Would this headphone guitar amp / laptop DAC combo work?

Q. I'm a college student living in a dorm with a roommate, so I try to keep everything audio related going through my headphones, as not to disturb my roommate or neighbors. Right now, I'm trying to make this setup, and want to know if the equipment will be adequate for my needs:

I want to get a DAC / headphone amp combo that I can use both to increase the audio output on my laptop, and to amplify my electric guitar for when I'm practicing in my dorm room. The unit I'm looking at is the FiiO E7, which seems like an excellent DAC for a pretty low price. I know that it will more than suffice for playing music through my headphones with my laptop as a source, but want to make sure it will adequately recognize and amplify my electric guitar, if plugged in to the analog audio-in jack.

I'm buying all the appropriate adapters (1/4inch to 3.5mm for plugging the guitar into the headphone amp), but just wanted to make sure that I don't need some other sort of preamp or anything to get decent audio through the headphones for BOTH the guitar and my laptop (individually, not at the same time).

Any insight at all will be immensely appreciated.

Answer
The audio output level of a guitar is in-between that of mic and line level, so you will have to crank the FiiO E7 higher when using the guitar (vs. a line-level analog source such as an MP3 player, or the DAC source from your laptop) but it should still work.

If you can't crank the FiiO up high enough, Korg/Vox makes a $40 "amPlug" device designed exactly to do what you want -- to adapt your guitar for headphones (see below).

how to amplify home theater headphones?

Q. I just bought a Sony "MDR-DS7500" Home Theater Headphone system that I would like to amplify for the sound that it produces right now out of the box turned all the way up on the knob has poor low volume and I would like to change that. If any knows how to go about this and any way I am all ear and would very much appreciate it. Thank You!

Answer
Headphones can be amplified by headphone amps. Fiio is extremely popular for their affordable models, but don't get me wrong, they have some good quality models as well, check out the e9 for example. Turtle Beach has a good DAC called Earforce DSS, it amplifies audio and has bass boost as well as Dolby Digital processing.

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how to amplify home theater headphones?

Bijan

I just bought a Sony "MDR-DS7500" Home Theater Headphone system that I would like to amplify for the sound that it produces right now out of the box turned all the way up on the knob has poor low volume and I would like to change that. If any knows how to go about this and any way I am all ear and would very much appreciate it. Thank You!

Answer
Headphones can be amplified by headphone amps. Fiio is extremely popular for their affordable models, but don't get me wrong, they have some good quality models as well, check out the e9 for example. Turtle Beach has a good DAC called Earforce DSS, it amplifies audio and has bass boost as well as Dolby Digital processing.

Headphone crackling issue?

Emmett

I have a pair of audiotechnica ath m-50 studio moniter headphones, there hooked up to an art four channel amp. When i use the phones on my computer with itunes, i can hear a very very slight but noticable crackle, im not sure if its the musics production method or what. I'am usually pretty sensitive to sound production, maybe even an audiophile but im wondering if this is normal or something is wrong with the phones. They are pretty new, maybe a few months and i have never turned them up past half way on the amp, i would like to but, restrain just out of worry for the phones it would be good to know if i can turn them up more too.

Answer
Are you using your computer's headphone output?? If so, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're hearing noise...

You could always test the headphones - if they sound clean when directly connected to an iPod or a cd player then they're good....

If the problem is your computer then you might have to get a USB DAC to sit between computer and amp...

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IS a DAC what I need for this situation?

Getting ti

There is no stereo plug for my headphones but there is an Digital Optical plug (on my TV) so would a DAC fix this problem?
Thank you very much (ba definitely goes to you), but do you think the sound will still remain as crisp and clear as the TV speakers?

Answer
If DAC means Digital to analog converter, no you need more than that.

There are s/pdif to analog PCM converters, but at $150 you are better off investing on an a/v receiver.

So, get an AV receiver with digital optical input and a headphone output.

Connecting headphones to tv?

Brittany

I have a 42" Sanyo HDTV, model DP42841 and a pair of decent headphones. I want to hook up my heaphones to my tv, but I'm not sure how. I have an audio jack, but when I put my heaphones into it nothing happens. Do I need to change the sound settings on the tv, or get additional equipment to make it work...?

As a side note, I do not have a remote controller because my dog devoured it months ago. If I do need to change the settings I wouldn't be able to from a remote and would love it if you could tell me how from the tv controls directly. Best answer to anyone who can help me??

THANK YOU so much!

Answer
To use headphones, it depends on what the TV has for outputs.
If it has analog stereo, you need a headphone amplifier with RCA input. If your TV has only digital out, you need an audio DAC as well.

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How can I get the most sound quality out of my Headphones?

good headphone dac image

chanesaw4

I've recently bought the ATH-M500 Audio Technica headphones. I was wondering, what can I do to get the most out of them? People have mentioned Headphone Amplifiers, a better soundcard, and so I'm wondering what ALL there is to do to improve my sound quality performance?
I meant to say ATH-A700, not M500. Sorry

Answer
Nice choice, that's a quality pair. First thing: I think the burn-in time for those is about 30-40 hours. So play some white noise and pink noise with a program like Burninwave Generator while you're asleep or at work.

From what I've read on the head-fi.org forums, the a700 are easy to drive so you don't really need an amp. The resistance is 64ohms which is relatively low. But if you did get an amp, it sounds like you'd need to spend about $200 to notice any difference. Your best bet would be the AT-F100 (from googling I found a distributor of it: http://www.ornec.com/g-w-at-f100-a-class-headphone-amplifier_QQC100296C). The AT sounds for audio-technica. It's apparently an amp designed specially for audio-technica headphones. However it's not portable. On the forum there were 2 other amps recommended for the a700 but they cost about the same. One of them is portable: the XM5.

I don't know much about which sound cards are good but yes, if you listen to music from your computer, you'd benefit from having a good sound card. You could find information at head-fi's "computer audio" forum, or just search "sound card" and you'll find a bunch of informative threads.

Your alternative to a sound card would be to get a DAC, which would take the signal from your computer but then decode the signal using its own chips instead of the computer's. You'd plug the DAC into your computer and the headphones into the DAC.

The simplest improvement you can make, if you don't already do it, is use high-quality formats/bitrates for your music files. The highest quality is Lossless, which is the same quality as a CD. The next in line are OGG, AAC, and MP3. Use the highest bitrate possible, and to save space make it variable bitrate.

Hope this helps. Enjoy the cans!

Setting up TV speakers and headphones for different volumes?

James W

My partner's parents have an issue where, his father tends to want the TV on louder than the mother likes. Is there any kind of setup where the father could maybe wear headphones set at a different volume to the TV for their mutual comfort? Ideally the setup would allow the use of headphones only when it's just something the father wants to watch, but then allow speakers when the mother would like to listen also, just at a different volume.

This would be through a fairly modern 32" LCD TV. We currently do not have any kind of headphones and would appreciate any suggestions for ones that would work well if such a setup is possible.

Answer
What Byron said, but I will add many TVs lack an analog audio out, so you need an audio DAC to convder TV digital audio to analog audio.

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How can I get the most sound quality out of my Headphones?

good headphone dac image

chanesaw4

I've recently bought the ATH-M500 Audio Technica headphones. I was wondering, what can I do to get the most out of them? People have mentioned Headphone Amplifiers, a better soundcard, and so I'm wondering what ALL there is to do to improve my sound quality performance?
I meant to say ATH-A700, not M500. Sorry

Answer
Nice choice, that's a quality pair. First thing: I think the burn-in time for those is about 30-40 hours. So play some white noise and pink noise with a program like Burninwave Generator while you're asleep or at work.

From what I've read on the head-fi.org forums, the a700 are easy to drive so you don't really need an amp. The resistance is 64ohms which is relatively low. But if you did get an amp, it sounds like you'd need to spend about $200 to notice any difference. Your best bet would be the AT-F100 (from googling I found a distributor of it: http://www.ornec.com/g-w-at-f100-a-class-headphone-amplifier_QQC100296C). The AT sounds for audio-technica. It's apparently an amp designed specially for audio-technica headphones. However it's not portable. On the forum there were 2 other amps recommended for the a700 but they cost about the same. One of them is portable: the XM5.

I don't know much about which sound cards are good but yes, if you listen to music from your computer, you'd benefit from having a good sound card. You could find information at head-fi's "computer audio" forum, or just search "sound card" and you'll find a bunch of informative threads.

Your alternative to a sound card would be to get a DAC, which would take the signal from your computer but then decode the signal using its own chips instead of the computer's. You'd plug the DAC into your computer and the headphones into the DAC.

The simplest improvement you can make, if you don't already do it, is use high-quality formats/bitrates for your music files. The highest quality is Lossless, which is the same quality as a CD. The next in line are OGG, AAC, and MP3. Use the highest bitrate possible, and to save space make it variable bitrate.

Hope this helps. Enjoy the cans!

Setting up TV speakers and headphones for different volumes?

James W

My partner's parents have an issue where, his father tends to want the TV on louder than the mother likes. Is there any kind of setup where the father could maybe wear headphones set at a different volume to the TV for their mutual comfort? Ideally the setup would allow the use of headphones only when it's just something the father wants to watch, but then allow speakers when the mother would like to listen also, just at a different volume.

This would be through a fairly modern 32" LCD TV. We currently do not have any kind of headphones and would appreciate any suggestions for ones that would work well if such a setup is possible.

Answer
What Byron said, but I will add many TVs lack an analog audio out, so you need an audio DAC to convder TV digital audio to analog audio.

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