Headphone Amps/DACs Explained

INTRO: Prior to posting some headphone amp and DAC reviews I

wanted to cover some common issues with amps and DACs. Some
wonder if they need one at all. Others wonder
which is best.
HEADPHONE DACs vs DACs: This article
deals mainly with the headphone amp section
of headphone DACs. I will be covering the
digital aspects of DACs in more detail in a
future article. Many want to know if they can
get better sounding by adding a dedicated
headphone amp or headphone DAC Thats the
main focus of this article.
IS AN AMP OR DAC NEEDED? The short answer is: "probably less
than people think". A lot of people have no real complaints with the
sound they're getting but they read others claims of huge improvement
in the sound by adding often fairly expensive hardware. But sometimes
the perceived improvement is mostly psychological--a well documented
phenomena much like how a more expensive wine often tastes better
than a much cheaper wine until you put them both in plain brown paper
bags. See: Subjective vs Objective Debate
FIXING REAL PROBLEMS: Some have good reasons not to be
happy with the sound theyre getting directly from their device. It might
have audible noise, not get loud enough, or otherwise be a poor match
for their headphones. For these folks an amp or headphone DAC may
indeed be worth exploring. But they're not a cure-all. They can, in fact,
create more problems than they solve so dont just run out and spend
your hard earned cash on some magic box without doing some research.
THE CONVENIENCE FACTOR: An external AMP or DAC creates
more cabling, many need power (or to be recharged), may force you to

use a different volume control, etc. This generally makes things less
convenient than just plugging your headphones directly into the source
especially for portable use on the go. So the hassle needs to have
some real payoff or it doesnt make sense.
DO AMP/DACS SOUND DIFFERENT? Sometimes amps and
headphone DACs do sound different but not to the extent, or as often, as
many might think from reading all the subjective reviews and comments.
Here are most of the more common reasons:
Insufficient Power When a headphone source runs out of power
with typical compressed pop music youll typically either hear
distortion or it simply wont be loud enough with the volume all
the way up. With more dynamic music, like classical or well
recorded jazz, just the peaks may be clipped so it might not be as
obvious theres a power shortage. Power is a function of voltage
and current. And some amps, with a given headphone, run out of
current first and some run out of voltage first. See: More Power?
Non-Zero Output Impedance Output impedance is one of the
more common audible differences between anything with a
headphone jack. As a simple rule of thumb, if the headphones are
less than eight times the output impedance, the amp can alter the
sound. So if you have the FiiO E9 amp, which has an output
impedance of 10 ohms, you can only use headphones that are at
least 80 ohms, otherwise the amp might change the sound.
Breaking the eight times rule can result in muddy bass and even
audible frequency response changesespecially with balanced
armature in ear monitors such as Shures, Etymotics, Ultimate Ears,
etc. See the Impedance article for more.
Inaccurate Frequency Response Some amps roll off the bass
and/or high frequencies. The bass can be rolled off due to capacitor
coupled outputs which are generally used a cost saving measure in
many portables, laptops, and PCs. And capacitor coupled outputs

are usually required in single-ended amps and many tube amps.

Other tube amps use an output transformer that also limits the bass
response and can also roll off the highs. And some solid state amps
roll off the highs on purpose just so they can sound different
(some might say warmer others might say dull).
High Distortion Theres a lot of debate about what qualifies as
high, but a fair amount of research has been done so there are at
least some good clues. Most single-ended, tube, low feedback
(NFB) or zero feedback (NFB) amps have relatively high levels
of distortion and it may be easily audible. While some argue this
distortion can sweeten or otherwise somehow improve the
sound, theres no denying youre no longer listening to the just
your music but youre also forced to listen to your amp. Its sort of
like having someone softly murmuring in the background along
with your music. Thats not my idea of a high quality amp, but to
each their own.
Noise There are different kinds of noise. Computer headphone
jacks, for example, can have whines, buzzes, clicks, chirps, etc.
related to all the digital circuitry in the computer. Some portable
gear can have similar noises. Headphone amp noise is usually hiss
and/or hum. Its generally more of a problem with sensitive
headphonesespecially balanced armature in-ear types. Noise can
vary with the volume setting, types of connections, etc. See: Noise
& Dynamic Range
Insufficient Gain This usually isnt an issue with a USB
headphone DAC. But with standalone amps it can be. For a given
source the amp might not get loud enough even though, using the
right source and the amp has enough maximum output capability.
This can be due due to insufficient gain. See: All About Gain.
Impedance Mismatch This is a somewhat redundant category as
an impedance mis-match will create one or more of the above

problems. But its worth mentioning many headphone sources are

optimize more for low or high impedance headphones but not both.
For more see: Headphone Impedance
The Snake Oil Effect Some subjective audiophiles will tell you
the above dont matter as much as simply trusting your ears (or
often youre supposed to trust their ears even more). To be blunt,
study after study has proven them wrong when you slip whatever
theyre listening to under a brown paper bag or bedsheet so they
dont know which is which. Once they dont know what theyre
listening to, the Snake Oil Effect disappears and youre left with all
the parameters above determining the sound quality. If youre
skeptical, you might want to check out Subjective vs Objective
Debate.
A ROUGH GUIDELINE: If you have headphones designed for
portable consumer use that have an impedance of 80 ohms or less it's
very likely the manufacture designed them to be driven directly from a
typical device like an iPod. Using an amp or DAC with such headphones
usually won't improve their sound much, and might even make them
sound worse or create other problems like excess noise and channel
balance issues. This is especially true if your headphones already get
loud enough for your tastes. Generally, 16 32 ohm headphones with a
sensitivity rating of at least 100 dB/mW do not need an amplifier. The
exception might be balanced armature IEMs due to output impedance
issues. See: Output Impedance
iPOD DACs: I think most of these are a waste of money as most
modern iPods already have very respectable DACs in them. For
example, the iPod Touch 3Gs DAC outperforms the one in the popular
NuForce uDAC-2. I havent tested all the latest iPods, but in general,
their DACs already approach the point of diminishing returns. So its
rather difficult to significantly improve on them. See my Sansa Clip+
review for some iPod tests. And an external DAC can make jitter worse
because to get the signal to the external DAC the critical digital audio

clock (the very source of jitter in the first place) has to be embedded
along with the audio data and then extracted at the other end. This
introduces a new, and potentially significant, source of jitter thats not
present with the internal I2S interface inside the iPod. To be brutally
honest, most external iPod DACs are just manufactures looking to make
more money off the iPod audiophile revolution not products that make
sense.
PC DAC? If your source is a PC or Mac, should you use an outboard
DAC? It depends. If your PC is your main music source and you have a
very high quality speakers (which excludes 95% of desktop PC
speakers) and/or headphones in the $200+ category, then yes you might
want to consider an outboard DACespecially if you can hear any
audible flaws when using the one in your PC. But a lot of PCs have
respectable DACs in them. If the problem is your headphones not
getting loud enough, just an amp may be enough. Even something
inexpensive like the $20 FiiO E5 might do the trick.
EXTERNAL USB DAC ADVANTAGE WITH WINDOWS: Because
an external DAC is an added audio device, you can divide up your PC
sound sources accordingly. Have you ever wanted to listen to just music
and still have all the other sounds on your PC play through your desktop
speakers (so you dont get surprising blasts of Windows sounds in your
headphones while listing to music)? This is easy to do in Windows 7.
You can also do it in Vista and XP if your player supports assigning
itself to a different audio interface (like Foobar 2000 and many others
do). This also lets you set the volume for the external device to
maximum for bit accurate audio streaming while keeping everything else
set lower if you want. See the Computer Audio Setup guide by
Benchmark for more tips.
GOING SHOPPING: I was shopping myself for a decent headphone
amp that would work well with a variety of headphones and sources and
didnt cost more than a nice new laptop. You can read about what I
found here: Going Shopping Ultimately, I couldnt find a decent one-

size-fits-all amp so I designed my own and have shared the design as

open source hardware. Its called the Objective2 or O2.
BOTTOM LINE: Ive tried to present the basics above. Sometimes its
obvious when an external amp or headphone DAC is needed. But often
its much less obvious. Before buying anything I would strongly suggest
also checking out the following articles (also linked in the text above):
More Power?
Headphone Impedance
All About Gain
Noise & Dynamic Range
Subjective vs Objective Debate

TECH SECTION:
AMP CATEGORIES: In terms of their design, I like to divide
headphone amps (or the amp sections of headphone DACs) into five
broad categories:
CMOY Single Op Amp There are many variations of these but
theyre all at least somewhat similar to the original Chu Moy
design. Grado offered the RA1 which has been frequently cloned.
These amps were originally an inexpensive way to drive higher
impedance headphones. They tend to have trouble with low
impedance headphones as most op amps just cant deliver the
current required. And even for higher impedance loads a single op
amp handling both gain and output duties involves some
significant compromises. A lot of pro sound interfaces, and even
dedicated headphone amps, use this sort of design. The Behringer

UCA202 is one example. These either require 2 batteries, a dual

power supply in a desktop amp, or they use capacitor coupled
output or a rail splitter/virtual ground. All the single supply
versions are typically flawed. See Virtual Grounds for more info.
Multi-Stage IC Amps These are typically an improvement on
the single stage Cmoy-style amps because the gain stage can be
isolated from the output stage. This can lower noise and distortion
as well as improve stability.
Discrete Designs Some headphone amps either dont use op
amps at all, or they use them only for the input stages. The output
circuits use discrete bipolar transistors or MOSFETs sometimes
operating in Class A for lower distortion. These amps can typically
deliver much more current and generally are better suited to lower
impedance headphones as well as high impedance models (with
the appropriate gain). But many are poorly designed and have no
serious measurements, or often even specs, to back up their
performance. Discrete design is tricky to get right. The Violectric
V100 is an example of a well engineered amp with a discrete
output stage.
Buffer Designs Companies like TI and National Semiconductor
have developed output buffers well suited for driving headphones.
Theyre essentially small self-contained power output stages
capable of relatively high power levels and very low distortion.
One example is the National LME49600. These can offer
extremely high performanceoften higher than discrete designs.
The Violectric V90 is an example of such an amp, as is the
Headphone amp built into the Benchmark DAC1.
Headphone Chip Amps A lot of portable devices use self
contained headphone chips. They tend to be optimized for low
power consumptions and to work best with typical portable low
impedance headphones. A good example is the TI TPA6130 used

in the FiiO E5 and FiiO E7. The PA2V2 uses the LM4881 which is
an inferior headphone chip amp that requires capacitor coupled
outputs and has more limited performance.
Esoteric Designs The Nelson Pass Zen single ended MOSFET
amps, single ended triode tube amps, tube amps, Schiit Audio
amps, etc. fit into this category. These typically minimalist amps
usually have rather poor measured performance often with audible
distortion. But they have their own loyal following for people who
seem more interested in listening to their amps contribution rather
than the actual music.
MAC's & PC's CAN MESS THINGS UP: Even when you play a high
quality FLAC file in say Foobar 2K you're still at the mercy of the
operating system which has the ability to include all the other sound
sources on your PC into the mix. And that might include things like the
microphone input which tends to be very noisy. So, at the least, make
sure you mute or disable as many unwanted sound sources as possible. If
you have an outboard DAC you can set it up so your music source feeds
it while everything else plays through the PCs sound hardware. See the
Computer Audio Playback Guide for more.
MAC's & PC's CAN DEGRADE RESOLUTION & ACCURACY:
Depending on what computer, sound hardware, and operating system
you have, your computer may not, by default, stream "bit accurate"
audio even with an external DAC. On OS-X, before Leopard, the
operating system took it upon itself to resample most audio. Resampling
can have audible artifacts and isn't what you want if you're trying to play
back that pristine FLAC file on your expensive outboard DAC. And
before Vista and Win 7, Microsoft XP's built in "mixer" had some
known problems delivering bit accurate streams. And there are often
settings in the operating system or sound driver that let you configure
various options like optimizing for small speakers, big speakers,
headphones, etc. These settings amount to DSP and they alter the audio
in ways that may degrade the sound of an external DAC. For more

information about bit accurate streaming and how to assure you're

getting it (when possible) check out: Computer Audio Playback Guide
USB POWER IS NOISY: Many of the reasonably priced USB DACs
are USB powered. The USB power bus suffers from lots of noise. The
very wires that deliver the DC power are right next to high speed noisy
data signals bundled into the same cable. It's also power shared with
other USB devices on the system which may even include things like RF
Bluetooth or WiFi "dongles" which add RF noise.
VOLUME TRACKING: When you use efficient headphones on a high
gain headphone amp, you will likely find yourself only using the first
third or so of the volume control. This isn't good for several reasons. The
obvious one is tiny movements of the control make relatively big
changes in volume. And, due to the way exponential volume controls
and voltage dividers work, the tracking between the right and left
channels is usually much worse at the lowest settings. So using only the
first third of the range means you're far more likely to encounter audible
channel balance problems. Generally anything more than 1 dB of error
can be audible. NuForce used an especially low quality pot in their
uDAC-2. The one I tested had over 10 dB of error at the lowest audible
settings!
BOTTOM LINE: If youre happy with the volume and sound quality
you have now, Id strongly suggest simply enjoying the music and
leaving well enough alone. If you think you need an amp, but are not
sure, consider the $20 FiiO E5 as a toe in the water to see if you an amp
will really help. For little more than the price of a CD or two you can try
out a very decent little amp. If you want a more serious amp, Im hoping
my own O2 amp design will become commercially available offering a
lot of performance at a very reasonable price. If you cant wait, Id
suggest using products like the Violectric amps as your benchmark to
compare others against. If whatever amp your looking at has limited or
sketchy specs, you might want to do more research. If youre after a
DAC, the Benchmark DAC1, Grace Designs products, Anedio D1 and

similar products can serve as excellent benchmarks to compare other

DACs against. Again, if a manufacture cant provide detailed specs,
think twice. They probably either never even properly tested their
product (as with the NuForce uDAC-2), or if they did, theyre
embarrassed to share the results.