WooAudio WA6 vs. Yulong A18

[malsackj]

Sure, with a smaller driver, the amount of current generated by the driver's movement through the voice coil is less than with a full size speaker driver. But the amount of current generated by a headphone amp is also proportionally smaller. There's nothing in the physics that says this is only valid for a "large" system.

correct and it most likely will not be heard. But if you wanted it could be measured and found.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Sure, with a smaller driver, the amount of current generated by the driver's movement through the voice coil is less than with a full size speaker driver. But the amount of current generated by a headphone amp is also proportionally smaller. There's nothing in the physics that says this is only valid for a "large" system.

I do not have the numbers to do this, but maybe you do...

When you say the current is "proportionally smaller" is the proportion the same for the masses involved?

If, for example, the moving mass of a speaker woofer is M, is that of a headphone M/100? M/500? M/1000?

And with regard to the current output I of a power amp, is that of a headphone amp similarly I/100, or I/500, or I/1000?

In other words does M(amp)/I(amp) = M(head)/I(head)?

I suspect not - but as I said I don't have the raw numbers to know for sure.

What I am arguing is that the moving mass of a speaker's woofer in comparison to that of a set of headphones is disproportionally larger, than the current differences between power amp and headphone amp, and that damping factor (as it relates to detection by the human ear) is therefore proportionally much more relevant and important in amp/speaker combos than in amp/headphone ones.

That is my hypothesis - on the table and completely open to being disproved.

Jeff

 

[PaulyT]

Could be. If you do a google search for "is damping factor an issue with headphones?" there's a lot of different answers. Some seem to say that headphone drivers tend to be more resistance-controlled than mass-controlled (here), while Wikipedia's entry talks about damping as seemingly an important issue (here). So I guess there's no clear answer.

Anyway, I was careful above to say that damping *may* explain why bass is better controlled with the ss amp - with the Denons anyway. Note that, for whatever reason, I don't have that issue with the T1 - maybe in part because it's less bass-heavy in general. But of course that's a difference in the headphones, not the amps.

 

[malsackj]

Along with are they IEM or like you Dennon and large cup and driver?

The amp to driver element connections will also play into the problems based on the resistance.

My 8 ohm subs are good with 500 damping factor on my fet amps but change that to 4 ohm and the speaker cables will need to be
2 or 3 times shorter along with larger size 12 gauge to 8 guage.

We have no subjective comparisons to work from on the headphone side. Still might not be worth an argument because can we hear this?

In the headphones and not the amps? might be the interaction of them?
Tubes are both a valve and capacitor to a degree and based on the makeup of the tube and design the natural capacitance, and resistance used may cause some filtering or reduction.

Why did Linkwitz create the x feed for headphone listening to boost the bass?
amps available, along with headphones available at the time in 1971 to create a passive box to combine lower frequencies on the headphones and provide a Fletcher-Munson curve to correct what is being heard.

 

[PaulyT]

The T1 is a full-size headphone, there's a pic in my other thread in this section. I can't find specs on how big the driver is, but it's a dynamic driver, probably ~1.75 inches diameter from what I can tell from just looking at it.