Do I Need an Amp in my set-up?

[tapieromateo]

Hi!

I just bought a pair of sony MDR-V700 DJ headphones (awesome look, and awesome sound on my laptop)

But when I plug them into my PMP (sony E354 IIRC), the sound is not as good as it should be. So I remembered about the headphone amps I once saw at this website.

My question then is, should I buy an amplifier for my set-up ?(if you may call it that way) I was looking at the Fiio E6, but i'm open to suggestions.

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by tapieromateo

... the sound is not as good as it should be ...

A portable amp does not improve poor sound quality and the MDR-V700s are only 24 ohms so they shouldn't need an amp. That said, the Fiio you speak of does have a two level bass boost so if that would help the sound you like then maybe it's a cheap option for you.

[The DarkSide]

Digizoid ZO2 - check it out - it works wonders!!!

[El C]

You might also want to check your files and make sure they are of good quality.

[tapieromateo]

Originally Posted by El C

You might also want to check your files and make sure they are of good quality.

most of my files are at least 192 kbps,

[Syndrome]

What laptop do you have? Laptops generally have very horrible sound quality. Unless you have an external sound card.

[tapieromateo]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

What laptop do you have? Laptops generally have very horrible sound quality. Unless you have an external sound card.

Asus G51 JX

[Syndrome]

I've got an Asus G73 JH. Its a love hate relationship, mostly hate. But the sound card in it is actually one of the better ones I've seen. But going external still improves it.

As to your PMP situation, Does it seem that the headphones are under-powered? Or is their frequency response just not as good?

[Satellite_6]

^why hate?

Just curious b/c I might get an Asus eventually. . .

[Big Sky]

You might want to consider a USB/PCMII sound card like ones made by Creative.

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by Satellite_6

^why hate?

Just curious b/c I might get an Asus eventually. . .

BSOD On ever format I've done, I had to repaste the GPU out of the box or it would over heat terribly. Drivers are a pain to find, and some of them work correctly others cause crashes. Though I have figured it out alot more than when it first came out, it will still BSOD randomly and I haven't been able to pin point. The touch pad buttons are one single button and you have to be on the very outside to get them to click(they actually fixed that with the new versions).

And most of all... it has ZERO ports on it, 4 USB ports, no firewire, NO expresscard slot... Its got HDMI but no display port, something this big should have so many ports on it that I don't know what to do with them all(as my old Acer Aspire 8940G)

Now for the love, the screen, although glossy is really nice. I can over clock the GPU very easily, or underclock to increase my battery life. The drivers that do work are nice(touch pad, chipset). But getting it to this stable point took me about a week and a half of heavy reading along with tons of experimental things I haven't done on a notebook/PC.

My brother has the new version with the Sandy Bridge and the only thing I dislike about that one is the ports(same as the G73 JH). It seems the drivers and everything work much better with the updated notebook.

[/rant]

Though after this experience I would have a hard time purchasing a new Asus, the ONLY reason I upgraded from my old Acer was because the screen. And I blatantly over looked the fact that it didn't have a express card slot, had I noticed that prior to making the deal I would have never done it.

[Satellite_6]

Wow. . .

Ugh. . . I think I'll have to do a ridiculous amount of research if I want a new laptop. Very unsure about what to get. You can't just buy one and have it work properly it seems. Grr. I don't like my dell much but I haven't had anything that bad happen to it. Recently I had problems with the audio output of all things and it took forever to get audio through USB working right again tho.

[tapieromateo]

I've never had a single problem with my laptop, no BSOD, no overheating, and it has every single port i need except for USB 3.0.

Returning to the PMP, I don't really understand what 'frequency response' is, so I apologize, but they do feel a little bit under-powered. I have the crank up the volume on the sony more than half way (17~23/30 to get a good non-distorted sound)

[Syndrome]

What I mean by frequency response is, does it seem like when you hook to the PMP then your mids aren't as loud, or the bass, or the treble. If its just simply more volume that you want then an amp will help with that.

[lorriman]

The sony might have a high output impedance and the laptop a low output impedance. A lot of Ipods have high output impedance so in theory a half decent laptop soundcard will beat an ipod, despite its hifi electronics, for low impedance headphones like yours which are very affected by high output impedance sources.

See here for more info:

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html


The short version is: you may or may not get improved audio if you get the highly regarded Fiio 5 amp which is very cheap and probably as much as you need and will correct the output impedance.

[tapieromateo]

I think i'm going for the Z02. Why? because I have good Headphones and decent IEMs (mdr-v700 and MDR-XB40EX) and if I change my source (laptop, player or w/e) I will still get some power on the headphones/monitors and improve the sound, and hopefully the battery life (can I expect that?)

[saratoga]

Originally Posted by tapieromateo

I think i'm going for the Z02. Why? because I have good Headphones and decent IEMs (mdr-v700 and MDR-XB40EX) and if I change my source (laptop, player or w/e) I will still get some power on the headphones/monitors and improve the sound, and hopefully the battery life (can I expect that?)

Since headphones are about 10000x more important to quality then an amp, I would not recommend spending more on an amp then your headphones. Thats sort of like bolting a spoiler on a Tercel.

If you don't like the sound you're getting, and you don't mind spending more money, buy better headphones.