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Need Louder Sound



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 15th 19, 10:23 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default Need Louder Sound

I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei

  #2  
Old July 15th 19, 11:38 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default Need Louder Sound

wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

You need a good supply of voltage, like maybe +12V and -12V,
to get a good swing on the output. An opamp with class A
output or class AB output, would work, but you need plenty of
source voltage because the impedance of the phones (32 ohms)
is so high.

You *can* get excellent results with piezoelectric earphones.
I drove those directly with a 741 and I could get a 9V signal
across those, which would pop an eardrum. Unfortunately,
you can't find those any more (the kind I had). Those even
manage to produce base, which I thought at the time was
pretty amazing for something little bigger than an earbud.

It would take hours of miserable catalog searches, to
begin to find something which is reasonably priced
and happens to also work properly.

Paul
  #3  
Old July 16th 19, 12:05 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default Need Louder Sound

On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 18:38:35 -0400, Paul
wrote:

wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

You need a good supply of voltage, like maybe +12V and -12V,
to get a good swing on the output. An opamp with class A
output or class AB output, would work, but you need plenty of
source voltage because the impedance of the phones (32 ohms)
is so high.

You *can* get excellent results with piezoelectric earphones.
I drove those directly with a 741 and I could get a 9V signal
across those, which would pop an eardrum. Unfortunately,
you can't find those any more (the kind I had). Those even
manage to produce base, which I thought at the time was
pretty amazing for something little bigger than an earbud.

It would take hours of miserable catalog searches, to
begin to find something which is reasonably priced
and happens to also work properly.

Paul


Thanks for ur insight Paul. As always.
So much for learning Chinese. Thought it was a good idea - I have a
'bucket' item to sail up the Yangtze. Oh well.
zaigien
Wei
  #4  
Old July 16th 19, 01:34 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
~misfit~[_16_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 158
Default Need Louder Sound

On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio.Â* The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher.Â* Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got.Â* Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.


I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power supply (so can be pocketed and
powered from a 'powerbank') from Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't
assembled it yet.

--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

You need a good supply of voltage, like maybe +12V and -12V,
to get a good swing on the output. An opamp with class A
output or class AB output, would work, but you need plenty of
source voltage because the impedance of the phones (32 ohms)
is so high.

You *can* get excellent results with piezoelectric earphones.
I drove those directly with a 741 and I could get a 9V signal
across those, which would pop an eardrum. Unfortunately,
you can't find those any more (the kind I had). Those even
manage to produce base, which I thought at the time was
pretty amazing for something little bigger than an earbud.

It would take hours of miserable catalog searches, to
begin to find something which is reasonably priced
and happens to also work properly.

Â*Â* Paul


  #5  
Old July 16th 19, 04:14 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default Need Louder Sound

~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.


I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power supply
(so can be pocketed and powered from a 'powerbank') from Aliexpress for
about US$5 complete with a case but haven't assembled it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.

*******

https://www.themasterswitch.com/best-headphone-amps

Schiit Audio Magni 3 ($119)

There is a picture of the PCB so you can see what $120 buys.
Its an op amp and what looks like two push-pull stages (AB)
per channel. Drives 2W into 32 ohms. P=I*I*R sqrt(2W/32ohm) = 0.25A
0.25A * 32ohm = 8Vrms. That's at least 10x as much current as
an OpAmp might make by itself. It's more than ten, because you
need low distortion at 0.25A, meaning the amp might deliver more
when clipping.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KWJ9QMN

The over-the-top test suite here, suggests it's optimized for
1VRMS output (just like your computer). The High-gain position
of the switch on the back, is a fixed gain-of-six. So 0.170V
is enough to give 1V on output. But according to the power spec
(the 2W rating), that would be 8 volts on the output, and some
but not all HDAudio might be able to drive it that hard. Be
aware that "power rating" on amps is at 10% distortion, and if
that's the case here, you don't drive it that hard in practice.
You might be able to damage an ear drum, without it distorting
too much.

https://www.schiit.com/public/upload...0Magni%203.pdf

But as this stuff goes, you're only "taking a little soaking",
rather than "a major bath". At $119, that's only a little more
rip-off than the old RadioShack days.

I don't think anyone really wants to make their own.
It's too much work and too frustrating. I assembled
my amp from a kit, but the designer of my kit still
didn't do a good job. I don't have access to an
oscilloscope any more, but my ear tells me it's
oscillating at some god-awful high frequency.
You can tell this, if your amp has a "hollow sound"
to it. I built an amp once, that oscillated at 500KHz,
as measured on the physics lab oscilloscope. Now, if
I wanted to build an oscillator, of course it would
amplify and not oscillator. But if I wanted an
amplifier, it just has to oscillate.

Paul
  #6  
Old July 16th 19, 11:00 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware
~misfit~[_16_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 158
Default Need Louder Sound

On 16/07/2019 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio.Â* The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher.Â* Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got.Â* Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.


I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power supply (so can be pocketed and
powered from a 'powerbank') from Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't
assembled it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.


I'm not sure where I put the kit and when I go to my purchase history I can find the purchase but
the page doesn't exist anymore (which could be a problem if I need reference pics when I make the
kit - lesson learned, any other kits I buy I'll download the pics).

It was very similar to this one, same 'brand' but USB powered
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32723001937.html This one requires 12 - 18V DC input.

So OpAmp, and I remember the blurb saying they're socketed so that the end user can change to
different / better OpAmps if they want to.

I thought the OP might be interested as a cheap solution to their problem.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.
*******

https://www.themasterswitch.com/best-headphone-amps

Â*Â* Schiit Audio Magni 3 ($119)

Â*Â* There is a picture of the PCB so you can see what $120 buys.
Â*Â* Its an op amp and what looks like two push-pull stages (AB)
Â*Â* per channel. Drives 2W into 32 ohms. P=I*I*RÂ* sqrt(2W/32ohm) = 0.25A
Â*Â* 0.25A * 32ohm = 8Vrms. That's at least 10x as much current as
Â*Â* an OpAmp might make by itself. It's more than ten, because you
Â*Â* need low distortion at 0.25A, meaning the amp might deliver more
Â*Â* when clipping.

Â*Â* https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KWJ9QMN

Â*Â* The over-the-top test suite here, suggests it's optimized for
Â*Â* 1VRMS output (just like your computer). The High-gain position
Â*Â* of the switch on the back, is a fixed gain-of-six. So 0.170V
Â*Â* is enough to give 1V on output. But according to the power spec
Â*Â* (the 2W rating), that would be 8 volts on the output, and some
Â*Â* but not all HDAudio might be able to drive it that hard. Be
Â*Â* aware that "power rating" on amps is at 10% distortion, and if
Â*Â* that's the case here, you don't drive it that hard in practice.
Â*Â* You might be able to damage an ear drum, without it distorting
Â*Â* too much.


https://www.schiit.com/public/upload...0Magni%203.pdf


But as this stuff goes, you're only "taking a little soaking",
rather than "a major bath". At $119, that's only a little more
rip-off than the old RadioShack days.

I don't think anyone really wants to make their own.
It's too much work and too frustrating. I assembled
my amp from a kit, but the designer of my kit still
didn't do a good job. I don't have access to an
oscilloscope any more, but my ear tells me it's
oscillating at some god-awful high frequency.
You can tell this, if your amp has a "hollow sound"
to it. I built an amp once, that oscillated at 500KHz,
as measured on the physics lab oscilloscope. Now, if
I wanted to build an oscillator, of course it would
amplify and not oscillator. But if I wanted an
amplifier, it just has to oscillate.

Â*Â* Paul



  #7  
Old July 16th 19, 12:46 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default Need Louder Sound

On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:00:21 +1200, ~misfit~
wrote:

On 16/07/2019 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio.* The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher.* Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got.* Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power supply (so can be pocketed and
powered from a 'powerbank') from Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't
assembled it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.


I'm not sure where I put the kit and when I go to my purchase history I can find the purchase but
the page doesn't exist anymore (which could be a problem if I need reference pics when I make the
kit - lesson learned, any other kits I buy I'll download the pics).

It was very similar to this one, same 'brand' but USB powered
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32723001937.html This one requires 12 - 18V DC input.

So OpAmp, and I remember the blurb saying they're socketed so that the end user can change to
different / better OpAmps if they want to.

I thought the OP might be interested as a cheap solution to their problem.


Yes I am. Liked this enuff to buy one.
But I just spent an hour trying to create an account at ALI EXPRESS to
no avail. I gave up. Dumb me.
Thsnx
xxxxx
  #8  
Old July 16th 19, 01:05 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default Need Louder Sound

~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power
supply (so can be pocketed and powered from a 'powerbank') from
Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't assembled
it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.


I'm not sure where I put the kit and when I go to my purchase history I
can find the purchase but the page doesn't exist anymore (which could be
a problem if I need reference pics when I make the kit - lesson learned,
any other kits I buy I'll download the pics).

It was very similar to this one, same 'brand' but USB powered
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32723001937.html This one requires 12
- 18V DC input.

So OpAmp, and I remember the blurb saying they're socketed so that the
end user can change to different / better OpAmps if they want to.

I thought the OP might be interested as a cheap solution to their problem.


There might be an OpAmp with better power output.
The ones I've used in the past, run out of steam at
around 25mA or so. It's probably related to how much
heat the tiny 8 pin DIP can handle.

When you place a push-pull stage after the OpAmp,
that's when it gets interesting. You can do Class A
(power wasting, but no crossover distortion), or
Class AB (where as the signal goes through zero,
one transistor is switching off while the other
transistor comes on, and it's a bit non-linear).

To get ear-splitting volume, you need a good
voltage swing. One powered with +5V, could use
a boost converter to achieve higher voltages,
but not at the $5 price point. Designs running
off 12 to 18 volts would have more options
in terms of driving 32 ohm headphones.

Paul
  #9  
Old July 16th 19, 01:12 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default Need Louder Sound

On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 07:46:22 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:00:21 +1200, ~misfit~
wrote:

On 16/07/2019 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio.* The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher.* Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got.* Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power supply (so can be pocketed and
powered from a 'powerbank') from Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't
assembled it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.


I'm not sure where I put the kit and when I go to my purchase history I can find the purchase but
the page doesn't exist anymore (which could be a problem if I need reference pics when I make the
kit - lesson learned, any other kits I buy I'll download the pics).

It was very similar to this one, same 'brand' but USB powered
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32723001937.html This one requires 12 - 18V DC input.

So OpAmp, and I remember the blurb saying they're socketed so that the end user can change to
different / better OpAmps if they want to.

I thought the OP might be interested as a cheap solution to their problem.


Yes I am. Liked this enuff to buy one.
But I just spent an hour trying to create an account at ALI EXPRESS to
no avail. I gave up. Dumb me.
Thsnx
xxxxx


Persistency pays off
Bought one.
Thanks
xxxxx
  #10  
Old July 16th 19, 01:14 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 26
Default Need Louder Sound

On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 08:05:52 -0400, Paul
wrote:

~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 3:14 PM, Paul wrote:
~misfit~ wrote:
On 16/07/2019 10:38 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I want to learn some Chinese, but find these old ears cannot hear the
audio very well at

https://chinesecharacteraday.com/one-word-a-day/

at least.

All I have is an old set of earphones plugged to audio on a W10 PC.
Even at max audio. The phones have no volume control of course.

I want to buy something cheap to make the volume higher. Thinking of
buying a new set of earphones with an amplifier, or just the latter to
add to what I've got. Or maybe USB instead?

What do you think?

Wei


There is a *lot* of crap on the market.

Take those NE5532 products for $15.
Without additional transistors and a crafted output
stage, and good VCC supply, you can't get ear-blistering
sound levels.

Another product I saw for $36, one commenter said "it's
not loud enough". Which means the circuit is probably only
driving about 1VRMS into 32 ohms.

Stereophile amps of that sort, start at nice round numbers
like $199.00 for the "beginner amp", and going up in
increments of hundreds. This is obviously not the way to
get an amplifier. I'm sure there is plenty of level on those.

The audio industry is just as crooked as it was
fifty years ago.

You can find kits to assemble, for conventional amplifiers,
but they expect a speaker load of 4 ohms or 8 ohms, and
that's not a good match for 32 ohm headphones. I use
a 40W bridged Canakit for my Test Machine audio output,
which works OK. But it just isn't the right beast
for headphones. The signal would probably still be
a bit on the weak side. While the amp is 40W (2x20W),
in actual usage into 8 ohm speakers, the output is
just 2W per channel. And fortunately, with a tuned port
speaker, this is good enough.

I got a kit for a headphone amp that runs off a micro USB power
supply (so can be pocketed and powered from a 'powerbank') from
Aliexpress for about US$5 complete with a case but haven't assembled
it yet.


Is it just a 1V output ?

Or is it one of the ones with much higher output ?

A simple OpAmp can manage a pretty good swing, but will
likely go into current limit with a 32 ohm load.


I'm not sure where I put the kit and when I go to my purchase history I
can find the purchase but the page doesn't exist anymore (which could be
a problem if I need reference pics when I make the kit - lesson learned,
any other kits I buy I'll download the pics).

It was very similar to this one, same 'brand' but USB powered
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32723001937.html This one requires 12
- 18V DC input.

So OpAmp, and I remember the blurb saying they're socketed so that the
end user can change to different / better OpAmps if they want to.

I thought the OP might be interested as a cheap solution to their problem.


There might be an OpAmp with better power output.
The ones I've used in the past, run out of steam at
around 25mA or so. It's probably related to how much
heat the tiny 8 pin DIP can handle.

When you place a push-pull stage after the OpAmp,
that's when it gets interesting. You can do Class A
(power wasting, but no crossover distortion), or
Class AB (where as the signal goes through zero,
one transistor is switching off while the other
transistor comes on, and it's a bit non-linear).

To get ear-splitting volume, you need a good
voltage swing. One powered with +5V, could use
a boost converter to achieve higher voltages,
but not at the $5 price point. Designs running
off 12 to 18 volts would have more options
in terms of driving 32 ohm headphones.

Paul


Thanks
I just want higher volums so as to better hear Chinese I want to
re-learn.
Wei
 




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