Please see the latest post on the thread "Does anyone make their own headphones?". I have a bicycle helmet to which is bolted [symetrically] a pair of wideband loudspeaker [small] drivers. Make your own headphones with drivers that you believe are the best.
Requirements for headphone transducers are quite different from requirements to transducers to be used in boxed speakers to be listened to in a room.
… and they have very different requirements from an amp. I find it a bit strange that people on a diy site that would normally strive for good performance would use a simple resistive divider and expect accuracy. particularly when headphone amps can be such simple circuits with very few active components
I fully agree with you. Still; one common denominator between headphones and transducers must be the accurate and precise reproduction of music. How does a headphone maker determine it to be a Reference? I see the meaning of Reference in an Atomic Clock [cut and dry]; but not readily [hear it] with headphones or boxed speakers due to the subjectivity of music appreciation and interpretation; too many variables [and people] at play.
My point is that boxed loudspeakers work in a room - almost free space, while, say, in circumaural headphones the transducers work in a small cavity.
In order to produce constant as a function of frequency sound pressure transducers for headphones and transducers for speakers must be different.
I thought the point was to listen to a particular amp as a DUT.
There is a lot headphones can tell you, but the resistive divider isn't a tough load to drive. You could make it a 1 ohm impedance, tho.
If you want a really enlightening experience, record the output of the amp into a pure 8 ohm load and also into speakers. Compare those two recordings via headphones.
Your explanation is right on target. Thus it follows that a listening experience of the same music using headphones will never be the same like that via loudspeakers.
I thought the point was to listen to a particular amp as a DUT.
There is a lot headphones can tell you, but the resistive divider isn't a tough load to drive. You could make it a 1 ohm impedance, tho.
If you want a really enlightening experience, record the output of the amp into a pure 8 ohm load and also into speakers. Compare those two recordings via headphones.
oh I realize that and for that purpose only, its a reasonable solution; but I still see it suggested here as an acceptable solution for adding a headphone output to an amp; it is not.
if; as in the title, we are talking about an ultimate/accurate reference, should we not strive for that reference to be accurate? large outputZ with some headphones will cause large FR variations across frequency, particularly bass
yes lots of headphones, but AFAIK nothing released in the last decade is >600ohms (well the Beyer T1 is 600ohms) and most are <100R0 a far cry from the >1k0 these methods were devised for.
I would call it sub-optimal even for that and we are generally not in the business of sub-optimal DIY here right? particularly when a handful of parts, even tapping an existing supply will do so much better.
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The audiophile trains one's hearing to detect amplifier [only] distortion, ascribes a level or intensity to it, finds the culprit and finally corrects the amplifier's abberation. Having successfully completed this step, one then repeats the same experiment to confirm the resolution of the problem. But; time would have elapsed between the two events. Other variables may have injected themselves in the second [and later] experiments of your quest so as to [maybe] muddy the outcome. Your approach is conducive to experimentation. Clearly amplifier distortion is an adjustable variable. DIYers usually minimize it; but not in your studies.
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