I am a retired professor and have just embarked on learning all I can about quality music storage on my computer. Just sent for new 6xx headphones and can't wait till they come and I can begin to enjoy music files generated by my grandson for me to hear. I am a little late in life getting this project going since I will be 80 in a few months. I also wear hearing aids and am concerned about maximizing my listening quality to great music.
Did you have a question? Drop is a dead website, if you're looking for advice I would try other forums.
Fortunately / unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) you won't be able to discern "audiophile" quality. At 80 you have the high frequency hearing loss that will inevitably affect all of us. With a hearing aid I would guess you have additional hearing loss as well. So you ("fortunately") don't need to justify buying grotesquely expensive audio equipment. For the youngsters, they can at least pretend it's worth it spending way too much on headphones, even though spending more doesn't lead to better sounding audio.
Almost no one can discern between lossless and compressed audio these days, regardless of hearing loss. You're welcome to try: https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality .
You don't need an amp with the 6xx, unless you want to turn them up louder than an average listening level due to hearing loss. That may accelerate additional hearing loss though. And all modern solid state amplifiers are identical in terms of audio quality, the differences are all below the threshold of human hearing. Modern amps don't affect the tonality of headphones in any way, unless it's a bad amp like a tube amp. They simply make headphones louder. If you do choose to get an amp you don't need to be too picky, find one that has a size, style and price point that you're OK with.
dm94aq7Thank you for your high quality analysis and evaluation of my particular situation. I deeply appreciate it. As you say the young aspire to some form of uniqueness and spend more money on things than those of us who are older question if we really need all this fancy and costly gear. You have just saved me from spending more money than I wanted to on stuff I really do not need. I am grateful to you for that since I retired many years ago and must live frugally so that I do not outlive my money. :-) Retired Professor checking out.
Hey, you're never too old or too young to be an audiophile! I'm 15 and I'm just getting started!
As for the hearing aids, I believe Sennheiser makes some high quality ones. I don't know how hearing aids work.
Just remember to have an amplifier to power the HD 6XX's.
The speaker jack will work, but will not provide enough power to truly let them shine. A good amplifier and/or DAC will help bring out the quality of the headphones. Consider looking at Schiit Audio's Magni and Modi for a cheap combo, and you could always start with just the headphones, then eventually an amp, and later on a DAC to hear the differences as you go.
Drop currently has some cheap DAC/Amps currently right now. The HD-6XXs have an impedance of 300 ohms, so they do require some power to let them shine. I recommend getting the xDuoo TA-01B ($80) or the portable Qudelix 5K (but you'll need the (currently sold out, but sold here for $20) 2.5mm TRRS cable to power it fully).
Though it's tiny, it manages to power even high ohm headsets with amazing accuracy. It works great with the drop usb-c to usb-c and my Phillips shp-9600. Soon enough I'll be using the Akoustyx...
I have an external amplifier with no integrated DAC and I only have an xduo xa10 as a dac/amp can I use the xduo xa10 as a dac only with an external amplifier?
So I bought the HD6xx a few weeks back and when I finally got the packages i got some Noir 99. ever happened to any of u guys and how did it get resolved