amp for headphones

[dabar_šolta]

judging by this :
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/703431/Asus-Essence-Stx-Ii.html?page=18#manual

i am not certain that mic/line in contains bias voltage for small pc microphones capsules but that it expects dynamic mic. please check this before you buy.

happy new year to all.

 

[AlienALX]

Dear lord, the FUD in this thread.

 

[dabar_šolta]

Dear lord, the FUD in this thread.

eh? help us then.

 

[AlienALX]

eh? help us then.

I've tried helping you but you do not listen. However, the truth usually comes out eventually.

Let's take your recent post from the introductions....

hi all,name Toni , from Croatia , i work as salesman and do electronics in spare time from audio to computers. have been long time oc3d viewer/reader only.now i come here to talk about computers.

i have very old but upgraded asus k53l laptop with i7 2640m 8gigs of ddr3 and 128g ssd and hdd in place of cdrom.

for works/pc its changing and upgrading on fly, for now i have antec p100 case ,antec hcp 1300w psu, wd black 1tb wd blue 500gig and coolermaster nepton 280l ati hd6450 silent gpu,old platform sold and waiting on ordered asrock x99m, 4x8gig kingston fury ddr4 and xeon e5 2623 v4.

i hope to have fun here and learn something new, not to waste time.

So finally we learn what the XXX sound card is. It's an onboard sound chip from 2011.

I have repeatedly told you over and over again that old onboard sound chips are rubbish. However, you have not listened only repeatedly smashed on and on about telling the OP to buy a sound card.

Seriously, no offence, how can you speak from experience when you have none? you have an old laptop with an old sound card in it and you are using a USB XFI with which to compare your data with.

Yet, you have been told over and over (from experience) that modern sound cards are not like old ones. How many modern sound cards do you have data from? that would be none, as most hardware reviewers will not compare them because if they did no one would buy sound cards.

Seriously, I am actually beyond belief how you can rant on and on that you know what you are talking about yet have none of the products you seem to know all about.

Normally if some one was talking FUD I would ignore it. However, you are telling some one to go out and buy things with no experience of them.

You also took the same attitude toward Kaapstad in the Xeon thread. You just seem to think you know better than every one else.

So I have a XFI Titanium, a D2X, a DX and about thirty pairs of headphones and five amps. I have the stuff in place to do proper research yet there you are knowing better with a laptop in 2011. Six years old.

If I have to get banned again I will. However, all of the time I am allowed to post freely and call you out on your BS I will, and you are talking FUD of the highest order.

 

[Kilbane]

OK guys, we have moved far from the original OP question it has become a personal argument. Something that has no place in this or any thread!

So politely remove yourselves from any further posts in this thread and let it go back to posts pertinent to the OP question only. This sort of behaviour is not tolerated, it brings the forum practice into question and deters any new members from feeling they are welcome.

 

[tinytomlogan]

If I have to get banned again I will. However, all of the time I am allowed to post freely and call you out on your BS I will, and you are talking FUD of the highest order.

Probably nicer to the mods nd the rest of the members that you just leave it then.

Sometimes you cannot educate pork.

 

[AlienALX]

OP. I just spent about an hour doing some research on your headset. If you could specify exactly what one you have that would help. However, from my research I have deduced that the Game Zero I found was 50 ohms. This means it is going to be quite hard to drive, especially for an onboard sound chip that probably has a crappy amplifier circuit (yes, they are not as good with onboard). However, quality and spec is not the issue here. You have a low impedance set of cans that are going to be quite hard to drive. It's not a sound quality issue it's literally a sound quantity one.

So I strongly suggest doing some research and finding an amp that will not struggle with the impedance. Ohm's law dictates that the lower the ohm load the harder it is to drive. That is why they make 250 ohm headphones that you could probably power all day long using a cellphone.

 

[dabar_šolta]

you got me nervous on christmas day and now on new year day also and i didnt ask for it.

.
Seriously, no offence, how can you speak from experience when you have none? you have an old laptop with an old sound card in it and you are using a USB XFI with which to compare your data with.
you are the one who is ofended for no reason,have probably made more cards than you listened to =00= .so chill please.


now i risk geting ban for off topic by answering irelevant questions so i will pm rest to you.

op now has mixed feelings about all this and will spend 200$ on stx 2 soundcard without even being sure that it accepts 3.3v powered microphone that he has on headphones,so we dont help him realy thats worst part of this all.

oh and i still think his best bet is soundblaster xfi 5.1 usb for 70$ that i know that it performs excellent in terms of sound q and that it has all what he needs, but he is not even considering it .why?

 

[dabar_šolta]

Probably nicer to the mods nd the rest of the members that you just leave it then.

Sometimes you cannot educate pork.

why you call me pork?

OP. I just spent about an hour doing some research on your headset. If you could specify exactly what one you have that would help. However, from my research I have deduced that the Game Zero I found was 50 ohms. This means it is going to be quite hard to drive, especially for an onboard sound chip that probably has a crappy amplifier circuit (yes, they are not as good with onboard). However, quality and spec is not the issue here. You have a low impedance set of cans that are going to be quite hard to drive. It's not a sound quality issue it's literally a sound quantity one.

So I strongly suggest doing some research and finding an amp that will not struggle with the impedance. Ohm's law dictates that the lower the ohm load the harder it is to drive. That is why they make 250 ohm headphones that you could probably power all day long using a cellphone.

i am sorry dude but you are badly wrong and i must comment.
50ohms-150ohms is ideal impendance as it is not too low (16 or 32ohm in ears) and not too high (studio grade 600ohm cans) its 600ohms headphones that need more ("sound quantity") voltage output out of amplifier to produce enough dB.

original cellphone headphones are all 16-64 ohms,why -becouse they can be powered by 3.7v battery on good enough dB. efficiency is other story.

on ohms law, lower the ohm load less voltage more current you need for same volume , higher ohm load more voltage less current you need for same volume.

 

[tinytomlogan]

why you call me pork?

you got me nervous on christmas day and now on new year day also and i didnt ask for it.

.
Seriously, no offence, how can you speak from experience when you have none? you have an old laptop with an old sound card in it and you are using a USB XFI with which to compare your data with.
you are the one who is ofended for no reason,have probably made more cards than you listened to =00= .so chill please.


now i risk geting ban for off topic by answering irelevant questions so i will pm rest to you.

op now has mixed feelings about all this and will spend 200$ on stx 2 soundcard without even being sure that it accepts 3.3v powered microphone that he has on headphones,so we dont help him realy thats worst part of this all.

oh and i still think his best bet is soundblaster xfi 5.1 usb for 70$ that i know that it performs excellent in terms of sound q and that it has all what he needs, but he is not even considering it .why?

Its a generalising phrase.


But you need to chill out. If you dont understand - say so

Do NOT tell people they are wrong when they are trying to help you and clearly have more knowledge than you. ANY more of this in here and Ill personally just ban you because if you cant get along - youll have to move along.

 

[SPS]

OP. I just spent about an hour doing some research on your headset. If you could specify exactly what one you have that would help. However, from my research I have deduced that the Game Zero I found was 50 ohms. This means it is going to be quite hard to drive, especially for an onboard sound chip that probably has a crappy amplifier circuit (yes, they are not as good with onboard). However, quality and spec is not the issue here. You have a low impedance set of cans that are going to be quite hard to drive. It's not a sound quality issue it's literally a sound quantity one.

So I strongly suggest doing some research and finding an amp that will not struggle with the impedance. Ohm's law dictates that the lower the ohm load the harder it is to drive. That is why they make 250 ohm headphones that you could probably power all day long using a cellphone.

Low impedance headphones are harder to drive, what?

 

[SuB]

OP. I just spent about an hour doing some research on your headset. If you could specify exactly what one you have that would help. However, from my research I have deduced that the Game Zero I found was 50 ohms. This means it is going to be quite hard to drive, especially for an onboard sound chip that probably has a crappy amplifier circuit (yes, they are not as good with onboard). However, quality and spec is not the issue here. You have a low impedance set of cans that are going to be quite hard to drive. It's not a sound quality issue it's literally a sound quantity one.

So I strongly suggest doing some research and finding an amp that will not struggle with the impedance. Ohm's law dictates that the lower the ohm load the harder it is to drive. That is why they make 250 ohm headphones that you could probably power all day long using a cellphone.

Dude you've got that ass backwards. Higher Ohm = higher resistance = harder to drive...
50Ohm is quite low, on board will drive that fine. 250 would require much more powerful amps to drive.. and definitely could not be driven all day long by a cellphone.

 

[dabar_šolta]

and 250 ohm cans powered by 3,7V its just hilarious.

 

[SuB]

and 250 ohm cans powered by 3.7V its just hilarious.

No, it's not.. it's got nowt to do with the voltage of the battery in the phone. You can still amplify it using decent circuitry/mosfets (how do you think the Mobile Fiio's work?), one of the 'beats by dre' (not a sign of quality, just using as an example) branded Motorola's had a decent enough setup that it could drive fairly high Ohmage cans.

 

[dabar_šolta]

Low impedance headphones are harder to drive, what?

its true but only on very low current devices what are not intended to be headphone amplifiers like opamps that most manufacturers put in pc sound cards as headphone output amplifiers and only when using below 32ohms and with specific types of opamps.

i attach picture(imd) of intermodulation distortion plot of NE5532 opamp (popular use) when driving 20K load (green) and 32R (white) not bad but there is some degradation.
other picture (imdv2) is same opamp driving 56R headphones ,there is still some degradation visible but its not problem at all.

No, it's not.. it's got nowt to do with the voltage of the battery in the phone. You can still amplify it using decent circuitry/mosfets (how do you think the Mobile Fiio's work?), one of the 'beats by dre' (not a sign of quality, just using as an example) branded Motorola's had a decent enough setup that it could drive fairly high Ohmage cans.

well if there is buck/boost converter or similar tech inside then cans are not actualy 3.7v powered but probably +-3.7 (7.4v)or similar.
if some cellphone can be amp similar to this: tpa613a2 wich is making its own negative supply so even if it is 3.7v powered cans work like it is 7.4v. its just that most cellphones dont use this kind of chips but simply supply lower impendance phones .

 

[SPS]

its true but only on very low current devices what are not intended to be headphone amplifiers like opamps that most manufacturers put in pc sound cards as headphone output amplifiers and only when using below 32ohms and with specific types of opamps.

i attach picture(imd) of intermodulation distortion plot of NE5532 opamp (popular use) when driving 20K load (green) and 32R (white) not bad but there is some degradation.
other picture (imdv2) is same opamp driving 56R headphones ,there is still some degradation visible but its not problem at all.

Please tell me how this helps the OP in any way whatsoever?

 

[MadShadow]

Come on guys, give dabar a break. Sounds like he knows what he's on about and he just wants to explain things with facts, whether they might happen to help the OP or not. I think the OP has plenty of information in this thread to make an educated decision with.

 

[dabar_šolta]

he doesnt need to skip soundcard with opamp in output if he finds one becouse he has phones with load where even opamps dont mind to power them.

 

[SPS]

Come on guys, give dabar a break. Sounds like he knows what he's on about and he just wants to explain things with facts, whether they might happen to help the OP or not. I think the OP has plenty of information in this thread to make an educated decision with.

The point is that we are trying to keep it on topic as the OP is having a hard time to understand what people are telling him, and rightly so. He doesn't need to understand electronics, he just wants to know what the best amp for his cans are without costing the earth.

 

[Tolemac]

TBH it is only confusing the OP with all this talk can you not make another thread to discuss this?.

The main purpose of this thread is to help the OP