Amplified Headphones Do I Need Them?

Posted by raiko on January 1st, 2010 at 04:13pm

Mp3 players are great, in fact I just bought one, so do I need amplified headphones?  There are quite a few applications where you  will probably need some help from an amplifier. The new mp3 players that run on one AAA battery usually don’t have a whole lot of output power to drive many headphones. The manufacturer usually works around this problem by including very high efficiency headsets. Unfortunately, these headsets often sound really bad, mainly because high frequencies, which make the sound more tinny, require less power to reproduce. These mp3 players are practically incapable of driving a quality set of headphones with some decent bass response to any acceptable level of volume. If you buy a battery powered external amplifier or a pair of headphones with the amplifier built into them, you will have a lot more flexibility. Because, when you place the amplifier in the loop, you do more than just raise the volume, you bring back the bass that was missing.

Are there other situations might call for amplified headphones?  Sure, many computer sound cards have shoddy speaker drivers that have a low current output. They create a lot of distortion at higher volumes, sometimes over ten percent. Unfortunately, the distortion becomes quite noticeable unless you are just trying to drown out the noise of an overhead jet.  Maybe it’s a coworkers noise that you are trying to stifle. Nonetheless, having an amplifier in the loop can result in high sound levels with very low distortion. There is another another reason for having headsets with amplifiers in them. By having most of the work done by another amplifier, the device you are listening to can play without distortion and you can play the music at very high levels cleanly.

Will you be spending a small fortune for the extra batteries you’ll be needing. Well, amplified headphones do need batteries to power the amplifiers in them. Fortunately, most of these amplifiers consume very little power. So, playing time of 100 hours plus is not unreasonable. If you use your headphones during a commute, around an hour a day, that’s about three months on one set of batteries. That’s not bad performance. Personally I am a fan of rechargeable batteries and use them in all my headphones. I usually get a couple sets of them so that when one set is on the charger, the other set is in use.

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Tags: amplified headphone, Amplified Headphones, amplified headset, amplified headsets

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