How loud they can get off of 1mw of power. This only tells volume and not quality though, so keep that in mind.
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This is of topic but since I’ll be using my phone to drive these I wonder what format should the music be preferably? I have flac on pc but Apple doesn’t like Flac as far as I know.
Tidal is sadly not supported in my country and it’s the only good quality streaming option I know off. Right now I’m using YouTube music but with new headphones I’ll try to get better source
Qobuz is a great lossless streaming platform imo. Lossless audio would be preferable, but you can get by with high enough quality streaming on spotify. Youtube music works equally as well as spotify quality wise
Actually, in this case it’s per 1 Volt. So more direct correlation to loudness both from what I’ve read and in my limited experience.
The closest Apple universe equivalent of FLAC is AIFF. Both will gobble up storage capacity at an alarming rate, lossless compression or not. I wonder how much mass-audience music is produced at a quality level that warrants that treatment…
Most if not all of it, some will benefit more than others but lossless is always going to be a benefit if it’s genuine lossless. Modern phones have plenty of space but with lossless streaming there isn’t an issue
Thanks for catching this
There’s a thread on the forum about loudness levels:
You’ll see posts about the dangers of listening at such-and-such a loudness. The numbers referenced are in decibels of sound pressure level or dB SPL for short. You iPhone likely has the same upper limit of 1.2 Volts output as mine does. So in theory you could literally deafen yourself in a few minutes by listening to the Listen Pro at the max volume setting of the iPhone. But the iPhone may have some sort of protection circuit to prevent that. Dunno.
But the real point is that your phone will not have to struggle in the slightest to output a loud enough signal for the Listen Pro. Others will have different opinions, but a sane listening level averages around 70 to 80 dB SPL. You want the headphone to spec at something like 100 dB SPL so it isn’t struggling at the loud points in a track. So 122 dB SPL means no worries at all.
The reason I got all picayune on poor M0N about volts vs milliwatts is that manufacturers post their “sensitivity” specs for headphones in both ways and the reported number can have a very different practical equivalence in loudness depending on what the units are. So a 122 dB/mW at the Listen Pro’s 32 Ohms of impedance would translate into an awesome 137 dB output per 1 volt.
When you resume headphone and amp shopping this V vs mW distinction is something you’ll have to pay close attention to, so may as well start getting your hands dirty under this hood even now.
(OK, now to post this and find out what I got wrong, grin.)
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Or just ignore it because it generally doesn’t matter anyway lol. I have not thought of a situation where I have even considered the rated sensitivity of most headphones before buying or listening. Only on rare occasion where a headphone is exceptionally difficult do drive do I take note of that measure. There are higher sensitivity headphones that benefit greatly from a headphone amp, and lower sensitivity headphones that honestly sound fine without an amp, it really depends on the headphones overall. I mean a higher quality amp will most likely benefit most if not all headphones out there. I just don’t like to see people get wrapped around a number thinking they need a certain amp or something when they don’t. Take the t50, sure it can get loud at the rated sensitivity, but if you only have that rated power to only get them to the specified volume it won’t sound that great, you really would want more to get them to sound good.
And there’s no way of predicting which will be which? Guess just post a question on the forum, grin. And what about in the case of most DAPs where available power is limited?
It would depend on the quality of the dap. Let’s take my questyle qp2r for example. It outputs a measly 72mw into 32 ohms, but can somehow power many full size headphones that shouldn’t sound that good off of that little power. Of course they aren’t powering t50’s well or anything but it can power a fair bit of my full size headphones. I would say it can sound better than my m11 with a fair amount of full size headphones. It really does depend on the dap, there are situations that you want more power, but there are some where the higher quality design and output is more valuable to more power
You can get a generally good idea of what it might take for specs, but it’s not going to be all that accurate for determining what will actually sound good
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Yes, let’s. I’m mad at you for being able to use one of these, grin. (It has a truly funky EQ option and no way I can tolerate most headphones without EQ.) Let’s say I want to use the QP2R with a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s or 650s. This is an often referenced scenario in DAP reviews.
Officially, they spec at 99 dB/mW and 300 Ohms, but the word on the street is 97 dB/mW is more realistic. The QP2R does 9 mW with a 300 Ohm load (unbalanced). That calculates to a mere 106.5 dB SPL max output. So more than enough juice there for sensible use. That fact that review after review tells us that most DAPs struggle to drive an HD 600 or 650 or similar – despite having at least as much or more spec’d power as the QP2R is very revealing.
So maybe it’s the 450 Ohm spike the HD 600 and 650 have in the bass. If we re-calculate at 450 Ohms the max dBs drops from 106.5 to 106. But only because we’ve run out of Volts, not Watts. If we’re sane we’re not hitting that 106 dB cap in any case.
A few years ago I was perfectly happy with my Beats Solo HDs, no amp, no DAC. I’m going to dust them off and go back to that head space and to heck with this infuriating rabbit hole. K2u3, let this serve as a warning to you. If the Listen Pros used out of your iPhone sound good – STOP THERE! Don’t be seduced by the allure of someone raving about this or that other piece of gear sounding better. A few months later that same person will be happy to tell you why that previously wonderful piece of gear has serious problems A, B and C. But this new piece of gear he’s now enamored of is heaven sent.
(Hmmm … do I end this with a grin, an lol or just leave it straight …)
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No, continue, become consumed by the audio
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As long as you have the budget to keep trying more and more I don’t see much of a problem unless your somehow causing a company that made a subjectively poor headphone to make major profit off of their poor design fueling them to make more poor designs in the future or you somehow become so obsessed with the hobby you lose sight of what’s really important in your life. That’s my interpretation at least.
I think what I’m really trying to say is as long as you aren’t using audio gear as a means to indulge in negative behaviors, (whatever negative might mean to you) then why not? If anything, it mainly goes with a word of caution if someone is getting into this hobby who doesn’t have good spending habits with their limited budget to begin with, which may cause them to fall off the deep end by chasing that unattainable feeling of absoluteness once they have a taste of what they’ve been missing out on. There will always be something else out there for you, and I imagine for some people, that desire to have it all can be detrimental to their well being.
I was totally joking around in my last post and M0N replied in the same vein. But to take the question seriously I think your take on it is well-considered and I don’t have anything of substance to add.
Personally, I’ve been through three previous obsessions that resulted in purchase after purchase in search of just the right thing. It’s not important, but they happened to be guitars, laptops and cameras. All three of these involved objects that were tools for creating something. When I finally did find the guitar, laptop and camera that fit my needs to the point of causing no great frustration I got off the acquisition merry-go-round and just continued with that final object.
The headphone hobby can go in either direction. A person can research to the point of finding the headphone and electronics that perform the function of bringing recorded music to life. Such gear can do this to the point of allowing the owner to get on with the business of experiencing the music with the equipment being totally in the background, like air is to an athlete. Or one can become focused on the gear for its own sake and have both the pleasure of music in one’s life and the pleasure of gear as a thing in itself.
The frequent posters on this forum seem very clear that both these approaches are valid. Clear that some people will post a number of what-to-buy questions, find what they’re looking for, then disappear into the void. While other people will be in the second camp and may well become forum regulars. If someone shows signs of being in the second camp but also not having the self-control to avoid self-destructive obsessive spending, I’m sure forum regulars will pick up on that and try to discourage it.
The above duality is the main thrust. But there are also related side issues. For one, there are people who have a clear perception of what good gear can do to good music – but don’t have the money to follow through. In many cases this is the result of just being too young to have sufficient disposable income. Most of us have been there, done that and we totally feel their pain.
Or as the song says: you gotta know when to hold them, when to fold them, and when to walk away (grin).
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Yes, I enjoy the gear as much as I do the music equally.
That’s a great deal! Congrats!
Good to see you kept the discussion here going without me !
I have been looking into streaming services and with Qobuz, tidal and Spotify not supported in my country I signed up to Deezer HiFi and the difference has been pretty impressive even on my no name in ear headphones
Update: I actually managed to get tidal music to work with their HiFi subscription. The Buddy that told me tidal isn’t supported must have been wrong or they added us to the list of supported countries very recently
I also stumbled across some Blu-Ray Audio 24bit-192kHz and some other HiRes music from HDtracks and I wonder what of it can actually be played by my iPhone or iPad?
Im very happy with the Focal Listen Professional suggested by @M0N
At the same Time I’m shocked how bad my other headphones are !
The only thing I really dislike is the cable with the small connector. I’d like something braided and longer for use with a mobile device
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I think it uses a 3.5mm trs jack to connect to the headphones, so a slimmer aftermarket cable would be somewhat easy to find
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I’ll look for one on amazon or can you recommend a better place to look for cables
What length are you looking for?