Yeah, it makes sense unless you learn more about lossy formats, then it becomes too hard to make a decision and you try to simplify things lol.

I went to Opus VBR 256 kbps after a lot of ABX tests, gaining information and analyzing it. Wasn't an easy decision though. Would be easier if I was like "screw it, I'm OK with 450-500 kbps bitrate", then I would just go with lossyWAV + FLAC))

I convert to Opus VBR 256 kbps. There isn't a single sample in the universe that gives me audible difference this way.

That's the task for a sound engineer, real-time mixing is the thing that needs to be done. If you don't hear bass and keys, upmix them on a mixing console.

M50x is a decent headphone for your task (not so much for listening to music, but for monitoring they're OK).

Every man has it's own destiny. My destiny is to make shitposts, not memes!

Most headphones do when you use cross-feed plugin. The ones with more spacious sound do it better of course.

Replace every statement in the meme to its opposite counter-part and it becomes a good meme.

Basic electronics? Basic electronics is that you need specific level of voltage to push driver forward/backward by specific measure. Which means voltage DIRECTLY affects volume. If you turn on high gain and turn the volume down to compensate, you output the same level of voltage in the end (and the same level of current and power as the result).

And no, "more voltage" doesn't improve driver control, the elimination of the voltage drop does. There is the only single measure you need to evaluate how the amp eliminates the voltage drops depending on the load, and that is - output impedance.

Yes, I did. But it has never been your case. If you're interested, Apple Dongle is not affected by both cases as well.

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!

1. 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;
2. 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.

They're only under-powered if YOU don't have enough VOLUME with your gear. It has nothing to do with the sound quality (usually... there's a little exception that I doubt you experienced yourself).

>So some headphones have more resistance

Which means they will output less power at the same output voltage, because current will be less. That's why amps give less power when they drive higher impedance headphones, because power equals voltage times current (P=V*I). THAT'S physics.

The trick here is how much power you REALLY need. Amp needs to give more power with tougher headphones - that's reasonable, but if I draw 0.2 mW with AKG K371 and need 1 mW when I switch to Beyer DT990 250 ohm, that's not a big deal.

​

>“Headphones with higher impedance (25 ohms and over, approximately) demand more power to deliver high audio levels.”

"High audio level" means higher volume, not higher quality.

How much power do headphones need? You check sensitivity for that. For example my AKG K612 sound as loud as 91 dB when you give them 1 mW. The trick here is 91 dB being loud enough for having a blast to your favourite track.

And despite people saying planars need a lot of power it's usually the opposite - Audeze LCD-2 for example is one of the easiest headphones to drive that I ever borrowed from people (lol). While Beyer DT880 600 ohm is definitely the toughest.

> Yeah that’s what I’m saying, they sound different.

Do you have an instrumentally or experimentally measured prove for this statement? ABX with an external switch or smth? No? I'm not surprised.

> Can you really not hear the difference between your 2mW source? …

I'm immune to this shit. But if you're interested, I currently have MOTU M4 with integrated ~20mW headphone amp and a Topping L70 which is max 7.5W I think (I got it because I didn't care much about what to buy, it was balanced and had pre-amp mode which is a desirable combo for me). No difference between them aside from Topping being insanely loud. Planars, dynamics, Audezes, Beyers - doesn't matter. Tried other devices, no difference as well.

> Under powering headphones make them sound thin.

So you want to say that you get different frequency response when you consume the same 1mW out of 40mW amp and out of 2W amp, while both having 0 ohm output impedance. Interesting. People trying to argue with physics is always interesting.

> Like yeah if you listen to them really low,

If 90 dB is low for you then I feel bad for your hearing.

>Lots of dongle dacs paired headphones when the cheap ones only output 45mW.

I only use <2mW with my Beyer DT990 250 ohm and AKG K612 which are much harder to drive than your planars. Not mentioning Sennheiser HD650 (they're relatively easy to drive). It's because I don't really listen to music on a volume above 90dB. If you listen to music on reasonable volume levels, you're doing the same.

&gt; Then there’s a bunch of people who just don’t understand planars.

There's a lot more people who don't understand physics. Which is scarier.

Let me repeat that once again: power means volume and only volume. Sound pressure level, if you mind. You may even use a hi-fi amplifier for speakers to drive headphones, but if you listen to them on reasonable levels, you will still use 0.5-1mW out of 100000 available.

Man, it's all over the place. FLAC sounding better than Spotify. 24/192 sounding better than 16/44.1. Vinyl sounding better than CD. 1000$ cable sounding better than 3$ cable. Roon sounding better than foobar2000. High gain sounding better than low gain. Everything without ABXing. You're in the area where it's better to take basically everything with a big grain of salt and start questioning what YOU personally hear (we tend to hear things that are not there because of fancy marketing).

Snake oil. Gain does NOT alter the sound. It only alters the output power to make volume knob easier to control with different headphones.

About power: it directly affects volume and that's it. When you reduce volume, you reduce the output power. Higher power amp will give you more volume at max level. Simple as that.

>I’ve heard some say that properly powering a headphones adds bass/treble.

Funny enough, it's the opposite. If headphones are properly powered, they have LESS bass/treble. Because it usually means that amp and headphone are impedance matched. Which is not the case with Sennheisers like HD800s - their high impedance means they'll sound good out of any source straight away.

Soundstage is the most overvalued because headphones do not have any soundstage at all.

Timbre is the most undervalued because people tend to prefer "technicality" over it.

I have a feeling like when some people say "headphones are hard to drive", they mean "they do not sound beefy enough" instead of "they are quieter than the other headphones".

>before this I have only used AirPods Pros and Beats Studio headphones.

>Beats Studio

No surprise. Don't worry, you'll get used.

>HD600's are ~300 ohms of impedence

This is the very reason why they sound the same out of any source that is not tube, despite some people saying the opposite.

That's the man. Boys buy headphones to tell everyone how cool they are. Chads buy them to say everyone that they're shit.

>I'm really not experiencing dissatisfaction

Good for you. What people talk about is the lack of subbass, 20-80 hz. Every Sennheiser of this series has this problem, and it would be ignorant to argue that. Yes, that doesn't make them necessarily worse, especially considering it's not that needed in most genres, but the problem is there and it's worse than even some competing open-backs, like AKG K6**/K7** series.

>To hear bass you must play a track that contains bass.

It's the opposite - to hear the lack of bass you must play a track that contains bass.

(more shitposts, let's go)