Surviving audiophilia
I came across this blogpost about headphones and amplifier impedance (via HN). The basic idea seems to be that the amp's output impedance should be 1/8th of headphones impedance, or ideally close to zero. Otherwise you could be listening to distorted audio.
My listening setup consists of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 250 Ohm headphones and a Yamaha TSR-7850 AV Receiver. Out of curiosity I checked what the output impedance for my receiver is. It was 560 Ohms. Uh oh. Way higher than 1/8th of 250 Ohms and nowhere close to zero.
And that started a day long research into whether I've been listening to distorted audio all this while. Intuitively I knew that isn't possible as I'm certain I have decent enough hearing (whatever that means). But still, there is basic physics as the blogpost and various audiophile experts on the Internet kept saying. Apparently because my AV receiver has such high impedance, I now have a voltage divider and my headphones aren't getting all the power they need.
So I started looking at which headphone DAC and amp to buy. It seems anything would be better than lowly AV receivers which just have a resistor thrown in from the speaker amp circuit. After looking at a whole bunch of scientifically researched graphs on frequency response and what not from a variety of audiophile sources, I was prepared to shell out a few hundred dollars.
That's when I realized I had access to an M1 MacBook Pro, which ought to have a headphone jack with low output impedance. Looking up online, I confirmed that M1 Macs do support high impedance headphones. I connected by 250 Ohms headphones thinking the DAC/Amp in the Mac would sound way better than a crappy AV receiver. To my surprise the Mac sounded about the same as the AV receiver. There was a difference, but not something that proved that the AV receiver was worse sounding than the Mac (or vice versa).
Searching on audiophile sources for how well M1 mac does with headphones, the verdict was that they are pretty decent. Which also means my AV receiver is decent enough. The same expert sources which are in a position to certify the Mac also write off AV receivers as garbage (as far as using headphones with them go). That's when I realized that I was afflicted with audiophilia. I read an authoritative sounding blogpost and applied its findings to my AV receiver even though I knew nothing about the kind of circuitry was in it. My next stage of audiophilia was to give credence to opinions of other audiophiles on the Internet without knowing if any of them actually tested an AV receiver vs a headphone DAC/Amp combo.
Lesson learnt. Money saved. I can now resume enjoying music without the anxiety that my setup is somehow lacking.