Hello, everyone. I recently purchased Grado SR80s, and I was wondering if I should upgrade to a quality CD player to better enjoy their capabilities. I am currently using integrated audio on my PC, and my ipod (soon to be an ipod Touch).

I listen to VBR mp3s encoded to the 200 kbps (average). I'm into jazz and some classical, aside from rock, some hip hop, and trance/electronic music.

Should I expect to hear quality sound from a portable CD player (discman kind of player) or are their DACs no better than an ipod's? What kind of setup can I run--if a full-fledged CD player and receiver are necessary--that won't break the piggy bank? Or can I not have great sound (or considerably better sound than I have now) without spending over $500? I would buy Audioengine A5 speakers later; I'd at first rely on my headphones for quality sound. Any suggestions?

JM

To full hear those at there best,
I suggest that you should look at a USB DAC and headphone amplifier. I think that while the DAC makes a difference,the biggest problem with big earphones are that the need some juice to get them sounding their best.

With regards to CD players 'sounding different': the only blind auditions I’ve ever read that showed an audible difference between CD players were those which contrasted a portable Discman vs. a high-end CD player. I guess it stands to reason that the designers of say, an old-school Discman, wouldn't specifically build it to be a full-audio-spectrum reproduction device due to insight into what kind of headphones (designed for the ‘packaged-with’ models), would be used with it. Additionally, battery life must be an engineering consideration. In other words: Julian Hirsch was right all those years ago: any two well-engineered home CD players will be audibly indistinguishable from one-another.

With regards to your Grados: you might want an external headphone amplifier, but I would be tempted to simply get your hands on a top-notch sound-card to begin with. I use an Asus Xonar for the vast majority of my PC to stereo and PC to headphone listening and couldn’t be happier.

That said; there are a load of options out there when it comes to (quality) sound-cards:

http://search.ebay.ca/sound-card_W0QQcatre...orefinesearchZ1

Good luck man - if you wanna’ get really confused :-) with the million options for PC audio / headphone interfaces, have a look at what the cats at Head-Fi have to say on the subject…

www.head-fi.org

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com

I’ve not been able to tell any difference when listening to various home HiFi CD players with price differences of 3X to 4X, but I quickly heard unpleasant differences with a current Sony CD-walkman. This is a low end $30 retail portable; more expensive models might be different.

Because the sound seemed so poor, I created a CD-R of test signals. Recording them from the portable via a good soundcard resulted in some of the test signals looking quite different from the originals in my audio editor, especially at higher frequencies. Recordings of the same CD-R through a $70 home DVD/CD player, which sounds quite good to me, produced waveforms that differed hardly at all from the originals.

I was able to listen to my reference CDs on another model Sony portable, basically similar to the one discussed above, and heard the same unpleasantness (using good headphones), but I was not able to bring it home for verification testing. I have no idea how those portable mp3 players compare.

Okay, so two of you have suggested I get a headphone amp. Which one do you recommend, and how much do you anticipate I'll spend on a good one? Do headphone amps do anything more besides making headphones sound louder? I get enough volume out of my ipod/PC, so I'm guessing the headphone amp will provide more detail and not just more volume. Am I correct?

I'll check out the head-fi.org link and hope it will be helpful. Further, do you recommend any decent USB DACs for listening to music or will a good soundcard like M-Audio 2496 be enough in that regard? Thanks.

JM

Well if you are happy with the levels you can achieve with your current soundcard why the urge to "improve"?
Besides if your goal is just to get the max out of those earphones take a look at headfi and be ready for a slippery slope . It really depends how far are you willing to go and where is your personal point of diminished returns...

Many of the drivers commonly used for headphones lose bass with hard to drive loads. I have measurements of frequency response versus load for a 1G ipod around somewhere.

I wonder how much I may have already damaged my ears by listening to loud, low-quality music for extended periods. I now want to listen to music that sounds good (as close to as its intended sound as I can afford) at reasonable volumes. To that end, I wouldn't get headphone amps for louder volume. But if they also make the music sound better through whatever mechanism, then it's something I'd want to try.

As it stands, I know nothing about getting high-quality music out of my components. I can't even tell the difference in sound quality between my Grado SR80s and my ipod ear buds when I play high-quality jazz (compressed). I don't even know what I'd need to buy to put a home stereo together. I digress. In the past 3 days, I've sat on my PC, reading threads about headphones, headphone amps (as of this morning), and all that jazz, and I still know next to nothing. I want to get returns on my time spent investigating instead of coming up with more questions.

Can you recommend a good beginner guide to good sound? To putting a stereo system together? To the purpose of headphone amps? I'll gladly research these things myself, but will hold off until I know whether you guys have resources on hand.

Thanks,
JM

cabbagerat already mentioned one reason. The headphone output on my amp is way too noisy, and if I plug my headphones directly to the soundcard, I need to lower the master volume in the mixer (which I don't want to do. I want to change the volume in analog domain). So I built myself a headphone amp around a Burr Brown OPA2134. It easily drives both hi-impedance (600 Ohm) HD 414 SL and low-impedance (16 Ohm) CX 300, it's very low noise and uses batteries for power supply.

Thanks, eevan. I didn't notice his reply b/c I was typing mine when he posted his. So, to my understanding, headphone amps handle some of the impendance issues and, long story short, this results in higher fidelity. Correct?

Okay, so next question. Would you recommend the CMoy headphone amp for ipod and PC soundcard (x-fi xtrememusic or something like that) paired with Grado SR80 ? Or is there a better choice at a similar price?

JM

Yes, in a nutshell a headphone amp would be able to better drive your grado's. I suggest you read at www.tnt-audio.com,www.soundstage.com and www.tnt-audio.com for more info regarding "hifi". You can get very good gear from Trendsaudio, Hagdac and Benchmark for example.

You could also take a look at an external audio interface with a built-in headphone amp. The EMU 0404 USB seems to be very popular but I don't know if you would be able to use as a headphone amp for the ipod as well.



It's hard to find good texts on this subject that avoids high-end flummery. I read this book by John Watkinson a while ago and I found it quite good, although it's geared more towards sound engineers. It has a lot of useful information but it can be a bit technical, and the chapter on subjective evaluation I also found a bit wierd. You can read an exerpt from the book at Amazon.

If you ask questions in the forums here i'm sure you will get lots of good answers as well. In genaral the loudspeakers and the listening room (or the headphones) is what makes the most difference so most of your energy should be spent there.

Basicaly, yes. It depends on the source. I feed it from line out ports of CD player and soundcard.

Yes, CMoy's amp is clean and simple. It's a basic noninverting amplifier. I just use a buffered virtual ground circuit instead of a simple resistor divider.

[/quote]Yes, CMoy's amp is clean and simple. It's a basic noninverting amplifier. I just use a buffered virtual ground circuit instead of a simple resistor divider.
[/quote]

I actually went with a PAV2 after doing some research on head-fi.org. It's supposedly warmer, and more appropriate for Grado headphones.

Rather avoid tnt-audio.com and the likes. These sites are examples of "audiophile" sites, a subsection of the internet more interested in spending a lot of money than getting good sound quality. Unfortunately, telling the two cultures apart ("audiophile" and "HiFi") is rather difficult.

I see you disagree. Any better alternatives?
I always thought that those have some expensive "highend"gear, but there is also a lot of inexpensive products. A large DIY section too...