I would never call myself an audiophile, but I know what I like. I told Santa that I wanted a set of the cheap HE-X4 planar headphones for Christmas. I plan to use them for music from my desktop PC. I understand that if my audio card/chip can’t deliver enough power to drive the headphones to a sufficient volume level, I’ll need an amp between the PC and the cans. But being an old “stereo” guy, is there any reason I couldn’t input the PC audio into a home audio receiver/amp and use the headphone output from that to drive the headphones? What advantage, if any, would I get from buying one of these fancy DAC headphone amps? What advantage do more expensive headphone amps have over cheaper headphone amps? At 66 years old, I have no hope of having “golden ears” any longer.
No issue actually. You could simply do that and test whether the sound is good enough or not.
If you’re looking for an upgrade, a DAC (without amp is ok since you’re gonna connect it to your home amp) should serve you well and typically should sound much better than direct analog connection.
Headphone amplifier should be the last resort. Stereo amplifier might not be very effective at powering headphone, but power wise, they should be plenty enough
and typically should sound much better than direct analog connection.
What would that improve? Builtin DACs already do a great job unless you are going to sample/process the output again in a studio environment.
No reason you wouod need an amp if you have a receivers to plug it into unless the receiver causes static or something.
Found this: https://drop.com/buy/drop-hifiman-he-x4-planar-magnetic-headphones
Sensitivity: 91 dB
Impedance: 25 ohms
Not very sensitive so might need a bit more power than the PC can deliver. Of cours, try it first before buying a headphone amp.
Very low impedance. Important is the damping factor (impedance headphone / impedance headphone out). 8 is considered a minimum. It might very well be that your receiver doesn’t have separate headphone amp. This means the headphone out is derived from the power amp but tuned down by a couple of resistors. Hence the headphone out might have a high output impedance resulting in a bloated bass due to insufficient damping.
Technically it is very easy, get a 3.5 to 2x RCA to connect a PC to a receiver.
Another route is a external USB DAC/amp. This might improve on both the DAC and the amp in the PC. Today one can get pretty good solutions at decent price levels: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/tempotec-sonata-bhd-pro-portable-dac-amp-review.47929/
Perhaps stating the obvious
- Experiment before you buy. If possible, do a unsighted test because we are prone to hear what we believe.
- Buy only from vendors with a decent return policy
- Check if there are measurements (ASR is a good source) as more expensive is not necessarily better.
- At 66 you have age related hearing loss but audio is most of all mid range so you still hear a hell of a lot.
Lower noise floor
Great choice of headphones! My phone with the Apple dongle wouldn’t drive mine adequately, but the Qudelix 5K with a balanced cable ran them fine. I use them with one of those fancy desktop DAC headphone amps now. I don’t know if your PC --> Stereo amp/recevier–>headphone jack will work well or not, mainly because I don’t know how good or bad your PC sound card is. I would think that the headphone jack on a home stereo amp or receiver would drive them fine, and as long as the signal coming from the PC is clean and clear, it should be fine.
I already run a pair of Magneplanar MMG’s in my home audio system, so I have a good idea of how they sound. I am a progressive rock fan, so you hit that nail on the head.
That’s what I’m doing and it’s fine. Had a extra A2m I use for it.
I have same dillema :) feel almost no difference between Mac Air M1 and Zen dac v2 or Mojo 2.
The catch is that this particular headphone draws a fair amount of current. Potentially more than a regular receiver will put up with without the distortion going up. It’s hard to know for sure with receivers since the relevant specs are almost never published.
If you’re in north America, Schiit Audio currently has a closeout sale on their Magni+ amp for 80 dollars. That could be a good choice.
The potential crux of hooking up an amp to the headphone or line-out port of a PC is that if the internal soundcard is picking up electrical noise, an amp won’t get rid of it. You’d need an external DAC to fix that problem if it happens.
Audio is a very subjective hobby, and whether headphones are driven well enough is also quite subjective. I have definitely heard many headphones where enough power made a difference, but I’ve also owned many headphones that don’t benefit from extra power - or it defeats their whole purpose. And contrary to popular opinion, I would say for a lot of people, the PC headphone jack is often the better source they need - it’s usually got extra power over many portables, possibly from the PC system having a higher voltage power supply.
I do the following as a rebellion. I grew up listening to radio, FM is the origin sound for me. So I plug an FM transmitter into my source, and use Sony’s pocket radios as my headphone amp. What’s funny is this for me has fixed all issues where the sound wasn’t good enough, even though those radios all have low or miniscule output on paper, they’re always very loud, very smooth and satisfying in a way audiophile gear can’t be to my ears. So I feel like instead of sticking to conventional wisdom, you can probably do very well without new equipment to drive those headphones.
Someone else mentioned the poor quality of the headphone jack in receivers, but I want to mention it’s possible to connect your headphones directly to the speaker ports with the 4 pin speaker connectors to 4 pin XLR to your headphones because you have low sensitivity planars. Granted you need to make sure your receiver has low enough power output to not blow the drivers at your headphones’ impedance. I did this with my old HE-500 and the Emotiva miniX a-100 receiver, which you can see someone mentioned in detail how to do here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/diy-emotiva-mini-x-a-100-headphone-amp-mod-guide.705196/
I like both my Helm Bolt and my Dragonfly Black with different headphones, the sound improves a lot. I also have iFi Nano but those are more expensive.
A speaker driver functions best with adequate power driving its magnetic motor. Too little power means poor control, distortion, and a brightening of tone at higher volumes (although all this still happens when ragin reaching the mechanical limits of the driver).
It’s mainly a question of if the source device supplies adequate power.
Power needed is also volume dependent. At quiet volumes you use very little power, but at medium to high volumes the driver motor may want more than the source device can offer.
From what I’ve found, most devices have a surprisingly low power output limit, and it’s rare that headphones get enough. I find this to be true even with small IEMs, let alone full sized cans.
if your stereo amp still works flawlessly it’s probably fine. But using an external Dac is definitely recommended. The inside of a PC is kind of an electromagnetic mess. Not as much an issue for digital on/off, but very much an issue for analogue audio signals. On top of that, the dac on the motherboard probably isn’t a very good one either. But you don’t have to go overboard. There are pretty good options at almost any price point.
input the PC audio into a home audio receiver/amp and use the headphone output from that to drive the headphones?
You not only can but depending on your amp it probably outperforms the average headphone amp in every aspect.
Also decent loudspeakers + cheap amp (+ cheap subwoofer) will likely outperform your average PC-Speakers.
I like both my Helm Bolt and my Dragonfly Black with different headphones, the sound improves a lot. I also have iFi Nano but those are more expensive.