Max volume?

[PlayLoud]

Greetings,

A few months ago, I purchased a Soundblasted Titanium HD, as I was planning ahead, and liked the fact that it has a headphone amp.

After installing it, I noticed my speakers were louder at any given volume level.

A few days ago, I bought a Sennheiser PC 360, which should be easy to drive, especially with the built in amp. However, I can turn my system/iTunes/headset up to max volume without it getting too loud (doesn't hurt). I would have thought an amped headphone would be louder. Does this seem normal? Is it possible the amp isn't working?

 

[TESLA]

Headphone amplifiers are not just about loudness.

Volume to the point where it hurts your ears is not a feature, and not having the ability to hurt your ears is nothing to worry about. So long as the headphones are able to be driven at a comfortable volume, there is nothing you should be worried about.

The fact that your speakers are louder when using the new card may be due, among other things, to the Titanium HD having more voltage at the line outputs than your old card. It is difficult to say for sure without knowing more.

Also, check to see what volume level your sound card's mixer, your playback application, and your PC360 are set at. You may have missed a volume control somewhere down the chain.

Lastly, the line outputs and headphone jack are entirely different circuits on the board, and your speakers and headphone may react differently, in terms of volume, to the same input. It is not uncommon to have different volume settings for your speakers and headphones.

 

[PlayLoud]

Ok. It looks like it was partly a Windows 7 thing. In addition to the master volume and the volume slider in iTunes, there was also an iTunes volume slider in the mixer (next to the master volume) This was only turned up about half way, so that helped a lot.

Also, I was going through the big Titanium HD thread, when I found the following...

They both have excellent headphone performance. The Titanium HD has a headphone "out" not an amp as we mistakenly believed. That was my mistake, not Creative's.

However, it is still spec'd to handle headphones up to 330 Ohms, so all should be good.

Volume to the point where it hurts your ears is not a feature

I didn't really want it to hurt my ears, I just wanted a little headroom for tracks that were mixed low.

Since finding that third (hidden) volume slider, the headphones now seem loud enough. I can turn them up to as loud I was ever planning on listening to them (even on tracks mixed a little lower).

Thanks for the help!

 

[TESLA]

Yeah, it looks like I was mistaken.

The headphone and line outputs are sharing the same op-amps and buffers. The headphone and line outputs will just have slightly different circuits right before the jack for differing output impedance. Now, a line level signal from the RCA jacks can still have a good voltage swing, just with restricted current. The headphone jack will have less restricted current flow, so it can still be enough to drive most headphones quite well even without the addition of a second stage (the additional "headphone amp").

So, it looks like the TiHD is behind the Essence ST/X for difficult to drive headphones, given that the Essence does have a second stage for further amplification.

I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Even without a second stage, the op-amps in the line out stage on the TiHD still do provide amplification, certainly much more amplification than, say, on-board sound. Certainly enough for the PC360s you are using.