPOWER.html

 

Connected directly into my NAD302 Ampifier on the front "phones" port...

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/302.shtml

 

... are my brand new Beyerdynamic DT990 250 Ohms

https://viva-telecom.org/SHOP/FILES/BEYERDYNAMIC/dt-990-pro-rp.pdf

 

 

I would love to hear (lol, savage joke) from you about what I could change in order to improve my hearing experience (without big investments) even further! 

Thanks in advance!

Stop being special and dont listen to the others joining you on the special train with there inputs.

Just plug the headphones into your computer.

[Ahoy Hoy]

2 hours ago, GamerDude said:

If I'm reading what you'd said right, you've gotta be kidding! The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6.

doesn't relate at all plug those headphones or his headphones it's a choice of putting 200 Watts or 50 Watts through the headphones. Either way they go bang, then the amplifier will go with them as well. Do you have absolutely know knowledge of how Ohms law works?

[_Art3mis_]

37 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

Stop being special and dont listen to the others joining you on the special train with there inputs.

Just plug the headphones into your computer.

The problem being they are too quiet then. I tried installing the available Creative X-fi software on my PC the last 2hrs and got nothing but Errors and Problems (and went back to the basic realtek driver). However even with those errors it at least got the DT990s at an acceptable volume... 

 

34 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

doesn't relate at all plug those headphones or his headphones it's a choice of putting 200 Watts or 50 Watts through the headphones. Either way they go bang, then the amplifier will go with them as well. Do you have absolutely know knowledge of how Ohms law works?

Please, I would love to hear why this is a crap Idea - about the amp, since I am listening over it I had it like near to 0 on the volume as everything beyond would not be enjoyable.

As I said - I am new to this topic and even if I learned about Ohms law I just can't relate that knowledge to the audio world yet :\

[_Art3mis_]

I now disconnected the Amp, using just the onboard Realtek driver.

Windows Volume on 100%, Volumebalancing and the EQ helped me to get a better result as over the Amp... how so? The Amp's sound was not that clear, felt more warm...

 

 

[JTLSound]

5 hours ago, Hawkins said:

What do I miss by using this combination?

 

I have a MSI Z87 MPOWER Motherboard without any Software from Creative (just Realtek's 6.0.1.8004 Software for the ALC1150 Codec)

https://de.msi.com/Motherboard/Z87-MPOWER.html

 

Connected directly into my NAD302 Ampifier on the front "phones" port...

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/nad/302.shtml

 

... are my brand new Beyerdynamic DT990 250 Ohms

https://viva-telecom.org/SHOP/FILES/BEYERDYNAMIC/dt-990-pro-rp.pdf

4

Power amplifiers don't typically amplify the sound that comes out of their phones jack. It's there to monitor your input before you send it out to the speakers. The headphone output is at line level, so it isn't driven at all by the coils inside. That output is actually 220 Ohm, after looking at the manual for a NAD 302 (https://www.manualslib.com/manual/363734/Nad-302.html?page=5#manual)

As others have suggested, you should look into a dedicated headphone amp.

[_Art3mis_]

14 minutes ago, JTLSound said:

Power amplifiers don't typically amplify the sound that comes out of their phones jack. It's there to monitor your input before you send it out to the speakers. The headphone output is at line level, so it isn't driven at all by the coils inside. That output is actually 220 Ohm, after looking at the manual for a NAD 302 (https://www.manualslib.com/manual/363734/Nad-302.html?page=5#manual)

As others have suggested, you should look into a dedicated headphone amp.

First off - big thanks ^^

 

So - one question: if the output is at 220 Ohms and my 990s at 250 there shouldn't be any significant problems, or are there?

About that headphone amp:

 

1 hour ago, Max_Settings said:

Can you afford the FX Audio DAC X6? 

64 Euros and free shipping from China? Yep, looks great.

 

3 hours ago, Max_Settings said:

Typically the headphone out on speaker Amps is crap. It's much better to get an actual headphone Amp. If you have a super tight budget go with a Fulla 2 for $100, and if you have a little more go with a Magni 3 and Modi 2 for $200.

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this is madness.

I will need to look into if there are alternatives around the quality of the Schiit-Stuff for the same/less money...

[JTLSound]

7 minutes ago, Hawkins said:

First off - big thanks ^^

 

So - one question: if the output is at 220 Ohms and my 990s at 250 there shouldn't be any significant problems, or are there?

 

1

You'd lose a lot of voltage with this set-up. In general, you want your output impedance to be much lower than your headphone impedance (1/8th of it, in fact). So be on the lookout for a headphone amp that has around 30-35 ohms output impedance. There a great, long, and very technical article about this here: https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html

[_Art3mis_]

29 minutes ago, JTLSound said:

You'd lose a lot of voltage with this set-up. In general, you want your output impedance to be much lower than your headphone impedance (1/8th of it, in fact). So be on the lookout for a headphone amp that has around 30-35 ohms output impedance. There a great, long, and very technical article about this here: https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html

Thanks, will do 

[GamerDude]

15 hours ago, Hawkins said:

First off - as I said I am NEW TO THIS TOPIC. If you don't mind really helping me you could start with explaining what you mean by "The DT990 250Ohm isn't exactly a HiFiMan HE6." and how this relates to my (bad) setup. Thanks.

My comment wasn't directed at you, rather it was directed at Dutch-stoner as suggesting that you use speaker taps to drive headphones, and that isn't recommended, unless you have the amazingly hard to drive HiFiMan HE6......though rated with impedance at only 50 Ohms, its sensitivity is a paltry 83.5 dB. This makes the HE-6 really hard to drive even with most headphone DAC stack/combos....let alone from the headphone out of a typical speaker amp.

 

If you find the headphone output from your NAD amp to be insufficient (don't look at the 50W + 50W @ 8 Ohm output from the rear, that's for speakers only), go buy a dedicated headphone amp (like the recommended Schiit Magni 3), use your mobo audio as a DAC, connect it to your headphone amp and you're ready to go. I have the DT770 Pro 250 Ohm, while not exactly easy to drive, it's far from being a power hungry monster like the HE-6.

[_Art3mis_]

1 hour ago, GamerDude said:

My comment wasn't directed at you, rather it was directed at Dutch-stoner as suggesting that you use speaker taps to drive headphones, and that isn't recommended, unless you have the amazingly hard to drive HiFiMan HE6......though rated with impedance at only 50 Ohms, its sensitivity is a paltry 83.5 dB. This makes the HE-6 really hard to drive even with most headphone DAC stack/combos....let alone from the headphone out of a typical speaker amp.

 

If you find the headphone output from your NAD amp to be insufficient (don't look at the 50W + 50W @ 8 Ohm output from the rear, that's for speakers only), go buy a dedicated headphone amp (like the recommended Schiit Magni 3), use your mobo audio as a DAC, connect it to your headphone amp and you're ready to go. I have the DT770 Pro 250 Ohm, while not exactly easy to drive, it's far from being a power hungry monster like the HE-6.

I must say, after updating the Realtek driver and playing with Windows EQ the sound straight out of the mobo sounds different to the NAD but also very good - more analytical even 

 

Another thing I realized is the really ugly sound that the DT990 produces when I turned the NADs bass up a little bit too far - instead of bass, the left and only the left headphone speaker makes really loud crackling noises as something would be hitting against the membrane - of course I stopped immediately and not did it again :I

 

Any idea if that is a DT990 or an AMP thing? (imo it seems to be the amp as that's no problem when connecting to the mobo directly)

[JTLSound]

On 1/5/2018 at 5:24 AM, Hawkins said:

Any idea if that is a DT990 or an AMP thing? (imo it seems to be the amp as that's no problem when connecting to the mobo directly)

1

My guess is that the amp is just old. Audio technology has come a long way since 1995. The motherboard is just built better. Any amp made within the last decade should be (maybe not one by Behringer though....)

[_Art3mis_]

On 8.1.2018 at 2:09 AM, JTLSound said:

My guess is that the amp is just old. Audio technology has come a long way since 1995. The motherboard is just built better. Any amp made within the last decade should be (maybe not one by Behringer though....)

Huh, okay - I will think of buying a new headphone amp then, thanks for the help!