Chances are, the amplifier your computer has, is already enough

[Dawnshine Wonder 279]

After I have listened to this video I have to admit Crincacle makes a compelling point, it only takes 1 milliwatt to drive headphones to their specified sensitivity level.

Not only this but what a lot of people may not realize is too much volume, even at 98 decibels sustained, can damage your hearing. I'm not saying a dedicated amplifier/DAC cannot improve audio in other areas than just their loudness, but even LinusTechTips said onboard audio is nowhere near as terrible as it used to be, for one thing because of how powerful modern CPU's are, audio is no longer a significant performance hit to your system. Whether or not you need a separate DAC, well, trust your ears, if you notice any interference, then sure, it's worth the investment to get an external DAC, but having done research myself about this, I wouldn't underestimate motherboard audio because how good a DAC is depends on its implementation, whether or not it has sufficient isolation and grounding. Anyhow I thought I'd share this, with the hope that it would save some people money. My advice is, ignore the loudness wars hype, and look at features that benefit you, a consumer. Most 100 dollar DACs are easily enough to get the job done, if you do the research you'd be surprised the quality you can get in budget friendly options.

 

 

[Pentium100 2,179]

I prefer to use an external headphone amplifier for these reasons:

1. It sounds nice. 
2. I listen to other devices, not just my PC and while some of them (like my tape decks) have their own headphone outputs, not all do them do and it would be annoying to plug my headphones into each of them. 
3. Sometimes the source I listen to is lower level and while the PC sound card may have enough power to drive my headphones, it may not have enough gain. 
4. (this is important reason) hardware volume control. I prefer to be able to control the volume without having to trust that software is going to work properly and not freeze or crash producing horrible loud sound in my ears until I unplug the headphones or take them off. Even when the software works, it may just be inconvenient to adjust the volume instead of turning a knob.
5. I have high impedance headphones (300ohm) that I use at home, it is harder to drive them compared to lower impedance headphones. On the other hand, they work nicely with my vacuum tube headphone amp.

 

Obviously I need amplifiers to drive speakers, the PC sound card does not have enough power to do that.

Edited February 6 by Pentium100

[Dawnshine Wonder 279]

I see your point, with high impedance headphones we do run into some limitations with onboard audio, the majority of consumers do not own those however. 300ohm headphones, like Sennheiser hd660S2 or something similar, I presume? there's that, doesn't matter which company you are with, what matters is you got a quality product. It's not just impedance that determines how hard they are to drive though, it is part of the reason, but sensitivity or efficiency of the transducers determines it as well, and many modern headphones use very efficient drivers to convert electrical current into soundwaves, something to do with the strength of the magnets they use it would appear to be? ask a scientist or engineer, not me.

I use a solid state amp, not a tube amp, so I wouldn't know how different they are, all that matters to me is they work. You said you use tapes? if you're going for the retro feel for music I do see the appeal, it's the reason why some people still like vinyl, for some people analog recordings are special. Some music we cannot even buy digitally due to being exclusive to other formats, I know of a video game soundtrack that isn't on CD that is on PS1 unless you count the game itself, Total Drivin, kind of wished I had a turntable for the vinyl of the techno used in the game.

My headphones are the Sennheiser hd560S, which are only 120ohm, they are fairly easy to drive, but they can still benefit from an external DAC when used with optical which has galvanic isolation. Toslink though an old technology now, I still find it to have practical uses because it supports lossless PCM, for headphones, it is enough because headphones generally only use stereo. Even DSD 64 which is supported by Toslink is at SACD level quality, can you go higher on USB? of course, but the higher you go, the more memory intensive it gets. I would find it annoying to have to store terabytes of data just to hold a collection of DSD files, it's expensive for very little if any gain in sound quality, similar to comparing 16bit PCM to 24bit PCM. Besides, 44.1khz sample rate is already enough to cover the limit of human hearing, which gets worse as we get older, healthy human ears can typically hear up to about 20khz frequency, and this decreases with time. This is why a properly mastered CD will be more than enough, anything more is placebo IMO.

 

[Pentium100 2,179]

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

like Sennheiser hd660S2 or something similar, I presume?

My headphones are MB Quart QP 805 HS. The company has changed its name (or was bought by another company or something) and now goes by German Maestros, but still sells headphones similar to mine. 

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

It's not just impedance that determines how hard they are to drive though, it is part of the reason, but sensitivity or efficiency of the transducers determines it as well

Yes. The thing about higher impedance is that it needs higher voltage for the same power and a PC sound card or whatever may not have enough voltage. 

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

You said you use tapes?

Cassettes, reel to reel tapes, records, CDs, video tapes, I use a lot of different media. I recently got a DAT deck for example. I do not know if I am goign to use it a lot, but it is fun to use the different formats.

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

I use a solid state amp, not a tube amp, so I wouldn't know how different they are, all that matters to me is they work.

In general, tubes (if the amp does not have output transformers) are limited by the current, but can produce a lot of voltage. So, for my headphone amp, the higher the impedance (within reason) the more power it can produce.

I am somewhat of an electronics nerd. I built that headphone amp myself (though I used a circuit diagram I found online) and some other tube amps for speakers. 

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

if you're going for the retro feel for music I do see the appeal, it's the reason why some people still like vinyl, for some people analog recordings are special.

I also have a lot of recordings in those formats and in some cases they are more convenient for me. For example, I can play a cassette at home in my car or I can use a walkman. Since the music is playing by a separate device (and not my PC), I can quickly pause/stop it without having to open the program that plays it etc. 

I can buy used tapes and find some cool music on them. I am also more inclined to buy a record than a CD. I would rather buy a CD than a file though. 

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

Besides, 44.1khz sample rate is already enough to cover the limit of human hearing

In theory, yes. In practice it depends on the ADC and the DAC, but, in general, yeah, it's pretty good.

23 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

I know of a video game soundtrack that isn't on CD that is on PS1 unless you count the game itself

I never had a PlayStation, but some PC games of that era used CD-Audio for their music, so you can probably just put the CD in a CD player and it will play (skip track 1 as it contains the data - some players output a lot of noise when playing it, some are silent).

[Dawnshine Wonder 279]

On 2025-02-07 at 2:35 PM, Pentium100 said:

My headphones are MB Quart QP 805 HS. The company has changed its name (or was bought by another company or something) and now goes by German Maestros, but still sells headphones similar to mine. 

Yes. The thing about higher impedance is that it needs higher voltage for the same power and a PC sound card or whatever may not have enough voltage. 

Cassettes, reel to reel tapes, records, CDs, video tapes, I use a lot of different media. I recently got a DAT deck for example. I do not know if I am goign to use it a lot, but it is fun to use the different formats.

In general, tubes (if the amp does not have output transformers) are limited by the current, but can produce a lot of voltage. So, for my headphone amp, the higher the impedance (within reason) the more power it can produce.

I am somewhat of an electronics nerd. I built that headphone amp myself (though I used a circuit diagram I found online) and some other tube amps for speakers. 

I also have a lot of recordings in those formats and in some cases they are more convenient for me. For example, I can play a cassette at home in my car or I can use a walkman. Since the music is playing by a separate device (and not my PC), I can quickly pause/stop it without having to open the program that plays it etc. 

I can buy used tapes and find some cool music on them. I am also more inclined to buy a record than a CD. I would rather buy a CD than a file though. 

In theory, yes. In practice it depends on the ADC and the DAC, but, in general, yeah, it's pretty good.

I never had a PlayStation, but some PC games of that era used CD-Audio for their music, so you can probably just put the CD in a CD player and it will play (skip track 1 as it contains the data - some players output a lot of noise when playing it, some are silent).

Well of course, more resistance increases the amount of voltage needed, MB Quart QP 805 HS have decent specs on them, if I'm not mistaken one forum somebody else showed on the box that it can handle 100mw of continuous power. You said you made the amp yourself using an electronics diagram online which is impressive. I've seen diagrams before but unless I have experience doing it I wouldn't trust myself with a nice pair of headphones.

You're right though there is a limit to what internal soundcards can output, high impedance headphones are sort of an uncommon thing, a lot of people still use earbuds that either came with their smartphone or they purchased separately, which do not require much energy at all, even if people buy cans, they're generally in the 32ohm to 64ohm range because this is what people would realistically expect a laptop or smartphone to drive. What you're using appears to fall in the audiophile category, I've thought about getting the Audio Technica r70x, but I think it's more sensible to wait until my Sennheiser hd560s burn out before I do that. They're a good pair of headphones as is, so I don't mind this, they're neutral profile with an open back design, which is the type of headphones I favour for accuracy. The Sennheiser hd560s are moderate impedance, but they get the job done, and they're certainly preferable to something like the Apple airpods, which are glorified bluetooth earbuds.

The creative sound blaster audigy fx v2 internal soundcard I have in my PC, I'm no expert but I'd suspect they would output somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50mw for headphones but it depends and that's likely only in the case of 32ohm I believe, so I can see why that would be a problem, it does limit the dynamic range, in that case a dedicated headphone amp would be helpful regardless.

[Pentium100 2,179]

2 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

What you're using appears to fall in the audiophile category

What I also like about my headphones is that they are really durable. I have seen youtube videos where someone puts them on the ground and stands on them. After breaking some other headphones I decided to buy ones that are less likely to break.

So far some decorative elements have fallen off, I had to replace the pads and the cable jacket has hardened and breaks once in a while (just the jacket, the internal wires are fine), so I wrap some electrical tape on it. I bought those headphones in 2008 and still use them every day.

 

As for a PC soundcard - it may have the power needed, but may not have the gain needed. For example, if you have a file that's recorded with lower level, the sound card may not be able to boost the volume enough (even though if you open the file in editing software, boost the volume and then play it the sound card has enough power). 

The reason I like using an external headphone amp is the other features, not just the power output and gain. 

2 hours ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

They're a good pair of headphones as is, so I don't mind this, they're neutral profile with an open back design, which is the type of headphones I favour for accuracy.

Cool. At home I prefer closed headphones because the room is somewhat noisy from the servers. Closed headphones means I do not have to turn the volume up as much. 

[Dawnshine Wonder 279]

On 2025-02-09 at 3:34 AM, Pentium100 said:

What I also like about my headphones is that they are really durable. I have seen youtube videos where someone puts them on the ground and stands on them. After breaking some other headphones I decided to buy ones that are less likely to break.

So far some decorative elements have fallen off, I had to replace the pads and the cable jacket has hardened and breaks once in a while (just the jacket, the internal wires are fine), so I wrap some electrical tape on it. I bought those headphones in 2008 and still use them every day.

 

As for a PC soundcard - it may have the power needed, but may not have the gain needed. For example, if you have a file that's recorded with lower level, the sound card may not be able to boost the volume enough (even though if you open the file in editing software, boost the volume and then play it the sound card has enough power). 

The reason I like using an external headphone amp is the other features, not just the power output and gain. 

Cool. At home I prefer closed headphones because the room is somewhat noisy from the servers. Closed headphones means I do not have to turn the volume up as much. 

That's a fair point to make, it is true high gain could help compensate for low volumes in recordings. Though high gain comes with its own downsides, it can distort the audio, which is why I prefer low gain in most scenarios. I don't use audio editing software with the exception of file conversion software, sometimes I want to rip CD to FLAC. As for closed back headphones, true, they also have the advantage of not annoying passengers next to us on trains or buses. At home though, my 560S's are fine for this, I don't have noisy systems in my bedroom, I'm fortunate in that situation, some people live in areas where noisy traffic can be heard, closed back headphones help with that too.

[Pentium100 2,179]

9 minutes ago, Dawnshine Wonder said:

Though high gain comes with its own downsides, it can distort the audio, which is why I prefer low gain in most scenarios.

Normally, there should be almost no distortion unless you exceed the output rating of the amplifier.  But the good part of an external headphone amplifier is that it has a volume knob and I can just set the volume (gain) at whatever I want while keeping the PC output set at max volume.