RikudouGoku's Database (IEMs/Earbuds/Headphones Ranking list)

Nope. I think 150ohm is the comfortable limit on the 3.5mm version.

They do sell a 4.4mm version with double the power though.

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Oooh yeah just found it: Moondrop Dawn 3.5mm / 4.4mm Dual CS43131 Full Balanced High-Performance Mini USB DAC / AMP — HiFiGo.

The output is almost identical to the Qudelix lol. I would like more power but this price is really attractive

Maybe I’ll get this for my work laptop. My Hidisz S9 pro was stolen during shipment (long story), so I still need a portable dac/amp for work.

If u want 4.4mm, the Dunu dongle has both 3.5mm and 4.4mm.

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Is it this? https://www.dunu-topsound.com/product-page/dtc-500-portable-dac-amp

Yeah, they should be sending one to me. But been a while lol.

Gotcha. it’s out of stock and 200 mW, so it’s less attractive to me than Moondrop Dawn. I mean, I’ve love the Moondrop River 2, but it’s really pricey…

Dawn is also 200mw.

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That’s measured? I guess the spec sheet for the Dawn says 230 mW. Not sure what DUNU will measure to be

yeah, measured by L7.

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Just a reminder that you could apparently run HE6 of 73mW questyle M15 so what power really mean for audio? :thinking:

I highly doubt that 73mw is gonna be able to even drive this at sufficient volumes.

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Its much harder to drive than even the fostex planar and that one is already pushing it way too much. Then there is the additional acoustic impedance increase from all the tuning, so that one might be even harder to drive than it looks on paper.

I am just quoting questyle representative that they tested that and it works fine. No EQ etc obviously allowed. And I mean, it needs 40mw for 100dB SPL, so works for me, current should be not a problem as well for that little one :slight_smile:

This is where you need to take that with a grain of salt. That calculator is only calculating based on the driver specs. It doesnt take into consideration the dampening and thus the accoustic impedance increase in the transducers.


As can be seen here with the fostex planar. 7mw should be all it needs, but even with the over 100mw Dawn, it was close to maxing out.

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I strongly doubt it is just a value for the driver itself, not averaged for the headphone sample as a whole system - it does not make any sense to present this value for the customer of final product. But, there are transients still, which peaks way higher than mean SPL loudness and that is why it is always said you need exponentially more power than for what calculators says.
I am on mission to buy something really insensitive or hard to drive (like HD6xx) to test with M15 myself, because I am also a doubter of its power capabilities honestly :slight_smile:

It is, its very obvious if you for example take the Fostex T20/40/50RP-MK3 headphones. They all have the same specs (except the 40 at 91db), but it is quite obvious that there is a volume difference between them. I can tell this because of my modding with the T20 model.

And besides that, you cant measure the impedance that you get from dampening the shell, driver and all that. The impedance you see listed on specs is just the electrical impedance you get from the driver itself.

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Statement about the impedance is wrong. Impedance is purely physical (->electrical)property of the driver, there is no impedance derived from filters etc. Filters/dampeners only affect sensitivity.
As for the fostex ones - I think that you may be right in that particular example and maybe it is not standardised between manufacturers on what do they tell in their specs

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But it is not a value that you take into any considerations of the power requirement and it is not the impedance from the specification of headphones (so the value in Ohms). Sensitivity may be a function of acousting impedance out of many factors

It does, more acoustic impedance you have and the higher power you need to get it to the same volume as it was before.

This is seen even when you do simply nozzle filter modding, where for example the sony import foam have a pretty big effect on the overall SPL. This is seen when you measure the FR for it and the SPL value is different.

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Ok, this is purely academic, we may be talking about different things :slight_smile: I agree that acoustic impedance directly affects the power requirements, but its value is normally (or should be) taken into account in the Sensitivity value of a driver/headphone datasheet (probably not directly taken into consideration but indirectly).
The impedance in the datasheet is electrical property of a driver and combined with sensitivity gives you the answer on the calculated power requirements.
The filters you buy have acoustic ohm in their specs but it does not add up to the impedance from specs sheet (it increases acoustic impedance → decreasing sensitivity). It is apples and oranges :slight_smile:
Long story short, theory and reality are going their own paths very often