Headphones with B2

[Dan Watts]

Hi there,

my first posting so apologies if my earlier search to answer my question was missed.

I have a B2. It does everything I want without issue until I decided to use my headphones with it yesterday & was surprised how quiet the sound was compared to the usual speakers. I had to turn the volume up stupidly high to get any real sound out of them.

I have Final Audio Sonorous VI Closed-Back Over ear headphones. Am I doing something wrong, I used the Line Out Port which I assumed was correct.

Can someone explain to me if the B2 can't handle these earphones & if I need to invest in a headphone amplifier? Or am I being a little dumb & missing something rather important?

Thanks all,

Dan.

[Daniel Taylor]

You did everything right.  For new users, it is surprising how high you have to turn up the volume for headphones.  50 to 60 is normal.

Some folks do use an external headphone amp.  If you have high quality headphones, you might find that to be a benefit.  Only your ears can tell.

[Daniel Taylor]

Here's a question to which I don't know the answer:  If using an external headphone amp, how high must you turn up the volume on the B2?

Keeping in mind that the volume control does not actually turn up the amplifacation, it attenuates, or turns down, a full line level output.  So it's possible that you might have to turn up the volume a little higher than anticipated even for an external amp.  After all, the external amp has to have enough signal to work with.

I know that Davy is one user who has a good external headphone amp.  Davy, what's your advice?

[Daniel Taylor]

If your external headphone amp has a digital (optical) input, you won't need to worry about turning up the B2's volume.

[Dan Watts]

I'd be interested to hear what Davy suggests as I'm happy to purchase an external headphone amp but have little knoweldge in that area.

When I get home I will indeed simply turn it up & see what happens.

Thanks,

Dan

[Rearwing]

Hi Dan, congratulations on your choice of headphones, i have several Final products. You are potentially about to enter the rabbit hole; i have a number of DAC's and Amp's that i use with a whole range of headphones, closed, open, over and on-ear.

For a while i used my B2 with an optical link to a Violectric DAC with balanced cables to a matching Violectric Amp, this sounded absolutely wonderful, but it wasn't the cheapest of options; neither was the Chord Hugo (but it did sound even better).

I have also used the optical link to an Onkyo AV receiver that produced a very balanced sound at a considerably cheaper price point; as well as using a Fiio DAC/Amp that was very reasonable in both quality and price.

At the end of the day, one has to make decisions based on how important sound is compared to cost; i wish you well on your journey.

[Davywhizz]

Hi Dan 

A lot of higher end headphones are hard to drive and benefit from a good headphone amp. One reason is that they often have higher impedance than cheaper models, though I see the Final Audio Sonorous VI run at only 8 ohms. The review I saw says they will work without any extra hardware, even if using only a phone. So... I'm not sure why the B2 seems underpowered, but I'd expect you to have to set the volume quite high regardless. That said, I believe having some extra headroom and the other benefits a headphone amp can bring are well worth the cost, especially to get the very best out of your quality phones.

Rather than use the analogue line out from the B2, I'd suggest taking the opportunity to get a combined DAC and headphone amp, rather than just an amp. It's generally agreed here that upgrading the B2 DAC gives a significant improvement to the overall audio quality. You'd need to find one with an optical input, some only have a USB input, as they are aimed at users who stream music from a phone or laptop; you probably know the B2 USB sockets can't do that.

You'd need to decide if you want fully balanced headphone outputs, unbalanced (single-ended) or a choice of both. That depends on your headphones and any thoughts you may have about using balanced cabling in the future. It's not so much an audio quality issue;  the main benefit is that balanced outputs fully separate the left and right channels, which helps cut out any unwanted electrical noise. You should also get a higher output, but that probably wouldn't be an issue.

My first dedicated DAC/headphone amp was a Fiio K5 Pro and I also have a Topping EX5, currently in a little guest room system.  I now use a bigger DAC/amp for my main hifi, so it does all the digital to analogue conversion for the different sources and feeds the amp and main speakers as well as the 'phones.  As ever, it depends what you need and want to spend.

There are dozens of very good brands and products out there and it's fun to check out prices and reviews. If you want to drive yourself really crazy, look at the Head-Fi website:

https://www.head-fi.org/

[Davywhizz]

Sorry, missed a question. If you want to use just a headphone amp, rather than a DAC/amp combo, I'd say it's the same as using an external power amp and speakers, for which the Brennan advice is that you will probably need to set the B2 volume high to get the right level of analogue line output.

The issue is that the B2 line out is variable, so that you can use it for headphones and adjust the volume, rather than a true, fixed, line level signal. Just to be sure, I'd always start with the volume low, but expect to bring it up to about 60 for most external amps. 

As noted, the volume control has no effect on the B2 optical output.

[PMB]

Hi Dan,

Headphones have an impedance of typically 8 ohms up to 200 or so ohms, whereas a Line In/Aux In on an amplifier is around 10k ohms (10,000 ohms) to 47k ohms. The lower impedance of the headphones loads the Line Out of the B2 - it's not a true headphone amplifier but capable of supplying suitable levels for most headphones - so you may have to turn the B2's volume higher than expected.

I use an FX-Audio combined DAC/Headphone amplifier - I choose this as it has an optical in (for the B2) and a USB in (for the BB1) and provides plenty of volume for the Headphones out.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Dan Watts]

Wow! So much information provided.

My Brennan only goes up to a maximum volume of 64 (is that right?) so although thats listenable its not as loud as I like sometimes so simply turning up the volume isn't solving my issue.

I am now trawling through the numerous ideas of certain amps in order to be able to listen via headphones at louder levels.

Someone mentioned a rabbit hole! I'm going in!

I shall report back & for now I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the detailed replies.

If anyone has anything else to add please respond accordingly.

regards

Dan