WEBVTT

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so after hours perhaps even days of

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painstaking research you finally decided

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on a pair of fancy headphones to replace those crappy little earbuds that came

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with your smartphone and good for you but unfortunately actually using them

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often isn't a matter of just plugging your cans into a headphone jack you see

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nicer headphones often need more power in order to operate properly due in part

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to their High impedance which is a measure of how much something resists

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electrical current High impedances allow headphones to be built in ways that can

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result in better overall sound quality but they also mean that they often need

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an amplifier in order to drive them properly if your headphones don't get

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enough power not only will they be too quiet to enjoy but they also won't sound

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right in different frequencies meaning you've just paid a lot of money for nice

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headphones that won't sound nearly good enough to justify their cost but how do

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you know if an amp is even necessary typically many cheaper headphones or

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headphones that are designed specifically to work with portable

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devices such as smartphones will have lower impedances usually 35 ohms or less

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making an additional amplifier unnecessary in most cases but once you

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start getting to 50 ohms and higher amplifiers can make an audible

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difference and north of 100 ohms you'll definitely need one if you're wondering

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how much impedance your headphones have this can use usually be found pretty

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easily on your product packaging or a spec page so if it turns out that you

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need an amplifier what should you pick other than following the usual steps of

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checking online reviews and manufacturer reputations a good place to start is to

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determine not only your headphones impedance rating but their efficiency or

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sensitivity which is a measure of how many dbb the headphones will output per

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mwatt or molt if your headphone specs

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don't give a number it's easy to look up efficiency or sensitivity ratings for

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lots of popular models online once you've got one of these numbers you can

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enter it along with your impedance rating on one of a handful of freely

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available headphone power calculators online a few of which will be listed in

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the video description down below you can then tell how many Ms you need to get

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your headphones up to a certain level of loudness a good idea is to assume 110 DB

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which is about 10 lower than the threshold of P

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after you've gotten this number just have a look at whether the power output

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of the amp you like is at least that high this will be listed as how many Ms

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it can put into a certain number of ohms so make sure the power output is

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sufficient for your headphon impedance many amp spec sheets will say things

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like this model can put 40 milliamps

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into 300 ohms to give you a better idea

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of exactly how much juice it can provide it's also a good idea to to get

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something a little more powerful than the calculator says that you need as

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many headphones can have variable impedances depending on whether you're

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listening to low or high frequency sounds for example popular models of

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Sennheiser Headphones are known to have impedance spikes in the lower

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frequencies again you can look up impedance graphs for lots of headphones

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online to see if they're significantly different than what's listed on the box

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and choose an amplifier accordingly the last Main specification you should be

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looking at is the amplifier's output impedance which is separate from your

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headphones impedance rating A good rule of thumb to follow is you want to make

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sure that your amps output impedance is at least eight times lower than your

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headphones impedance so if you've got a

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200 ohm set of headphones you want an amplifier with an output impedance of no

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more than 25 ohms okay Luke I get it

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it's super important to get the right amp but what about the right deck I mean

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it's even in the video title come on man well a digital analog converter can be

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helpful in certain circumstances a DAC takes the digital signal from your

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computer whether it's an MP3 or flak file or whatever and converts it into an

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analog signal that your headphones can then turn into sound your computer has a

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Dack built in to allow you to plug in headphones or speakers but some cheaply

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implemented dacks can pick up electrical noise from inside your PC PC which can

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result in hissing crackling static all

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that kind of stuff right to your headphones or speakers so if you're

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experiencing these symptoms or weird sounding audio in general an external

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Dack that's outside of the electrically noisy environment that is your computer

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it can definitely help but if you aren't suffering from these symptoms you

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probably don't need an external deck especially as onboard motherboard audio

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has improved quite a bit over recent years but some audio file do claim that

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a nice Dack can open up the sound stage on nicer headphones especially

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open-backed ones so if you really want to explore high-end high-fi it can be

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something worth considering and although all this sounds like a lot of unpleasant

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math a little work can go a long way in making sure you get that Transcendent

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listening experience that you've always wanted speaking of great experiences

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Techquickie and entering Techquickie in the how did You Hear About Us section

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all right guys like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it check out our other channels like lus

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Tech tips and the much B hooded Channel Super Fun also if you guys are

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interested in the shirt that I'm wearing the like goldplated Techquickie shirt

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thing this will be available not yet but soon so watch that uh description down

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below also if you want to see those links for the power calculator things

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those are also in the description down below leave suggestions for other Tech wickies that you want us to see or make

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videos about I can talk sometimes let us

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know in the comments down below and I'll see you next time