Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-topping-nx4-dsd-dac-and-portable-headphone-amplifier.3507/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-oppo-he-2-se-dac-and-headphone-amp.4597/
I don't think people can hear the differences at these levels. Most audio products measure well enough to be transparent? Sometimes there are differences with output impedance that make a small effect on how the headphone sounds.
For example: - Fiio q1 mark ii: highs are dark, quite warm, slightly recessed vocals. ifi nano: mostly neutral sound signature and tonality but highs are a little bright/harsh. topping nx4: little V shaped sound signature with more recessed vocals but the highs and bass extends better with goon clarity/cleanness/tonality. - The line outputs the fiio sounds too congested and not high enough quality. If you use it's headphone balanced in then it comes close to competing to the other two. The ifi nano dac is almost as good as the nx4, but the nx4 still has better resolution, clarity, separation, dynamic range, extension, and with all that the tonality is what I like compared to the more boring ifi nano, but the only thing I don't really like is the distant/recessed vocals but you can turn the volume up louder to compensate but the highs start to be sharp (not harsh or bright tho).
As for what you were saying Calz, I wish I had good responses... may be best to take it to ASR forum or ask others if you don't get a response here. I have read that there were actually were reasons for once having more than bare minimal output impedance. For instance, here is beyerdynamic's response to why one of their headphone amps has 100 ohms OI:
https://support.beyerdynamic.com/hc/en-us/articles/201847362-Why-does-the-A-20-have-an-output-impedance-of-100-ohms-
I'm not at all knowledgeable about these subjects so it's best to take the topic to those who are.
edit: This too might be interesting because it shows the effect of output impedance on the classic MDR-V6 headphone: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0321/7609/files/Headphone_Amplifier_Performance_-_Part_2.pdf?1361
I suspect it sounded warmer, less sterile and analytical, on older equipment, and the designers couldn't anticipate the ubiquity of low ohm OI devices (like phones and iPods) that came years later, unless portable players such as Walkmans already had this at the time.
Here is another article that seems to go against the grain a little bit:
https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/musings-headphone-amplifier-output-impedance
check out the summary statement at the end: "From the examples above it becomes clear that the best output impedance is not necessarily a low one. Increasing the output impedance may well reduce any oscillatory behaviour of the driver. Sure, it can slow down the response of the driver but sometimes that's a good thing. If you feel your headphone is a little bit 'hot' then increasing the output impedance using an adapter between headphone and amp (or by soldering resistors into the headphone or the headphone-plug) may well be a solution. "
I have not tested higher output impedance amps. But if you have easy to run iems/headphones you may want to look into ifi audio's ieMatch. It will help in terms of lowering the volume which means you can get less channel imbalance, hiss, and it even improves dynamic range. May be what your looking for and is ideal for some of these portable amps I have tested which have too much power at the start of the volume nob.
Also, SINAD is the same as THD+N. It is just stated in db versus %. The db number and hence SINAD are useful when evaluating fidelity because we can for example compare them to distortion free range we need for CD (16 bit data). Hard to do that with a percentage.
As to sampling rate, it is always at the bottom of the dashboard measurements in green. And there, unless there is a reason, the sample rate is 44.1 kHz. Other tests like Jitter use 48 kHz.
I plan to do a video tutorial on all my measurements at some point.