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Comment by yvsong | Hacker News Reader

I learned a similar lesson in another domain.

Songza's headphone-specific equalizer made my Sennheiser HD 558 on iPhone much more enjoyable with the profile for HD 580. Hope they provide a profile for HD 558. Hardware headphone amplifiers are obsolete. Software equalizers are the solution.

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Software equalizers can never replace hardware solutions. They might improve your experience (your mileage _will_ vary), but there's no way you'll get an iPhone to drive sennheisers HD800s while sounding even remotely acceptable.

> Hardware headphone amplifiers are obsolete. Software equalizers are the solution.

Huh? Equalization and amplification are rather orthogonal concerns.

I should have limited my comments to mobile listeners with mid to low impedance headphones (which are the vast majority). I used to listen to iPhone with HD 580 (300 ohm) directly, with full volume and no amplifier/equalizer. It's loud enough for sensitive ears, and very enjoyable, better than HD 558. With amplifiers the sound is a little better, but not worth the inconvenience. For mid to low impedance headphones, amplifiers are often used to improve sound quality, not volume. Software equalizers (like those in Songza) would work well, and further shrink the market of amplifiers. Remember that in this mobile internet age, the American consumers have voted for Beats, I'm not sure what for, perhaps the overall user experience.

Can you actually do this for high impedance headphones? I don't see how you can EQ a 250 Ohm headphone like the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro off an iPhone and have it sound at all acceptable, but I'm not an audio engineer.

EQ won't help if you can't actually power the cans and in nearly all cases, won't help with noise or distortion due to the source.

For many mobile sources, you'll really want one for 250 Ohms. The HD558s by comparison are really low impedance.

An EQ can certainly help make your headphones sound more "interesting" or "better" though.

> Hardware headphone amplifiers are obsolete. Software equalizers are the solution.

What?

My headphones need a lot more power than is provided by a typical headphone jack. Not to mention the DAC built into most amps that gets rid of any line noise. Equalizers and amps are two completely different things, too.

They never did get to adding in Westone. So I had to improvise.

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