Hello all at Hydrogenaudio,

I'm the owner of a pair of ears and some good music...
So I'd like to use 'em.

What I'm currently running on is a Creative Labs CA0106 sound card, which came with the computer, which then runs to my Sennheiser HD650s.

This is not exactly the ideal situation.


What I'm looking for is a list of stuff I should get to get the most value out of my headphones.
I'm guessing it would be something like a new sound card and a headphone amplifier.

I've seen a lot of stuff that's really expensive (more than the headphones) and stuff that's dirt-cheap but shady in terms of quality.


So, I'd like to bring this fairly easy-to-ask but hard-to-answer (for me) question to the experts here...

Thanks,
Darius

Focus on the stuff that you can definitely quantify and hear first before you get to the really tweaky stuff (which this forum doesn't engage in anyway). Run an RMAA test with the headphones disconnected/connected and see if there is a significant bass drop with them connected; if so, and/or the volume is not loud enough for dynamic music, you may want to grab a headphone amp. If there is substantial background noise to the sound card output you may want to upgrade sound cards.

It's a lot easier to feel insecure about the way one drives ones' headphones than to actually justify the usual upgrade paths suggested. The iPod is a fairly classic example of a much-maligned analog output that is actually shockingly good when you get right down to it.

Amen Axon.

The iPod is still one of the most musically satisfying pieces of audio equipment I have ever owned.

Actually it's only hard to answer because a lot of the "facts" that are stated everyday are not accurate or tested in a rigorous method. A headphone amp is only required in a few select circumstances (Axon has stated them) and I've found my motherboard's onboard sound is able to drive the HD650 without issue. I've tried a headphone amp but could not tell the difference between using it and plugging the HD600 or HD650 straight into the computer.

Agreed with Axon, odigg, and cyberdux. While the Creative Labs CA0106 (apparently an OEM version of the Audigy SE) is not expensive, it seems to perform well in Rightmark tests. And, the performance of the HD650 is just fine. This all begs the guestions that have already been asked - what's sonically wrong with it in the ears of the all-important owner?

Thanks all for your responses.

I would run the RMAA test, but I'm on a Linux box and don't really feel like trying to run a Windows program that directly interacts with hardware, because it would probably not work / report something inaccurate.
Does anyone know of a Linux alternative?


Personally, I feel like the headphones don't respond to the bass as well as they should. If I manually equalize it, the bass does come through, but it's more "punchy" or what-not, and doesn't feel as "full". Obviously, those are two very subjective terms, but I think you should get the idea.
My gut tells me that increasing power to the headphones would have them respond to the bass better.

Switching from the motherboard's on-board sound to the CA0106 helped a lot with the problem, but I feel like it can still do a lot better.


I'm not particularly experienced in this area, but I think the headphones aren't the problem.

Note: I have owned them for 6-7 months now, and I'd say they would be burned-in now, both the headphones and my ears.


Thanks again for any help.

RMAA should work perfectly fine under Wine. I don't think you will find any equivalent software for Linux.

There are "good" and "bad" ways to implement bass eq, and IIRC, the ways you might be adjusting the bass may fall under the "bad" ways. See if you can hunt down a parametric eq plugin somewhere that can do a low-q boost at 20-40hz before you dismiss eq'ing. As a recent post suggested, the common wisdom for what exactly is a "flat" response is in the air at the moment, particularly with headphones, and this lack of bass you are hearing may very well be due to the headphones rather than the amplifiers.

I tried running RMAA on WINE right now, and it doesn't seem to complete any of the tests (it cuts out at 85% and doesn't return results).

I also searched for a parametric equalizer plugin, but I can't seem to find one.
My usual player of audio is just mplayer, and I usually equalized with -af equalizer or -af sub,pan

Does anyone know of a good way for good bass eq on Linux?

Increasing power to the headphones within their linear limits would make they respond to all frequencies in such a way that they would provide a higher acoustical level.

If the sound levels you are currently achieving are too low, then the fact that our ears are less responsive to bass at low levels may cause you to think that they are bass-shy.

We recently discussed some inexpenisve headphone amps and found that this one at least looks good on paper.

Search ebay for: FIIO E5 HEADPHONE AMP

You might want to look at the RMAA for the fiio

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f105/fiio-rmaa-363365/

It has a pretty solid bass boost. I would never recommend such a product.

It's been my experience that open headphones do not have the bass impact you typically find with closed headphones. The usual conclusion is that an amp is required, but this seems to miss the actual problem. I prefer closed headphones because of this.

Looking around, it seems like the Fiio E5 has a "bass boost" mode and a "flat" mode. Is it possible that those RMAA were taken under the "bass boost" mode?

I do not know. I think those RMAA tests were done with the Fiio E3, not the E5. I have not seen an RMAA for the E5.

I thought I'd just make another point. The amp in your sound card probably works off a 5v supply, maybe even a -5,+5 volt supply. The Fiio E3 works off one AA battery. I don't know about the E5, but it seems like the lithium ion batteries in many of these small devices is about 3.7 volts. Given those numbers, it's difficult for me to believe the Fiio is going to perform any better (give louder volumes without clipping) than the amp built into your sound card.

What I see is a 3 dB boost about 2 octaves wide centered at about 100 Hz. Its large enough that it is probably ABX-able, but not so large that it is likely to be a problem. There's supposed to be a switch that controls this. Since the RMAA test cited doesn't say which way the switch was set, and doesn't show the results from both positions, this is all a little ambigious in my mind.

I'm thinking of buying one for my own use.




These are all choices you get to make. I'm going to see what the actual product is like before I condemn it, given the ambiguity in the existing review. BTW the phones I propose to use it with are AT M50s, which could use a little oomph in the bass, anyhow. But, I'm not expecting too much out of a 3 dB rise at that low of frequency.

I actually just discovered I have an easy way to use all the LADSPA plugins with mplayer.

Do you think any of these would pull of the job well? http://plugin.org.uk/ladspa-swh/docs/ladspa-swh.html

I've been looking at mbeq, singlePara and triplePara... but I don't even fully understand how to use the last two since I'm not exactly well-versed in signal theory or anything.

Any help would be nice.