Submitted by Lelouch25 t3_z6q68j in headphones
klogg4 t1_iy34tvd wrote
Reply to comment by Lelouch25 in My JDS Atom amp on high gain sounds MUCH wider with Planar headphones? by Lelouch25
- The thing about "driving headphones" came out of the impedance matching thing, which also appeared in the speaker world where more powerful amps obviously had less output impedance. It's not the thing with most modern gear because most headphone amps have almost 0 ohm output impedance. Also, impedance matching isn't needed with planar headphones because their frequency response is not dependant on amp output impedance. With dynamic headphones you get MORE midbass ~100 hz and MORE treble ~10 khz when impedances are NOT matched, which is not what you want because you get muddier and more piercing sound.
This is the reason why my MOTU M4 headphone output sounds the same as my Topping L70 - it's a weak output, but the output impedance is 0 ohm; - It's a rare thing but it happens with my MOTU M4: it clips the wave when the max power is exceeded. It lets you have a louder sound but it obviously becomes distorted. Of course this is not the case with these fancy external amps like JDS Atom, it's just not possible there.
Lelouch25 OP t1_iy35h74 wrote
That is very informative and thank you for staying on this, as it is an issue I’ve come across.
From other forums and reviews, I’ve learned that some He6SE can be driven to greater effect with 6Watts, much more than spec.
I also experience this with my Sundara as 300mW is sufficient but 1W sounds better. Which is why I asked if the 1060C could be driven better.
And it doesn’t seem to be “distortion”, but perhaps 🤔 it could be considered that after all.
klogg4 t1_iy35pgf wrote
I'm out :/
But one last time - aside from the two specific cases I said above - POWER. HAS. NOTHING. TO. DO. WITH. THE. SOUND. QUALITY!
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