Tokyo Apple Store to give ear to headphone amps!

[shigzeo]

Original thread: Tokyo Apple Store to give ear to headphone amps!

Pretty cool actually. When I was in Tokyo meeting with DIY builders of audio equipment, I met a lot of great lads and lasses who are dedicated beyond belief. By that I mean that the OFF Meeting organiser, BJ (Mr. Takayama), will be visiting Apple to show them the usefulness of portable headphone amps for sound quality.

There are bound to be employees who are excited about it, but regarding Apple's acceptance, anything can be guessed. In the UK, Apple have already partnered with ETY and ACS to supply custom earpieces for ETY earphones: Apple are into sound quality. But whereas ACS and ETY have been in the market for many years, supplying hi end earphones, most amplifier manufacturers, accept long-timers such as Headroom and Meier Audio, are new to the scene, and unknown.

Will the lure of improved sound quality lure Apple to the better sounding side? Hard to say without this post turning into a comic-book story. My nails are already bit to the quick.

[Ron]

I must claim eargnorance (sorry i could not resist ) to the subject of headphone amplifiers. I always thought amplifiers simply put out more power. Is this to be used on earbuds or actual headphones? Do earbuds sound better with an amplifier or is the idea to be able to use better sounding headphones that need the power? Or, more likely, have I missed the point completely...

[shigzeo]

Ron, my friend, I really wish we were in California together so I could earge you (couldn't resist) to listen to nice headphones with a good amp. Well, I will try to explain as you ask a lot of GOOD questions.

Firstly, yes, amplifiers do add more power. But that doesn't necessarily more volume. It can, but sometimes, it doesn't. The iPod or iPhone already has a lot of power which can 'drive' earphones or headphones to dangerous levels. Ever hear kids on the buss with earphones cranked to 90% or higher? All you hear is distortion and the screaming pain of brain cells. Well, that is stupidity.

What amps help with is twofold: first volume for very quiet headphones. I have a 600Ω headphone: DT880. It is great, sounds good from most sources, but plugged into my Sony, there is like nothing to hear. At home, I drive it via a very nice Amp: Einar VC-01i. That amp in particular is very spacious: music stands wider and layers (where instruments are placed) is very succinct. The effect is overwhelming. That same amp driving earphones is a mismatch: volume balance is off, transient parts are good, but smeared a bit. Overall, my earphones are being overdriven - too much power.

A portable amp comes in two flavours: for earphones and for headphones. Ones which are meant to drive earphones do their best to deliver all the power the earphones need to sound their best. The iPod touch and iPhone are very nice sounding devices. I dare you to connect the up to a mate's prized home system, not telling him that your iphone is playing. He will probably not know it is an iPhone - it's probably his Marantz.

Well, as good as they sound, they fall flat on their faces especially when driving balanced armature earphones (as in the picture). Most earphones from: Shure, Etymotic, Sleek, Ultimate Ears, Jerry Harvey - most expensive earphones use this technology. If you have a nice earphone to listen to music, that is the first and most important step. But that earphone, as small as it is, will overload the capacitators of your iPod, or will flux well below the iPod's threshold to drive.

The result is loss off bass, left to right closure, and audible rise in distortion: especially in bass. There are other effects, but I won't get into them. Portable amps unload the iPod's internal amp so that it can just play music and the amp will do the work. A good amp will power the earphones with no loss of bass, with lower noise floor, with better imaging and clearer highs.

Not all amps are created equally as you will see here.

[NineSwords]

Thanks a lot for the explanation. I didn't know that. Like Ron I thought they would only make everything louder...

[shigzeo]

Some, like boosters have very little effect on a digital audio player's output. I am trying to chronicle the best buys, because, little though you may know, there are a lot of people who are interested in making their portable audio player into a perfection of audio bliss. I have ordered two more for the time being and will do some home ones as well eventually - if you value sound on the go, a portable headphone amp (which can do its job correctly) is amazing.

I fully recommend the ALO Rx for earphones and balanced armatures, and the Graham Slee Voyager for larger headphones such as the Sennheiser PX100 or even the massive DT880.

But my favourite isn't available for purchase yet: I heard it at the Tokyo Off Meeting (up in first post) - it is the one in a strange plastic case with DJ or club written on it. That app has good to medium power, but the best control over both earphones and midsize headphones I have ever heard.

[NineSwords]

I'm perfectly happy with the quality I get of my equipment.

But I read a few years back about a Do-It-Yourself tube amp in a tin box. This would actually interest me as a building project once I overcome my WoW addiction.

[shigzeo]

Oh yes, there are many very good kits to make a nice amp. And if you become good, you could sell to easy people like me!

[Ron]

Wow! Thanks for the lesson shigzeo. It's great to have experts on the site/forum.

[shigzeo]

Well, BJ has come back from the meeting and said it went well - that is as good as I could hope of course, but really - I want to hear more. I'll keep on eye out for his messages. If Apple got its eye on supplying good portable amps at the store, a whole new business could take off and casual listeners could find something else besides games to really enjoy from their iPhones.

Can Not Wait For Updates.

[shigzeo]

Well, it looks like a follow-up meeting has been scheduled and I missed it. Short proximity to Japan has kept me on the edge of grabbing a ticket to support the meetings, but there is no way to get there before tomorrow. BJ said that the meeting went well, and from his successive meetings, I would wager that is no less the truth than the sky being blue. More news as it comes.