Do I need an amp at all? USB powered VS standalone?

Hi CyberGene. You're most welcome to the forum. It's really nice to see a new poster get stuck in.

One thing that you need to do with all of your listing is to trust your own instincts. You will always have people on the Internet; especially on hi-fi sites telling you what you ought to be listening to and advising you as to what is best and what is better, so that the process of buying hi-fi and listening to it can be a very unpleasant experience - for beginners especially.

Some people do become quite anxious that they may have made a mistake buying something due to them taking advice from people that may not necessarily know much more than themselves to be honest.

So first of all, don't worry, I don't think that you have made a mistake in what you have bought.

A good amplifier should make no changes to the sound of your music. Of course it will provide more volume, but the basic sound should remain the same. In reality most amplifiers sound pretty much the same with very, very minor differences. Quite often you will have a hi-if person telling you the differences of night and day, when in reality, when you hear the device, the differences are non- existent. (The ideal of making a straight wire amp never happened but we have got quite close!!)

That's the part where your own confidence comes in to play. Try to have the confidence to make your own mind up about things and not rely on others to tell you what is best. I'm not giving you a lecture here but I am just trying to say to you that if you are not hearing differences then there probably are no differences, at least for you. That does not make you a bad listener.

So basically a good amplifier should not alter the tonal sound of your music. It should provide a lot more volume and this is what most people seem to think what an amplifier is for.

That is one aspect of an amplifier but the other aspect is the production of transients. Unfortunately a lot of modern recordings don't contain good transients, because they have used a lot of compression in order to make the music sound good on the radio in the studio production and as far as they are concerned as loud as possible. However this is much less so with orchestral music although compression is very important because of the huge dynamic range available from an orchestra. It isn't possible to record the proper dynamic range even now from a full blown orchestra. So compression is important but unfortunately is over used.

Listen to Radio 3 and then turn over to Classic FM and you will hear the effects of compression on Classic FM. It is much louder.

You have mentioned formats and this is quite important for the production of a wide dynamic range. However just because it is a FLAC recording doesn't mean that it actually has a wide dynamic range. If the recording is compressed in the first stage, then you will not bring it back by ripping it in any format.

Get a really good recording though with a very wide dynamic range and a good amplifier should be able to reproduce those highs and lows much better than you would hear without one. The idea is that you should have as much headroom as possible in order for this to be heard on a headphone. However, as you are probably finding, most recordings sound exactly the same with or without an amp. Perhaps those transients aren't on the recordings?

It is a tough question and some people are more sensitive to it than others. For instance, I am a retired musician who used to do an awful lot of recording. So I got very used to listening on headphones for things like hums, buzzes, and clicks. My ears instantly connect with any noise on recordings. It is very annoying. Unfortunately that has been kind of tuned into my brain. Because I have worked in studios as a musician I am also very aware of dynamic range. I can often listen to a recording and never listen again just because it has been compressed so much that I find it very unpleasant. An amplifier would not fix this in any way.

So, if you are unable to hear any difference, there probably isn't any difference or at least you are not noticing because you haven't been trained in the same way as someone like myself to listen out for certain things. I guess listening skills can be taught to an extent but if you are not sensitive to changes of dynamic range then an amplifier might not make much difference to you.

Trust your own instincts in listening.

1. Do I really needed an amp in the first place? I think I have fantastic sound just with my HD-650 connected straight to the headphone output of my Apple devices.

No, you really don't need an amp if you can't hear no difference. You are quite right to take a look at the quality of your recordings. If you still here no difference with wide dynamic range type recordings then an amplifier might not be much help to you.

2. Was it a mistake to get the USB-amp?

In my opinion it was not a mistake. You have bought a perfectly good amplifier but you may not be able to hear the differences that it may make to the dynamic range at the moment. Perhaps at some time later on, if you get some really good recordings you will suddenly notice that you are getting more attack from the app.

3. Was it a mistake to order the standalone-solid-state-discrete amp, do you believe there will be much difference than the expensive USB-amp?

Again, I don't think that it is a mistake to buy gear. I have quite a few amps here and I go between them quite happily. Some are quieter in operation than others as well. I do have my favourites though. Don't forget though that I am very trained to listen out for wide dynamic range and attack in music listening.

4. Are my ears just not audiophile? If I can't hear difference between a laptop headphone out and USB-amp...

In my opinion there is no such thing as an audiophile ear. If something sounds good to you then it is good. It is this sense of doubt that so many hi-fi people put into listeners that puts me off many of the sites that they appear on. Don't get hung up about it. It's really not an issue. With further listening and much more experience in listening you may well find yourself preferring certain items of care that you have. That's what has happened to me over the years. I have certain things that are used all the time and for some reason I get very drawn to them. Sometimes I don't even know why, it's just that I prefer something to something else and I accept that.

5. And I can't hear difference between MP3 160kbps and CD-quality. Can you hear the difference with your equipment?

I hate to tell you this but many people can't tell the difference between one 120, 320, FLAC, DSD, CD. They think they can, but in reality they can't. They are telling porkies!! I once played a terrible trick on an audiophile. I re-ripped 120 MP3 files into FLAC and gave him the same files in 120. Of course, he picked out the FLAC files as being superior when in fact they were the exact same file just re-encoded. So you're not on your own.

Personally, I wouldn't get too hung up about it and certainly would not worry about any audiophile telling you anything. In fact some audiophiles are a little bit weird and fanatical. Just have the confidence to trust your own instincts. Allow yourself to be guided by people who came to know more than you but remember, they aren't always right. At least not for your ears.

I often write things and someone else will hear the same thing a different way. There is absolutely no problem with that and on this forum we accept each other's point of view without running each other down. After all, you're no more intelligent just because you could hear something that someone else can't hear!!

I once wrote great things about an amp with a tube in it and I went on and on about how lovely it sounded. Later on, someone came on who had measured this very same amp and found that it had really bad cross-talk. I really could not hear it. However when I was told how to hear it, I set up the amp and heard it straight away.

So we all learn something from our listening and I have learned to accept that I could be wrong as well - quite easily. I can be easily fooled as well. That amplifier showed me that for sure.

Again, you're really welcome to DIYAH.

Rabbit, thank you very much for your very detailed, honest and encouraging answer. Don't worry about the edits, I always do that and edit my posts (not just typos) after I've posted them




This is exactly the type of example I wanted to read. I am perfectly OK having a piece of equipment whose advantages I can't currently hear but knowing that there is an objective advantage that I might be able to hear with another music or with better education.

The opposite would be worse: having an equipment that I "hear" as better while in fact it's not better. That would mean I am taking it into my head and starting hallucinating

Once again, thank you for your really encouraging answer which gave me a lot of confidence to keep using my ears! BTW, I am a hobby musician too (MySpace profile), and I listen too much for chord progressions, orchestration and that type of stuff which makes it very difficult for me to go outside the music and listen purely to audio elements as opposed to music elements... It may sound like something silly though

No, not at all. Most of my musician friends have really awful listening gear. They are able to get beyond the electronics and 'listening nervosa' and recreate the real sound in their minds. Believe it or not, many musicians just aren't into Hi-Fi.

In fact, being really cheeky here ....... many unmusical people require lots of gear in order to try to recreate music for them. I think musicians can recreate it in their minds much easier.

I can accept a far wider range of headphones, I think, than an audiophile. Many times, I've seen a Hi-Fi person write something along the lines of .... 'I couldn't listen any longer than 30 seconds because the sound was so awful'. Some of them couldn't tell MP3 from cd!!! But they claim to be so sensitive to sound that it's impossible to listen.

It's only sound .... it doesn't hurt!!!!

No, have confidence in your own ears and ability to listen. Find a really wide dynamic range on a recording though, and that may be when you hear the amp doing its job!!

Ohh yeah..

I knew there was something going on with the apogee groove that differed from other amps.

It has current drive output (very high output impedance) instead of voltage drive output (very low output impedance).
An advantage is that different impedance headphones may sound about equally loud from such an amp.

Because of this there will be more bass with the HD650 than from any other amplifier.
And this will reach audible detectable levels.
So a direct comparison (at the same volume level) will give more bass on the HD650 with the apogee because of the impedance peak of the HD650.


....crossposted.


Yes the Apogee story is crap.
ALL headphones are designed to be driven by a voltage source.
There are but very few 'current drive' outputs even though they are really easy to make.
The story 'Groove’s Constant Current Drive output stage dynamically compensates for the nonlinearities – acoustic, mechanical or electrical – of any connected headphones, resulting in lower distortion and a more linear frequency response. Whether listening through earbuds or “hi-fi” headphones' is utter nonsense though.
If it had any merit to it all amps would be current drive.
As said this is VERY easy to build and just a gimmick.

For some loudspeakers current drive could be an improvement but is highly dependent on the type of speaker used.

So, another question. I am currently using the Apogee Groove at the office with Shure SRH840. They are 40 Ohm, so they sound very loud both from the internal headphone out and with the Apogee Groove. Taking this in mind, should I expect the Groove to improve anything with the transients, the bass, etc? I can't hear any difference but I haven't done very detailed tests, just few swaps. Do you believe that purely from a technical point, there might be an audible difference that the Groove can make over the Mac's headphone output? I am just trying to decide whether I should keep the Groove or sell it.

I think I agree with pretty much everything that has been said here. But I also have to say that I do hear clear sonic differences between using my Mac headphone jack and my Ember, and I think I can notice difference in sound when I change the tube family in my Ember, especially with resolving headphones like HD650 and HE400i. But there is a lot of non-sense written all over audiophile forums. Cables (and cables direction!!) is a can of worms, I just ignore that can of stuff.

For a while I struggled with "brightness" in headphones. I thought my HE400i were "bright" when everyone around described them as very dark. It turns out that it was a "peak" in the upper mids that irritated me constantly. Frans solved that problem with a Kameleon inline filter. I really struggled to put my finger on it because my brain was not/is not trained to identify those things. But I know I was annoyed with something in the upper end.

The problem of listening to music is that human brain is very good at correlating things. When you listen to music, you will immediately recognise the tones even with a poor player or a cheap set of headphones. But identifying differences provided by equipment is harder. An analogy...an expert in wines will tell you about "subtleties" (berries, vanilla, chocolate, fried chicken) in taste that to me are just like regular wine.

My two cents...just enjoy whatever sounds pleasantly good to you, and also your wallet will be happier!

Welcome CyberGene!

I have spent considerable money chasing the dragon of audiophile nirvana. In the end I have come to the conclusion that whatever gear gets you emotionally involved with the music is the set-up for you. I have been to meets where I listened to 20 different amps and dozens of headphones in one day. What I liked others didn't and vice versa. Differences I could hear others didn't. I happen to have settled on 3 amps I use regularly use. One amp I like, several people I know aren't that fond of. No problem we just agree we have differences in what we like. The folks here are very friendly and we don't get into the my stuff is better arguments. So I hope you continue to post. There are very knowledgeable people on our forum and they have really helped me to understand better how all the pieces fit together. I also have discovered music I hadn't heard before. 

BTW. If you want to see how much dynamic range a particular recording has this site I find very useful. Dynamic Range Database  I seem to very sensitive to compression or I should say overcompression, so I always check to see if a remaster has been squeezed to death before I buy. See if you can find some music you have that has a wide dynamic range. For me that seems to show any differences between equipment. Most of all have fun!