Technical specifics importance?

paul02

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Does anyone here consider stuff like damping factors, input/output impedance, SNR, THD, etc?

Probably impedence for headphones only. Higher end systems require info on other specs because of the need to calculate more factors especially huge speakers.
 

Jeremy1

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The Frequency response, the wider the range, the better.

:s12:
 

nightingelf

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Personally, for me this are the list and the explanation
  1. Headphone, output impedance for matching electrical damping factor
  2. Input impedance for matching source and amp, not a must have just a good to have since it is usually taken as 10k
  3. SNR is a hint at how much noise is to be expected
  4. THD the lower in percentage the better, usually hints the accuracy of the system

Audition at the same time and see if the specs agree. Some companies lie about the specs.
 

darkarn

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Personally, for me this are the list and the explanation
  1. Headphone, output impedance for matching electrical damping factor
  2. Input impedance for matching source and amp, not a must have just a good to have since it is usually taken as 10k
  3. SNR is a hint at how much noise is to be expected
  4. THD the lower in percentage the better, usually hints the accuracy of the system

Audition at the same time and see if the specs agree. Some companies lie about the specs.

Don't mind but can tell me exactly how to use such stats? I still quite blur about them (maybe except frequency) :o
 

nightingelf

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Damping factor = Output impedance/Headphone Impedance.

Damping factor is the strength of the coil/magnet that moves the diaphragm.
When the diaphragm moves, its like a pendulum.
When you push a pendulum, it will keep swinging.

This is where that magnet acts like a motor to control how the diaphragm moves.
Depending on the material used for the diaphragms, it might be easy or extremely hard for the motor to control movement.
So damping factor represents strength of this motor.

Being able to control the diaphragm movements results in tighter sound.
Too much or too little damping may not sound great to the user.

Seems like most dynamic headphones/earphones have constant impedance across frequencies.
Balance armature are more likely to have varying impedance across frequencies.

What I think in simple terms. Damping factor tells you how much 'unwanted' diaphragm movement is damped. But some times we do want those unwanted movements. :)


Still not sure about input impedance. However, having higher input impedance seems better.
And I think it can be assume all headphone amps have 10k Ohm input impedance unless otherwise stated or measured.


SNR - Signal to noise ratio. For simplicity sake, I just read it as sound to noise ratio.
This usually tells you the amount of sound it will produce in decibels to 1 decibel of noise.


THD - Total harmonic distortion. The lower the better.
The accuracy of this equipment is related to THD.
Accuracy increases as THD decreases.


Audition the equipment before buying. I don't think it is wise to just buy the equipment based on technical specs. But if you know what you are looking for, I would say they are great for filtering out equipment that don't fit your taste.
 

alamakazim

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to me... earphones/headphones the specification not so important..

frequency graph just for verification of what u hear
 

darkarn

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Damping factor = Output impedance/Headphone Impedance.

Damping factor is the strength of the coil/magnet that moves the diaphragm.
When the diaphragm moves, its like a pendulum.
When you push a pendulum, it will keep swinging.

This is where that magnet acts like a motor to control how the diaphragm moves.
Depending on the material used for the diaphragms, it might be easy or extremely hard for the motor to control movement.
So damping factor represents strength of this motor.

Being able to control the diaphragm movements results in tighter sound.
Too much or too little damping may not sound great to the user.

Seems like most dynamic headphones/earphones have constant impedance across frequencies.
Balance armature are more likely to have varying impedance across frequencies.

What I think in simple terms. Damping factor tells you how much 'unwanted' diaphragm movement is damped. But some times we do want those unwanted movements. :)


Still not sure about input impedance. However, having higher input impedance seems better.
And I think it can be assume all headphone amps have 10k Ohm input impedance unless otherwise stated or measured.


SNR - Signal to noise ratio. For simplicity sake, I just read it as sound to noise ratio.
This usually tells you the amount of sound it will produce in decibels to 1 decibel of noise.


THD - Total harmonic distortion. The lower the better.
The accuracy of this equipment is related to THD.
Accuracy increases as THD decreases.


Audition the equipment before buying. I don't think it is wise to just buy the equipment based on technical specs. But if you know what you are looking for, I would say they are great for filtering out equipment that don't fit your taste.

Thanks for the info! Am I right to say that SNR refers to how loud it can go at 100% volume? (I noticed that my UD100, which has a Sabre DAC that is rated at 112 SNR, is louder than my Taishan which is rated at 96 SNR)
 

rickysio

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Signal to noise ratio typically ends up being the chip's SNR being quoted and not the SNR of the circuit.
 

nightingelf

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Thanks for the info! Am I right to say that SNR refers to how loud it can go at 100% volume? (I noticed that my UD100, which has a Sabre DAC that is rated at 112 SNR, is louder than my Taishan which is rated at 96 SNR)
Maybe? I interpret it as literally how much sound/signal it produces before you can hear a single dB of noise.

Signal to noise ratio typically ends up being the chip's SNR being quoted and not the SNR of the circuit.
Hehe, that's mostly referring to 'lazy' engineers who copy and paste or poor companies that can't afford the measurement equipment.
 
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