{"video_id":"fp_TSJrXAYdrM","title":"Jake LOVES the JDS Element IV Amp+DAC","channel":"ShortCircuit","show":"ShortCircuit","published_at":"2025-02-25T21:34:00.042Z","duration_s":896,"segments":[{"start_s":0.0,"end_s":6.4,"text":"There's not a lot of companies out there that everything they make and I look at I go god damn that is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":7.2,"end_s":12.9,"text":"Genuinely like excellent and JDS Labs who make the product. We're about to look at here this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":16.08,"end_s":21.08,"text":"The element for their brand new headphone DAC amp combo unit thing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":21.52,"end_s":29.72,"text":"If you're not familiar this thing Make your headphones sound good and power your headphone good. This is no exception","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":29.72,"end_s":32.84,"text":"I hope I mean I haven't experienced it yet, but look at it here","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":32.84,"end_s":38.16,"text":"I mean you can see it on the box. Where does it say on the box like look you see this boom sound as science","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":38.16,"end_s":44.8,"text":"Their whole shtick is making audio equipment that is genuinely awesome. Not only just to look at I mean damn","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":44.88,"end_s":49.72,"text":"That looks good, but to use and apparently their customer service is phenomenal","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":49.72,"end_s":55.16,"text":"Although I've only ever talked to them like one time now if you're not familiar or you haven't guessed what this is meant to do","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":55.16,"end_s":61.24,"text":"It's a headphone amp and DAC. So you take this bad girl with this included USB-C cable","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":61.76,"end_s":69.7,"text":"Whabong you plug it into your computer It's gonna show up as an audio output device and then you plug in a pair of headphones and you listen to it. It has","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":70.44,"end_s":76.84,"text":"Apparently 3.2 watts of output power now that might not sound like a lot of watts in the context of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":77.32,"end_s":80.1,"text":"Normal stuff like I don't know like a CPU","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":80.46,"end_s":86.42,"text":"You know that might be hundreds of watts but three watts of audio like right next to your head like this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":86.42,"end_s":95.66,"text":"That is a lot of watts Especially if they're like in ear headphones in your ears three watts there. You're gonna blow your frickin eardrums out the wazoo","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":95.94,"end_s":101.34,"text":"Let's look at the back. We've got the USB-C. That is just a data connection. It's not USB PD","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":101.34,"end_s":107.86,"text":"I think no there's no way with audio equipment the power supply situation is very important and we'll get to that in a second","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":107.86,"end_s":111.34,"text":"We've got RCA outs because you can use this not only for your headphones","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":111.34,"end_s":117.06,"text":"But if you had a set of speakers with an amplifier you can switch between the headphone output, which is out there on the front","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":117.06,"end_s":120.7,"text":"We've got an optical Toslink input if you have a fancy player","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":120.94,"end_s":127.42,"text":"Maybe or like a I don't know a fancy record player might have Toslink. Maybe they don't I don't know blue-ray player","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":127.42,"end_s":137.06,"text":"That that's something that could have Toslink. We've got a mode button This switch is between the USB and Toslink input and then a power button and our DC input","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":137.1,"end_s":143.98,"text":"Which is actually never mind. It is not DC now curiously. This isn't really like a traditional AC to DC power supply","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":144.02,"end_s":147.06,"text":"It's actually an AC to AC transformer","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":147.06,"end_s":152.74,"text":"So it takes 120 volt AC because we're in North America and outputs 17 volt AC","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":152.94,"end_s":159.18,"text":"Which is maybe a bit strange if you're used to like, you know normal electronics. Usually it's a DC input","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":159.7,"end_s":168.9,"text":"But with audio equipment Specifically, you don't really want to rely on a third-party power supply manufacturer who might have like varying quality control stuff","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":168.9,"end_s":176.26,"text":"So instead of doing that they take an AC input and then convert that to the DC power for all the amplification and the digital to analog conversion","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":176.74,"end_s":183.34,"text":"Inside the unit that way they can build the electronics exactly how they want and do all the QC in-house a little bit easier","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":183.34,"end_s":188.86,"text":"It's also the same reason why your receiver just takes 120 volt instead of having a big power supply outside","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":188.86,"end_s":195.86,"text":"They do that stuff inside where they have control. Apparently some people were not stoked that it has USB-C and doesn't do USB-C power","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":196.1,"end_s":203.26,"text":"But I can understand you need to have really clean power to have the level of like signal to noise ratio that these things have","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":203.78,"end_s":206.5,"text":"And I imagine doing that over USB is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":206.86,"end_s":210.22,"text":"Exceedingly more difficult than when you have a very controlled source like this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":210.22,"end_s":214.98,"text":"I remember when they released the first element everyone was like tripping over this knob the twist motion. Oh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":215.42,"end_s":219.58,"text":"It's nice. It's not the nicest knob. I've ever knobbed in my life","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":219.74,"end_s":223.7,"text":"You know, they're like really fancy receivers. You like turn them and it's like soft","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":224.34,"end_s":228.62,"text":"Like it's not not soft, but I feel like there's an inconsistent","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":229.86,"end_s":234.66,"text":"Resistance a little bit. It's a good knob. I mean in the noblest world we live in the bar is very low","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":234.66,"end_s":238.5,"text":"And I will I would happily accept this knob. I would knob this knob","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":239.5,"end_s":245.18,"text":"Regularly, I think the kind of weird feel that I'm getting from it actually might make sense","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":245.66,"end_s":251.4,"text":"Because it allows you to be like a little bit more precise Like it stops now by default when you click","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":252.62,"end_s":255.9,"text":"The knob it switches between the quarter inch headphone output on the front","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":256.38,"end_s":262.82,"text":"Using the headphone amp and the RCA outputs here So if you have a set of speakers with a separate amp you just go boom now on speakers boom now","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":262.82,"end_s":267.94,"text":"I'm headphone really nice feature. There's also an OLED screen. You see that look","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":269.18,"end_s":275.22,"text":"It's our sponsor. I think this is a three-ish foot USB A to C cable now","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":275.22,"end_s":281.18,"text":"I feel like For most people who are gonna have this at their desk. This is fine","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":281.22,"end_s":286.1,"text":"But if you rock a laptop, especially a MacBook like I was planning to plug into this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":287.26,"end_s":289.26,"text":"That's a problem. Do I have a dongle?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":290.34,"end_s":294.82,"text":"Ain't no way. It's almost like I use a MacBook. I'm used to this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":295.26,"end_s":300.98,"text":"Look at that, baby Now for the price of this device, which we'll get into in a little bit JDS","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":301.62,"end_s":308.18,"text":"Y'all best be including one of these dongles in the box. All right. All right for test listening. We've got","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":308.9,"end_s":318.3,"text":"the Sennheiser Drop HD 8xx headphones. These are like a slightly costed down version of the HD 800 s","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":319.5,"end_s":323.06,"text":"Which is the headphones I have at home. So this is perfect. I guess while we're here","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":323.06,"end_s":330.18,"text":"We can talk a little bit about The nerdy stuff for the nerds. This has crew the screen has gorilla glass. That's random","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":330.18,"end_s":336.66,"text":"But I like it the big new thing with this is the parametric EQ. It has a 10 band EQ","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":337.02,"end_s":340.66,"text":"Which is super cool, but you don't have to run software on it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":340.66,"end_s":343.82,"text":"What it is is a tool that runs in your web browser like a website","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":343.82,"end_s":347.38,"text":"And then when you connect your amp to the website, it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":348.34,"end_s":353.98,"text":"Flashes the settings whatever you set to the device over basically a USB serial connection","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":353.98,"end_s":357.1,"text":"So once you've made that profile or changes or whatever you want","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":357.46,"end_s":362.02,"text":"You can take this amp somewhere else plug it in and it'll still have all the settings saved","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":362.02,"end_s":366.22,"text":"And you don't have to run any software on your computer, which is so nice","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":366.22,"end_s":371.14,"text":"It also has automatic gain control like I mentioned earlier with automatically switches. You can hear the relay","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":371.58,"end_s":377.7,"text":"Supposedly perfect channel balance all the way down to minus a hundred twenty seven point five dbfs","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":377.82,"end_s":383.78,"text":"It's got pre-amped outputs Which means you can control the volume of your speakers when you're in speaker mode. I switch it there","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":383.78,"end_s":385.98,"text":"So you're in RC output. I can change","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":386.9,"end_s":390.26,"text":"The volume of my speakers on here. It's got the super nice knob","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":390.26,"end_s":397.44,"text":"Which is customizable and it supports up to 32 bit 384 kilohertz PCM with their fancy uac to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":397.68,"end_s":403.64,"text":"Set up. Oh and the 10 band EQ specifically is supported from forty four point one to a hundred ninety two kilohertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":403.92,"end_s":410.84,"text":"They can do two bands at higher rates If you're a super nerd that cares a lot about like signal to noise ratio and stuff like that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":411.04,"end_s":414.04,"text":"This is well beyond the audible range of a person","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":414.36,"end_s":417.92,"text":"But if you do care you can check out the audio science review","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":417.92,"end_s":421.58,"text":"Which they already did of this thing and it rated very very well. Let's","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":422.44,"end_s":424.44,"text":"Listen to some music I guess","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":425.44,"end_s":427.44,"text":"This","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":430.08,"end_s":433.76,"text":"Wow, I don't know if I ever listen to these headphones like this before","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":434.52,"end_s":436.52,"text":"That's really fucking loud","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":437.88,"end_s":440.92,"text":"Wow, I just can't believe that this has so much","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":442.4,"end_s":446.4,"text":"Like range like you can play all the way up to like","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":447.4,"end_s":450.96,"text":"Obscenely loud on these headphones and it doesn't sound","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":451.96,"end_s":456.96,"text":"It doesn't sound distorted or crushed or anything. It sounds it's too good","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":457.92,"end_s":465.28,"text":"It might actually just be too good It actually literally says in the instructions the element 4 can amplify headphones to dangerously loud audio","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":465.64,"end_s":468.02,"text":"Listen safely to conserve your hearing hearing loss","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":471.16,"end_s":474.32,"text":"The cool thing about having the screen I hear is a me can see your output game","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":474.32,"end_s":480.32,"text":"But it also shows you the sampling rate that you're using right now. So right now we're on forty four point one kill herds in theory","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":480.36,"end_s":487.48,"text":"We can go higher than that. I Don't know how to change that on macOS though. I hold the knob. Whoa, look at that. Oh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":488.48,"end_s":495.72,"text":"My god, there's all these options. We've got UI settings DSP config USB audio class mute inactive USB SP diff mode","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":496.68,"end_s":500.24,"text":"DAC configuration satisfactory reset DAC configuration was that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":501.0,"end_s":509.94,"text":"max sample rate Yeah, okay. Oh see so by default it it's a hundred ninety two killer it's USB audio class","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":510.4,"end_s":518.6,"text":"This is a cool one So if you have somebody like a Nintendo switch, which uses UAC one if you have a device that only supports UAC two","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":518.72,"end_s":523.68,"text":"Then it wouldn't work with your Nintendo switch. However, JDS thought about this and they have two different modes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":524.08,"end_s":529.48,"text":"So if you have a device that only supports UAC one you can go into the settings here. You can change it to UAC one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":530.16,"end_s":535.24,"text":"Damn son. This thing's cool. Connect to device. Oh, here we go. JDS Labs connect","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":535.96,"end_s":542.44,"text":"Look at that. That's so cool. Okay, so I have the old version of this thing the element three boosted and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":543.72,"end_s":548.64,"text":"You can't change the settings anyway other than using the knob and it's a really small screen","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":548.64,"end_s":551.04,"text":"So while you can do it, it is a little bit tricky","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":551.92,"end_s":558.04,"text":"So being able to change all of those settings or at least it seems like a fair number of them in here is really nice","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":558.04,"end_s":561.32,"text":"And you can share your profile. That's so smart","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":562.08,"end_s":566.16,"text":"You can even save your profile to your account. Oh my god these guys","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":566.16,"end_s":569.52,"text":"They think of things and so if I get the link and then you can send that to your friend","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":569.52,"end_s":572.68,"text":"If you like made a cool profile for your headphones and your friend has the same headphones","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":572.68,"end_s":580.32,"text":"you can send it to him and try it out or If you had speakers same deal, it's a little tricky on title to actually find clips that are a hundred ninety two kilohertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":580.32,"end_s":585.04,"text":"So almost everything I found so far is 24 bit 44.1 kilohertz, but I want to try something","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":585.04,"end_s":587.36,"text":"It's a hundred ninety two even though I'm not gonna be able to tell the difference","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":588.08,"end_s":594.48,"text":"Apparently Africa by Toto is yeah, it is it totally is like it switched","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":594.92,"end_s":599.32,"text":"Like actually completely maxed out it. It's it's loud","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":599.68,"end_s":605.68,"text":"But it's still not painfully loud if that gives you an idea of how hard these headphones are to drive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":605.68,"end_s":610.88,"text":"This is the first Headphone amp that I've used that has actually been like okay","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":610.88,"end_s":616.84,"text":"This is like really enough to get these to the point that I would is uncomfortable to listen at like it's uncomfortable","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":616.84,"end_s":620.92,"text":"It's not painful, but it's not a listening level. I would like value should come here","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":622.28,"end_s":628.32,"text":"Come come come do a listen and they actually sound not bad outside of the headphones. I can't hear a thing. You're saying I","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":630.04,"end_s":634.84,"text":"Said they sound not bad outside of the headphones. Yeah, no, they sound really good. I only use airpods","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":634.84,"end_s":640.48,"text":"This is this is like much better try it try and like turn it up sure like it's actually kind of crazy","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":640.48,"end_s":645.6,"text":"How loud they get and without being distorted that is a good note by the way wow that's crazy","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":646.84,"end_s":651.72,"text":"Just as good but loud. Yeah, there's a really cool piece of software called sonar work sound ID","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":651.72,"end_s":657.6,"text":"They basically do pre-made calibration profiles for headphones to try to get them to be flatter which","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":657.96,"end_s":666.52,"text":"Not always the best for everyone But for a creator or like somebody who's doing audio mastering if you can make your headphones flatter","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":666.52,"end_s":672.84,"text":"That's good. The nice thing about it is for these headphones specifically or the hc 800s, which is what these are based off of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":672.84,"end_s":676.88,"text":"They're a little spicy in the high end and there's a little bit of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":677.68,"end_s":682.16,"text":"Bass lacking one might say and you can tweak it a little bit with sound ID","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":682.16,"end_s":685.52,"text":"But I don't want to have to run the software","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":685.52,"end_s":691.8,"text":"So if I could get their profile in JDS Labs core, which is the online EQ thing that would be pretty sick","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":691.8,"end_s":696.32,"text":"I was expecting that you would have to like edit the profile and then flash it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":696.72,"end_s":700.56,"text":"Like wait a sec and then it would be active. I can live edit this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":701.44,"end_s":706.2,"text":"Yo, that's so cool. There's a second of it like cutting out","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":707.08,"end_s":714.56,"text":"But it's almost instantaneous. Oh, dude, dude. God damn. I have to buy these now. I'm gonna have to buy this now","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":715.12,"end_s":722.28,"text":"Okay, let's look at this frequency response They even have a cue setting which is like the width of the frequency range you're adjusting in that band","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":722.52,"end_s":728.48,"text":"So let's say that the hc 800s according to this graph has a bit of a bump at a thousand Hertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":728.76,"end_s":733.84,"text":"you can More specifically target a thousand ish Hertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":733.84,"end_s":737.08,"text":"If you're really trying to like tune a pair of headphones properly","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":737.08,"end_s":742.04,"text":"You would use like a hats with little microphones inside to actually measure what the frequency response would be like","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":742.04,"end_s":746.16,"text":"That would be a far more proper way to do this than be jankily looking at this graph","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":746.72,"end_s":750.48,"text":"But dude, this is so cool. I already feel like I'm","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":751.32,"end_s":756.04,"text":"I'm vibing with a little more bass This is definitely not the way to do this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":756.48,"end_s":762.28,"text":"But I toned down, you know looking at a graph of like somebody else's headphone frequency response","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":762.28,"end_s":766.32,"text":"I don't even know if it's normalized like all this stuff. It's not the proper way to do this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":767.44,"end_s":773.56,"text":"But I was just kind of ballparking it it toned down the top end brought the the sub bass up a little bit","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":774.72,"end_s":777.8,"text":"I think it does sound better and the fact that it just works","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":778.2,"end_s":787.72,"text":"Instantly like is it there's a touch of a cutout But it's fast enough that you can hear the difference immediately and kind of give yourself a reference and and really allow you to tune","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":788.28,"end_s":797.04,"text":"Your playback to what you would prefer I said earlier that they like have stuff that's reasonably priced and they do JDS Labs makes a lot of really awesome products","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":797.04,"end_s":801.0,"text":"And they do make ones that are a little bit more on the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":802.64,"end_s":808.36,"text":"Affordable range of things their most popular ones the Adam Dagen amp you can get for 150 for the deck and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":808.72,"end_s":812.64,"text":"130 for the amp not nearly as powerful, but still really good","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":812.64,"end_s":819.6,"text":"Well, the EL amp is on sale too, but the element for which comes with both integrated in it's exactly what you're looking at here","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":819.6,"end_s":826.16,"text":"This is 550 US dollars compared to some of the other things that have this much output power. It's not","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":826.56,"end_s":829.6,"text":"Really egregious considering that and the feature set","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":830.64,"end_s":837.24,"text":"It is genuinely really awesome seems like sounds great doesn't sound distorted audio is such a subjective thing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":837.24,"end_s":840.88,"text":"But this is designing a device that is supposed to take the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":841.8,"end_s":851.46,"text":"Subjectiveness out of it. It's supposed to just be objectively Excellent and honestly, I use their Adam DAC for my main speakers because I like having discrete output devices","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":852.08,"end_s":857.24,"text":"And it's great too But having one unit with all this stuff packed in there. It's pretty damn impressive","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":857.24,"end_s":863.92,"text":"It's not cheap But if you have expensive headphones and you care about your audio sounding like it's supposed to sound like and you like being able to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":863.92,"end_s":869.3,"text":"EQ like I just showed you without running software. This might be a very good option for you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":869.92,"end_s":877.8,"text":"Assuming you can stomach the cost It's a premium product and it's not trying to hide that but my god, is it ever good? You know what else is good?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":878.92,"end_s":883.92,"text":"me at asking you to hit subscribe and hit the like button and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":884.8,"end_s":889.36,"text":"Listening to music. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do this a little bit more","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":889.36,"end_s":895.76,"text":"We should just have the outro of this video just be like 30 seconds longer than it actually is and just be listening to tunes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"There's not a lot of companies out there that everything they make and I look at I go god damn that is Genuinely like excellent and JDS Labs who make the product. We're about to look at here this The element for their brand new headphone DAC amp combo unit thing If you're not familiar this thing Make your headphones sound good and power your headphone good. This is no exception I hope I mean I haven't experienced it yet, but look at it here I mean you can see it on the box. Where does it say on the box like look you see this boom sound as science Their whole shtick is making audio equipment that is genuinely awesome. Not only just to look at I mean damn That looks good, but to use and apparently their customer service is phenomenal Although I've only ever talked to them like one time now if you're not familiar or you haven't guessed what this is meant to do It's a headphone amp and DAC. So you take this bad girl with this included USB-C cable Whabong you plug it into your computer It's gonna show up as an audio output device and then you plug in a pair of headphones and you listen to it. It has Apparently 3.2 watts of output power now that might not sound like a lot of watts in the context of Normal stuff like I don't know like a CPU You know that might be hundreds of watts but three watts of audio like right next to your head like this That is a lot of watts Especially if they're like in ear headphones in your ears three watts there. You're gonna blow your frickin eardrums out the wazoo Let's look at the back. We've got the USB-C. That is just a data connection. It's not USB PD I think no there's no way with audio equipment the power supply situation is very important and we'll get to that in a second We've got RCA outs because you can use this not only for your headphones But if you had a set of speakers with an amplifier you can switch between the headphone output, which is out there on the front We've got an optical Toslink input if you have a fancy player Maybe or like a I don't know a fancy record player might have Toslink. Maybe they don't I don't know blue-ray player That that's something that could have Toslink. We've got a mode button This switch is between the USB and Toslink input and then a power button and our DC input Which is actually never mind. It is not DC now curiously. This isn't really like a traditional AC to DC power supply It's actually an AC to AC transformer So it takes 120 volt AC because we're in North America and outputs 17 volt AC Which is maybe a bit strange if you're used to like, you know normal electronics. Usually it's a DC input But with audio equipment Specifically, you don't really want to rely on a third-party power supply manufacturer who might have like varying quality control stuff So instead of doing that they take an AC input and then convert that to the DC power for all the amplification and the digital to analog conversion Inside the unit that way they can build the electronics exactly how they want and do all the QC in-house a little bit easier It's also the same reason why your receiver just takes 120 volt instead of having a big power supply outside They do that stuff inside where they have control. Apparently some people were not stoked that it has USB-C and doesn't do USB-C power But I can understand you need to have really clean power to have the level of like signal to noise ratio that these things have And I imagine doing that over USB is Exceedingly more difficult than when you have a very controlled source like this I remember when they released the first element everyone was like tripping over this knob the twist motion. Oh It's nice. It's not the nicest knob. I've ever knobbed in my life You know, they're like really fancy receivers. You like turn them and it's like soft Like it's not not soft, but I feel like there's an inconsistent Resistance a little bit. It's a good knob. I mean in the noblest world we live in the bar is very low And I will I would happily accept this knob. I would knob this knob Regularly, I think the kind of weird feel that I'm getting from it actually might make sense Because it allows you to be like a little bit more precise Like it stops now by default when you click The knob it switches between the quarter inch headphone output on the front Using the headphone amp and the RCA outputs here So if you have a set of speakers with a separate amp you just go boom now on speakers boom now I'm headphone really nice feature. There's also an OLED screen. You see that look It's our sponsor. I think this is a three-ish foot USB A to C cable now I feel like For most people who are gonna have this at their desk. This is fine But if you rock a laptop, especially a MacBook like I was planning to plug into this That's a problem. Do I have a dongle? Ain't no way. It's almost like I use a MacBook. I'm used to this Look at that, baby Now for the price of this device, which we'll get into in a little bit JDS Y'all best be including one of these dongles in the box. All right. All right for test listening. We've got the Sennheiser Drop HD 8xx headphones. These are like a slightly costed down version of the HD 800 s Which is the headphones I have at home. So this is perfect. I guess while we're here We can talk a little bit about The nerdy stuff for the nerds. This has crew the screen has gorilla glass. That's random But I like it the big new thing with this is the parametric EQ. It has a 10 band EQ Which is super cool, but you don't have to run software on it What it is is a tool that runs in your web browser like a website And then when you connect your amp to the website, it Flashes the settings whatever you set to the device over basically a USB serial connection So once you've made that profile or changes or whatever you want You can take this amp somewhere else plug it in and it'll still have all the settings saved And you don't have to run any software on your computer, which is so nice It also has automatic gain control like I mentioned earlier with automatically switches. You can hear the relay Supposedly perfect channel balance all the way down to minus a hundred twenty seven point five dbfs It's got pre-amped outputs Which means you can control the volume of your speakers when you're in speaker mode. I switch it there So you're in RC output. I can change The volume of my speakers on here. It's got the super nice knob Which is customizable and it supports up to 32 bit 384 kilohertz PCM with their fancy uac to Set up. Oh and the 10 band EQ specifically is supported from forty four point one to a hundred ninety two kilohertz They can do two bands at higher rates If you're a super nerd that cares a lot about like signal to noise ratio and stuff like that This is well beyond the audible range of a person But if you do care you can check out the audio science review Which they already did of this thing and it rated very very well. Let's Listen to some music I guess This Wow, I don't know if I ever listen to these headphones like this before That's really fucking loud Wow, I just can't believe that this has so much Like range like you can play all the way up to like Obscenely loud on these headphones and it doesn't sound It doesn't sound distorted or crushed or anything. It sounds it's too good It might actually just be too good It actually literally says in the instructions the element 4 can amplify headphones to dangerously loud audio Listen safely to conserve your hearing hearing loss The cool thing about having the screen I hear is a me can see your output game But it also shows you the sampling rate that you're using right now. So right now we're on forty four point one kill herds in theory We can go higher than that. I Don't know how to change that on macOS though. I hold the knob. Whoa, look at that. Oh My god, there's all these options. We've got UI settings DSP config USB audio class mute inactive USB SP diff mode DAC configuration satisfactory reset DAC configuration was that max sample rate Yeah, okay. Oh see so by default it it's a hundred ninety two killer it's USB audio class This is a cool one So if you have somebody like a Nintendo switch, which uses UAC one if you have a device that only supports UAC two Then it wouldn't work with your Nintendo switch. However, JDS thought about this and they have two different modes So if you have a device that only supports UAC one you can go into the settings here. You can change it to UAC one Damn son. This thing's cool. Connect to device. Oh, here we go. JDS Labs connect Look at that. That's so cool. Okay, so I have the old version of this thing the element three boosted and You can't change the settings anyway other than using the knob and it's a really small screen So while you can do it, it is a little bit tricky So being able to change all of those settings or at least it seems like a fair number of them in here is really nice And you can share your profile. That's so smart You can even save your profile to your account. Oh my god these guys They think of things and so if I get the link and then you can send that to your friend If you like made a cool profile for your headphones and your friend has the same headphones you can send it to him and try it out or If you had speakers same deal, it's a little tricky on title to actually find clips that are a hundred ninety two kilohertz So almost everything I found so far is 24 bit 44.1 kilohertz, but I want to try something It's a hundred ninety two even though I'm not gonna be able to tell the difference Apparently Africa by Toto is yeah, it is it totally is like it switched Like actually completely maxed out it. It's it's loud But it's still not painfully loud if that gives you an idea of how hard these headphones are to drive This is the first Headphone amp that I've used that has actually been like okay This is like really enough to get these to the point that I would is uncomfortable to listen at like it's uncomfortable It's not painful, but it's not a listening level. I would like value should come here Come come come do a listen and they actually sound not bad outside of the headphones. I can't hear a thing. You're saying I Said they sound not bad outside of the headphones. Yeah, no, they sound really good. I only use airpods This is this is like much better try it try and like turn it up sure like it's actually kind of crazy How loud they get and without being distorted that is a good note by the way wow that's crazy Just as good but loud. Yeah, there's a really cool piece of software called sonar work sound ID They basically do pre-made calibration profiles for headphones to try to get them to be flatter which Not always the best for everyone But for a creator or like somebody who's doing audio mastering if you can make your headphones flatter That's good. The nice thing about it is for these headphones specifically or the hc 800s, which is what these are based off of They're a little spicy in the high end and there's a little bit of Bass lacking one might say and you can tweak it a little bit with sound ID But I don't want to have to run the software So if I could get their profile in JDS Labs core, which is the online EQ thing that would be pretty sick I was expecting that you would have to like edit the profile and then flash it Like wait a sec and then it would be active. I can live edit this Yo, that's so cool. There's a second of it like cutting out But it's almost instantaneous. Oh, dude, dude. God damn. I have to buy these now. I'm gonna have to buy this now Okay, let's look at this frequency response They even have a cue setting which is like the width of the frequency range you're adjusting in that band So let's say that the hc 800s according to this graph has a bit of a bump at a thousand Hertz you can More specifically target a thousand ish Hertz If you're really trying to like tune a pair of headphones properly You would use like a hats with little microphones inside to actually measure what the frequency response would be like That would be a far more proper way to do this than be jankily looking at this graph But dude, this is so cool. I already feel like I'm I'm vibing with a little more bass This is definitely not the way to do this But I toned down, you know looking at a graph of like somebody else's headphone frequency response I don't even know if it's normalized like all this stuff. It's not the proper way to do this But I was just kind of ballparking it it toned down the top end brought the the sub bass up a little bit I think it does sound better and the fact that it just works Instantly like is it there's a touch of a cutout But it's fast enough that you can hear the difference immediately and kind of give yourself a reference and and really allow you to tune Your playback to what you would prefer I said earlier that they like have stuff that's reasonably priced and they do JDS Labs makes a lot of really awesome products And they do make ones that are a little bit more on the Affordable range of things their most popular ones the Adam Dagen amp you can get for 150 for the deck and 130 for the amp not nearly as powerful, but still really good Well, the EL amp is on sale too, but the element for which comes with both integrated in it's exactly what you're looking at here This is 550 US dollars compared to some of the other things that have this much output power. It's not Really egregious considering that and the feature set It is genuinely really awesome seems like sounds great doesn't sound distorted audio is such a subjective thing But this is designing a device that is supposed to take the Subjectiveness out of it. It's supposed to just be objectively Excellent and honestly, I use their Adam DAC for my main speakers because I like having discrete output devices And it's great too But having one unit with all this stuff packed in there. It's pretty damn impressive It's not cheap But if you have expensive headphones and you care about your audio sounding like it's supposed to sound like and you like being able to EQ like I just showed you without running software. This might be a very good option for you Assuming you can stomach the cost It's a premium product and it's not trying to hide that but my god, is it ever good? You know what else is good? me at asking you to hit subscribe and hit the like button and Listening to music. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do this a little bit more We should just have the outro of this video just be like 30 seconds longer than it actually is and just be listening to tunes"}