I spent the better part of last weekend researching amps for a new pair of headphones. Reading other people's reviews and seeing their pics is fun, but figuring out whether the amp outputs enough power or if the damping factor is >= 8, well that's tedious. So what started as a few formulas on paper eventually (over the span of a week) turned into a website that calculates all this for you. It's a tool I built for myself, but I hope you'll find it useful too: www.audiobot9000.com

you are missing the most important, and least important amplifiers!

Edited August 13, 201411 yr by kevin gilmore

you are missing the most important, and least important amplifiers!

 

Please advise. 

Who cares if the amp achieves a (highly) arbitrary damping factor of 8 or more. At one time the rule of thumb in your ass was 10:1. When did it change and why? 

The IEC standards used to say that 120ohm output impedance is right, although MFR's are free to follow or ignore that at this point. With some headphones that puts the damping factor at 2, or even less. How do you account for these? 

What about headphones that seem to match up with amps with greater than 220ohm output impedance, for reasons nobody understands, but are largely agreed upon?

 

PS, you are welcome for free consulting work to improve a rough-sketch headphone/amp matching chart for your website. Which site is it? 

Edited August 13, 201411 yr by nikongod

Amps are not just output power and output impedance.

All amps sound the same

 

-Peter J. Walker

* Of adequate quality

* When used within their capabilities

 

To verify or disprove that amplifiers of adequate quality sound the same, Quad commissioned James Moir to organise and conduct listening tests comparing Quad II, Quad 303 and Quad 405 amplifiers. Statistical analysis of the expert listening panel's scores showed that "the decisions of the panel were no better than might be expected from sheer chance".^[3]

 

^{http://personal.crocodoc.com/oS7FBUJ}

I am curious why Stax is not on there.

 

Try this for size.

 

http://reocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6722/pwint1.txt

 

From 1978!

Grahame, thank you for linking Peter Walker interview. 

Try this for size.

 

http://reocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6722/pwint1.txt

 

From 1978!

No, that wasn't at you, that was at OP and whole thread.

I think it's a neat tool that could benefit from a larger selection of amplifiers, as Kevin suggested.  I agree with the groupthink here that amplifiers are more than output power and impedance, but those are awfully important measures of performance.  More information can only serve us well.

 

Thanks for sharing this with us, youngj123