Epiphany Headphone Amplifier

[Jonathan Cox]

EHP O2 (one without DAC) arrived this week. Connected ipod Touch to it's 3.5mm input with the standard supplied 3.5-3.5mm lead and my Goldring DR150 phones to the amps output. I was suprised to find any difference almost nil, except I needed less volume. I was hoping that the amp would drive the phones easier and show my headphones to their full potential. So is the ipod the wrong source, or is my ipod's amp already getting everything out of my headphones? Or am I just connecting it wrong I wonder. Yet to try through my main amps headphone socket. Or do people who say that kit changes their sound dramatically just exaggerate? Or am I deaf? Any advice or experiences would be appreciated, ta.

 

[luckylion100]

via 3.5mm input jack to my (DAC equipped) version I noticed next to no real improvement or difference for that matter. I believe when connecting this way this renders the DAC section disabled on the EHP02D making it basically a EHP02 and glorified volume control. Connect via usb to the DAC section and it's an altogether different story...

 

[Overdose]

You won't notice anything except the volume. That's the sign of a good amp, if it doesn't make any additional sound.

In most cases, the iPod touch wouldn't need extra amplification, unless driving high impedence headphones and the DR150s are not.

As good an amp as the O2 is, it's not neccessary in this application.

 

[dalethorn]

EHP O2 (one without DAC) arrived this week. Connected ipod Touch to it's 3.5mm input with the standard supplied 3.5-3.5mm lead and my Goldring DR150 phones to the amps output. I was suprised to find any difference almost nil, except I needed less volume. I was hoping that the amp would drive the phones easier and show my headphones to their full potential. So is the ipod the wrong source, or is my ipod's amp already getting everything out of my headphones? Or am I just connecting it wrong I wonder. Yet to try through my main amps headphone socket. Or do people who say that kit changes their sound dramatically just exaggerate? Or am I deaf? Any advice or experiences would be appreciated, ta.

Get a FiiO LOD cable and if it's the newer Lightning port iPod Touch, get the Apple 30-pin to Lightning adapter and add that to the FiiO LOD cable (I use the L3 cable). Now you'll be bypassing the volume control in the iPod, for better sound. The DAC in the 30-pin to Lightning adapter replaces the DAC in the iPod with this connection. They sound the same. But, you should get MUCH better sound from the amp with this connection than with the iPod alone. Now to test it properly, listen to a track you're familiar with on the amp, then in the middle of the track switch to the iPod only, and hear the near-collapse of soundstage and detail. An Apple-compatible DAC will give more detail and HF extension, but the biggest improvement is what I described.

 

[ID.]

Interesting. All of my headphones benefitted even from a little portable Fiio amp. Just gave more control, detail and better separation. Better bass. In the end though I didn't want to run my full size cans off my iPod or phone, so I just use IEMs and save the big cans for my combined DAC/HPAs at home.

 

[Jonathan Cox]

I thought the issue was to do with needing to bypass the iPod headphone circuitry so have ordered a Fiio lead today. If I'm happy with this my next buy will be a headphone upgrade, had my eye on some Audio Technicas. Will post when L3 cable arrives.

 

[dalethorn]

I thought the issue was to do with needing to bypass the iPod headphone circuitry so have ordered a Fiio lead today. If I'm happy with this my next buy will be a headphone upgrade, had my eye on some Audio Technicas. Will post when L3 cable arrives.

I have to mention, that Apple officially states that there's no sonic difference between using the headphone port and the LOD port, even though we know that the volume control isn't in effect at the LOD port. So just how much circuitry is being bypassed, I don't know, and neither does anyone else, officially anyway.

But the real key to the difference between running an amp off the LOD as compared to plugging the headphone into the headphone port - the difference in sound can be dramatic once you hear it clearly, but I'm sure the technical explanation is very complicated as most electronic things are.

 

[Jonathan Cox]

Hi again, so firstly the L3 lead brought a worthwhile improvement to the O2, I was initially still sceptical but soon found that certain recordings showed a much bigger difference than others (between amped and non-amped). Drums especially had more weight in the low frequency and cymbals were more airy. What I noticed was that when I went back to non amped headphones I had to listen harder for things I noticed easily with the O2 on. Today I had a very brief listen after 5 days of nothing, and the track sounded incredible. (No A-B comparison done though). I do feel that now my Goldrings are the limiting component, any opinions welcome of course. Will post again after next proper listen.

 

[dalethorn]

Hi again, so firstly the L3 lead brought a worthwhile improvement to the O2, I was initially still sceptical but soon found that certain recordings showed a much bigger difference than others (between amped and non-amped). Drums especially had more weight in the low frequency and cymbals were more airy. What I noticed was that when I went back to non amped headphones I had to listen harder for things I noticed easily with the O2 on. Today I had a very brief listen after 5 days of nothing, and the track sounded incredible. (No A-B comparison done though). I do feel that now my Goldrings are the limiting component, any opinions welcome of course. Will post again after next proper listen.

The Goldring looks a lot like the Sennheiser HD429/439/449 series, so those may be viable alternatives for replacements. Outside of those, you'd certainly prefer very neutral, and the KRK 8400 may be close to that. There isn't much to pick from under $250 USD these days, since most everything is bass-heavy and/or muffled on the high end.

 

[JoelSim]

Can I ask what your source material is please? Is it standard lossy format or higher res? Higher res (at least 320kbps) will give the biggest improvement in my opinion, and if you are then looking for some better headphones you will be able to realise far more of the potential. The more detail there is in the music file, the more will be amplified and the more the headphones will be able to appreciate.

I've done tests on standard MP3 and 320kbps Spotify, iPhone 5 in each case, same headphones. There is a world of difference.

 

[Jonathan Cox]

Mainly spotify 320 k or aiff files from my cd rips on iTunes. (iPod Touch). Looked into using with my main system Marantz cd and amp but not sure best way to connect. Tried amp tape out into O2, couldn't hear much difference again. Want to try direct from CD player to O2, would I use stereo out on cd6004?

 

[steve_1979]

With easy to drive headphones an amplifier isn't likely to make much difference compared to the headphone output of an iPod. I also have an O2 amplifier (and DAC) which I use with some Sennheiser HD700's which are relatively easy to drive headphones. At low to normal listening volume it sounds identical to the headphone output from my Sony MP3 player and it's only when the volume is cranked up loud do they start to sound different. With more difficult to drive headphones like the HD650 or HD800's I expect that the difference would be much more noticeable because the MP3 players amplifier would be struggling.

The O2 amplifier is a totally transparent sounding amplifier (indistinguishable from a £1500 Benchmark DAC/amp) capable of driving just about any pair of headphones that you can throw at it so it's as good as it gets. If the output sounds the same as your iPod headphone output then that just means that your headphones are easy enough to drive for the iPod amplifier to cope adequately at the volume levels you listen at.

 

[Jonathan Cox]

Thanks a lot, makes sense now. What would be a better alternative to ipod touch as source please? I have also an Airport Express and a Marantz CD6004. Thinking I should have got the Epiphany amp with DAC combined. Oh dear....

 

[Jonathan Cox]

Unfortunately not much in the way of dealers in South Wales (apart from Richer's and Audio T) so hard to demo. Their stock looks limited. Although they're around 30 ohms only, have read many reviews which say DR150s really benefit from a good amp. Doesn't make sense to me and I certainly can't hear much improvement ( although I still really love them). What sort of impedence should I be looking at to get the most from my Epiphany, and again any alternatives for a better source than the ipod? Thanks.