D2 with an AMP, anyone tried?

[goatherder]

RE: Cowon's recommendations, take a look at this:



That is a Sony MZ-RH1 on 'flat' setting, being run into a Sennheiser HD25-1 headphone (70 ohm impedance) with PCM (i.e. WAV) data at a slightly-above-sensible level with the headphones. The RH1 is Sony's current flagship portable player (a Hi-MD) equipped with the supposedly 'HD' digital amp, which in the above measurements was run at exactly the same volume (the "listening volume 1" - i.e. listvol1 - is a standard I've set which all but the most crippled players can comfortably reach and represents a realistic listening level for many).

It's not an accident: In Line Out mode, the RH1 is actually flat, just like the D2 when all FX are turned off and it's connected to a line-level load. You can read about people raving about the sound quality of this machine surpassing anything else, even those who apparently own multiple players and listen closely. I took a listen, suspected a subtle hump of some sort, eventually stuck it on the soundcard and there it was. In terms of specs, bearing in mind that the D2 is not a total standout in terms of sound quality although it is generally excellent, you'll see that the RH1 is not looking like a standout either (although it too is actually very good as well in the overall scheme of things).

BTW, before you go 'WHOA' in comparison to the picture in the last posting, you should note the scale of the graphs

I know engineers out there might say "who's going to pick up a .5db variance?" well people do... not perhaps at being able to point a finger at the changes but people can pick out a difference between sources with identical specs but with a sub-db variance in certain bands especially if they want to hear a difference. I just happen to know now to look for a hump if I hear a certain type of slight 'richness' from the sound - which many Sonys consistently exhibit.

I'm being somewhat snide here, but I mean if people are raving about the 'superior sound quality' of a very subtly shaped EQ curve, then I guess Cowon might be consumer-right in saying "set it at -12" and form 'the bowl' for a somewhat less subtle rendition of the same thing...?

__________________________________________________ ______


Personally I'm perfectly OK with the D2 unamped and unFX'd - it's fine for me quality and power wise not to need amping with sensible headphones for the job. It's not like I'm going to try and stick an HD650 on this thing. If you measure the headphone-loaded attributes of the player with an amp vs unamped the benefits are not absolutely clearly visible/audible. The same goes for an A/B test. Oh yes, there are undoubtedly some variations but careful headphone choice may yield better actual SQ results than spending the same on an amp + lower-end headphone.

[clarus55]

I've been wondering if I could get a line-out from my D2, since I purchased it.

Finally, I got an reasonable solution for it from this thread.
(Especially, the flat graph is very helpful. Thanks, james.)

When I get back home today, I'll try the 'line-out' to my amp and speakers.

[blipmusic]

Originally Posted by goatherder

I'm being somewhat snide here, but I mean if people are raving about the 'superior sound quality' of a very subtly shaped EQ curve, then I guess Cowon might be consumer-right in saying "set it at -12" and form 'the bowl' for a somewhat less subtle rendition of the same thing...?

__________________________________________________ ______


Personally I'm perfectly OK with the D2 unamped and unFX'd - it's fine for me quality and power wise not to need amping with sensible headphones for the job. It's not like I'm going to try and stick an HD650 on this thing. If you measure the headphone-loaded attributes of the player with an amp vs unamped the benefits are not absolutely clearly visible/audible. The same goes for an A/B test. Oh yes, there are undoubtedly some variations but careful headphone choice may yield better actual SQ results than spending the same on an amp + lower-end headphone.

Wow, thanks for doing those tests!

Well, I still cry a little (ok, ok maybe I don't) every time I think of the D2's lack of a line-out. Maybe we're getting spoiled here since AFAIK there's no flash-based player with a proper line-out available anyway (as in a 3.5mm mini, that is: *without* a special built dock like the nano). My biggest gripe with my nano dock/line-out solution is the "fragileness" of the connection. Having a mini-out would make things much easier since I could buy/build a right-angle mini making for a sturdy setup/connection.

Rant aside, I'm also getting used to my ER4S' (100 ohm) soundsignature and without an amp they sound a bit lifeless. As you're saying it's not about a world of difference as an ER4P directly of the HP-out sounds good already and choosing the right headphone for you is to most people the better thing to do. But now me and my ears know the difference between ER4S w/ amp and ER4P w/o amp and I'm getting to the point where there are about two solutions: 1) Use a dramatically different headphone than the ER4 when unamped so I can't expect the soundsig of my ER4's or 2) Always go amped w/ ER4S. I'm leaning towards 2)... For that purpose I need an amp with as little "maintenance" as possible, ie great battery life, sturdy build and about the same size as the D2. All this made me choose the Tomahawk before the SuperMicro (which people actually seem to like more together with the ER4). I'm not a seasoned headphone guy in any way. I don't have 30 headphones at home to compare with. It's just that my ears discovered the difference of the nano/amp setup and liked it a little too much... Compared to the D2 (w/ amp:ed HP-out) it's (next to) hiss free, more open and even/smoother sounding. *sigh*

But yes, when I don't want/need that much isolation I use my D2 unamped with either buds or smaller headphones.

[goatherder]

The D2's "Line Out" is perfectly respectable IMO, provided you remember to turn off the FX and you set the volume to 49. I've measured it against other DAPs, even those with dedicated switched line-outs and I think it squares up quite favourably. There are better but those will be small differences, and there's a whole lot that's comparable - but nevertheless it's perfectly respectable among it's peers.

As I was saying in a slightly roundabout way perhaps, it's a case of whether it's actually worth amping the D2 given the headphone-out performance, especially with higher-impedance phones like the ER-4S, and also whether it's worth amping it from the point of view of comparing the output from the amped signal vs the direct headphone-out signal and whether there's a real superiority out of the amped setup. That players these days are generally as good as they are means that portable amps have to be extremely accomplished to actually even meet the basic sonic quality of the players they're amping.

I like the Xin amps because apart from the portability, they are among the rare family of amps out there which can match the signal cleanliness of modern DAPs (many others - including some of the very best-known names in the small industry that is the headphone amp trade - tend to trade varying degrees of euphony for quality in terms of a truly portable amp), but also that Xin manages to pack into his amps scope for less-destructive sound reinforcement compared to using the onboard EQ, which as you've already alluded to works especially well with relatively anemic single-driver canalphones. I found the SuperMini with some adjustments reduced the tradeoffs evident in the ER-6i, ER-4P/S by quite a bit while retaining the sound quality of the host DAP. I think despite the inferior packaging, and the slightly well, individual "service" offered by Xin at times, they're superior portable amps to those from Ray Samuels and many others.

But if you're using anything else, the cost/benefit analysis of a vanilla headphone amp is not that compelling in my opinion - but as ever, it's only my opinion.

[McCol]

I did quite a bit of listening with and without my xin amp the last few days since my post earlier in the thread.

I still feel that with the new iem's i'm using, Futuresonics Atrio M5, i get no noticable difference with the amp. If I use my V-moda vibes i do notice a difference, the treble's sound clearer, but i barely use these phones anymore due to excellent SQ from the M5's.

[goatherder]

The big question is, what are you expecting? A tonal change? A quality (i.e. information conveyed) change? In terms of the latter I honestly think that you really, really have to believe in amping, be it BS or otherwise, to buy an amp for players like the D2.

In my case, there's a very good reason why I don't even use the Xin amps. And it's because I don't feel - and I don't see - that they provide sonic justification for the box count increase in my opinion.

[AlexHD]

goatherder

could you please post a photo and describe how the d2 was connected to the sound card. How exactly did you measured!

you put the volume level just on 1 and could measure something...didnt rmaa said gain level too low??!!?

thx

[goatherder]

Originally Posted by AlexHD

goatherder

could you please post a photo and describe how the d2 was connected to the sound card. How exactly did you measured!

you put the volume level just on 1 and could measure something...didnt rmaa said gain level too low??!!?

thx

Ah yes... the headphone thing. That always confuses people.

The headphone is inserted into the audio chain by a splitter, which comes off the player. One split goes into the headphone, the other into the cable going to the soundcard. This way, a headphone load is in the audio chain going between the soundcard and the player. I use various phones for the measurements, but the HD25-1 is a good standard for me as, well, it's my most-used headphone.

I then have a low, standard and high listening volume which I turn all the measured players to, which in the standard's case is intended to reproduce a slightly-above-typical listening volume. In the D2's case, this pegged the volume at 30 with the HD25-1.

The Fireface gain handles the rest. The measurements, as with virtually all RMAA measurements out there, are not absolute since it's dependent on the capabilities of the soundcard. Which is why I usually use RMAA to present comparisons, not the capabilities of a particular device.

[james.miller]

thats a good idea. i could test it with my ex90's


edit: well i think i found out why people are saying the player is down on bass with IEM's:




note to cowon: can we please have an adjustable eq band centered at 30hz?

[McCol]

Originally Posted by goatherder

The big question is, what are you expecting? A tonal change? A quality (i.e. information conveyed) change? In terms of the latter I honestly think that you really, really have to believe in amping, be it BS or otherwise, to buy an amp for players like the D2.

In my case, there's a very good reason why I don't even use the Xin amps. And it's because I don't feel - and I don't see - that they provide sonic justification for the box count increase in my opinion.

I never expect too much from an amp, usually in the past it has just amplified the volume for me, for example my altac lansing im716's are very hard to drive. On other occasions i would say that it has improved the quality of sound from the source when using with other phones, ie er6i's, e2c and v-moda vibes.

Granted i've only owned 2 amps, the pa2v2 and the xin supermni 3.
Like i said earlier though the combination of my FS M5 iems and the D2 does not benefit from either of my amps.


James miller - Dont know about the bass on other iem's but the bass on the FS M5 along with the D2 is outstanding. You can really feel the bass drum pounding in your but not in a muddy sounding way.

I know this thread is about amps but if any of you get the chance to try/buy the M5 iem's give them a go you will be amazed.

[goatherder]

Originally Posted by james.miller

thats a good idea. i could test it with my ex90's


edit: well i think i found out why people are saying the player is down on bass with IEM's:

note to cowon: can we please have an adjustable eq band centered at 30hz?

See, this is why it's relatively worthless testing with the player plugged straight into the soundcard (unless you're measuring it as an amping candidate) as many people are want to do once they get hold of RMAA and a player. Only by having a variety of headphones in place do you actually measure what people will hear.

I know we're getting off topic since this is amping but I'll just reply to that falloff thing you're referring to and I'll get back onto amping a bit after that:

Also, the D2's pretty minor bass fall-off is something that's an electrical feature of virtually all Wolfson-codec based players. It's not something that can just be totally cured by an EQ tweak. The higher the impedance of the phones, the lower the fall-off will be. The EX90's lower impedance will make the bass fall-off more prominent than the Koss KSC-75 for example.

You can see this in the iRiver H10 for example, a Portalplayer / Wolfson chipset player. Note the almost identical falloff.

Now this is one of the changes that people hear when a portable is being amped: Since amps are engineered usually to measure flat or with some sort of euphonic effect with a headphone load and almost never to have a falloff effect, some people find the tonal change that you get through amplification to be a sufficient benefit to justify amping... especially with very low-impedance IEM's which will of course have the biggest falloff effects. There are other things that amps bring to the table such as an injection of other euphonic elements in the sound, larger stereo separation perhaps, etc. Also, their behaviour with certain phones may be better by cutting out hiss (an impedance mismatch).

But the falloff - or the lack of it - may be the biggest change you 'feel' in a direct amped vs unamped comparison. If you have Foobar, etc, try putting in a -1db change at 30hz or even 50hz to accentuate the effect. I'm sure in an A/B comparison, if your phones are capable of rendering the frequency you will at least get a 'something is off' feeling. However would you miss it in isolation, i.e. listening without a comparison?

[james.miller]

That's right. at least with the h10 (when rockboxed) you could address the problem at least partially with the parametric eq. the sound quality ultimately still just isnt as good as my d2 though

[AlexHD]

goatherder, james.miller

yes! if you look at the thread "whats inside your d2" you will find in one of the last post the esactly sam explenation or advice wehn testing with RMAA...you alway have to do it with a LOAD!

All the players out there have Problems with 16 ohm IEMS because the capacitors of the integrated amps of the players are not high end like they are in the IMOD from redwineoudio in its Lineout.
The Sony IEM ex90... is 16 ohm!!!

but the whole thing looks different with 32 ohm IEMS even the IPOS can handle it without a bass roll off!

Like you see on the graph posted above... The bass roll off isnt as significant as it is with IPODs they go -30db till 120Hz...while the D2 goes -2db till 40Hz, which is nothing you cant hardly here it.

This is the reason why apple uses 32 ohm earbuds!

you can easely fix the problem with this cowon d2 litle tinny bassroll of with 16 ohm IEM\headphones! just put a levelattenuator 16ohm between sony and d2!

I use the shure e4 c which are 29Ohm! and the bass response is amazing! just like it schoud be... but if I put the super.fi 3 studio into the d2... the will be a big roll of till 50hz because the super.fi3 is rolled off till 35hz itself and it is just 13Ohm...but wuth level attenuator its just leke the shure e4c...

with just 13 ohm you are putting the D2amp over 74mW , about 80mW, which it cant handle!
Using high impedance till 50ohm is alway a good idea ...you will got better soundquality.

i wouldnt even call the roll of of the d2 a real bassroll off

[blipmusic]

Originally Posted by goatherder

As I was saying in a slightly roundabout way perhaps, it's a case of whether it's actually worth amping the D2 given the headphone-out performance, especially with higher-impedance phones like the ER-4S, and also whether it's worth amping it from the point of view of comparing the output from the amped signal vs the direct headphone-out signal and whether there's a real superiority out of the amped setup. That players these days are generally as good as they are means that portable amps have to be extremely accomplished to actually even meet the basic sonic quality of the players they're amping.

I like the Xin amps because apart from the portability, they are among the rare family of amps out there which can match the signal cleanliness of modern DAPs (many others - including some of the very best-known names in the small industry that is the headphone amp trade - tend to trade varying degrees of euphony for quality in terms of a truly portable amp), but also that Xin manages to pack into his amps scope for less-destructive sound reinforcement compared to using the onboard EQ, which as you've already alluded to works especially well with relatively anemic single-driver canalphones. I found the SuperMini with some adjustments reduced the tradeoffs evident in the ER-6i, ER-4P/S by quite a bit while retaining the sound quality of the host DAP. I think despite the inferior packaging, and the slightly well, individual "service" offered by Xin at times, they're superior portable amps to those from Ray Samuels and many others.

But if you're using anything else, the cost/benefit analysis of a vanilla headphone amp is not that compelling in my opinion - but as ever, it's only my opinion.

Actually, I think we agree. Though, my ER4S amped setup keeps the annoyance away so it's worth the extra bulk to me. I think my ears (no, they're nothing special ) are just used to a particular sound that I happen to get with that setup - I really do hear the difference well enough to like one over the other. To the extent where I almost get annoyed if I can't have it. A bit stupid, I know.

Regarding the Xin amps, I think most people agree with you, at least a lot of seasoned members over at Head-Fi do (probably me as well had I ever had the chance to listen to one). I'll probably try the SuperMicro for myself down the road but right now I *need* the battery life and can't wait three months for it to arrive since I might be on the other side of the earth if things work out as planned. The build quality is mostly extra goodiness.

[AlexHD]

james.miller and goatherder,


could you plaese measure the d2 with rmaa and HeadphoneLoad while battery is below 2 bars?

Because some guy in the mentioned thread said that he notices loss of Soundquality if the d2 is below 2 bars! He thinks the D2 switches to class D when battery is low to expand battery life.

So if this is a fact then you schould be able to reveal it in RMAA...

THX