01-20-2020, 04:45 PM
I somewhat solved this for myself.
I don't think the DAC plays well with low impedance headphones. I was actually using earphones at first, which are very low impedance. I switched to using my he4xx planar magnetic headphones (high impedance) and the noise floor is low enough to barely be able to hear (you'd have to be in a very quiet room or really be listening for it)
The only potential issue with doing this is the DAC not being able to power the headphones enough. At max volume, the headphones are at about 60-70% my normal listening volume. I solved this by using alsamixer to change the gain of the DAC fairly higher. I haven't noticed any substantial distortion after doing this.
I also tested some headphones with more average impedance (Audio Technica m50), and the noise is also fairly loud, but lower than the earphones.
Ideally, the gain of the DAC should be able to be lowered, but I can't find any way to do this. I think it's possible that the gain control in alsamixer only changes the output volume in software, and doesn't do anything to change the actual output power of the jack. Anyone that understands audio better let me know your thoughts on this.
For now, I guess I will stick to my planar magnetic :-p
I don't think the DAC plays well with low impedance headphones. I was actually using earphones at first, which are very low impedance. I switched to using my he4xx planar magnetic headphones (high impedance) and the noise floor is low enough to barely be able to hear (you'd have to be in a very quiet room or really be listening for it)
The only potential issue with doing this is the DAC not being able to power the headphones enough. At max volume, the headphones are at about 60-70% my normal listening volume. I solved this by using alsamixer to change the gain of the DAC fairly higher. I haven't noticed any substantial distortion after doing this.
I also tested some headphones with more average impedance (Audio Technica m50), and the noise is also fairly loud, but lower than the earphones.
Ideally, the gain of the DAC should be able to be lowered, but I can't find any way to do this. I think it's possible that the gain control in alsamixer only changes the output volume in software, and doesn't do anything to change the actual output power of the jack. Anyone that understands audio better let me know your thoughts on this.
For now, I guess I will stick to my planar magnetic :-p
