Can the onboard DAC/Amp of the P670RS drive very high impedance headphones?

Question is in the title of this thread. I have plenty of low impedance headphones to use with my P670RS, and the volume has to be kept in single digits so as not to blow my eardrums out. I'm looking to get something a little more audiophile grade while maintaining good gaming performance. They Beyerdynamic DT990 seems like a good choice in this regard, and it's available in 250- and 600-ohm models. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the P670's onboard DAC/Amp should have no trouble driving the 250-ohm version, but I'm wondering about the 600-ohm ones. Is the built-in codec enough to drive the more power-hungry set, or would it be more prudent to stick with the 250s?

 

I would guess both are driveable. However, the quality of the sound degrades pretty heavily. I have 300Ohm Senns and they can get loud enough on the Clevo, but you really need a discrete amp to get it's full potential. Especially with how finicky mine are about the amp/dac.

 

Oh although saturn you may not hear the amp difference as badly. I have HD800s which are notoriously sensitive. Lower end (or even same priced) headphones shouldn't be quite as affected.

 

I would disagree Galm. I also have the HD800s, and the crap onboard dac has no problem playing musically. It won't get very loud, and I'll use maybe 70% max for comfortable loud settings.

HOWEVER, with a low (<100ohm) headphone, these onboard dac/amps just die. The sensitivity on the 600ohms is too low to get loud imo, and the 250ohm would be a better bet. Don't think about getting anything lower than 100 ohms.

Even my cheap XE800s sound better than my Final Audio Piano Forte X through the laptop. If I were you, I'd buy a nice dac/amp, like a mojo, or maybe AK240, and then save the money to buy headphones once you can actually drive them.

 

What? It's not a linear relation between the Ohms and sound quality. Also what do you mean crap on board dac? It has a Sabre ESS 9018. Sure it's not the best implemented but it's easily the best in a laptop. My 16Ohm ie800s for example sound far better than higher impedance ones on the dac. Not sure why your Final Audios actually sound worse than like a 30 dollar pair... Seems unlikely to me. Not full potential sure, but worse? That being said I haven't tried those.

Also I would not recommend a Mojo if you aren't using it portably. I love my Mojo for on the go, but a Bifrost Multibit for example is a similar price and way superior if you aren't moving.

 

Fair enough point about the mojo. I have always wanted to use a multibit, but never bit the bullet on the cost.

As to the impedance vs sound quality, there actually is a very nice relationship there. The 9018 is only as good as its power supply, which is garbage in every clevo laptop I have ever seen. These laptops are configured as voltage sources, but when the supply runs out of current reserves in low impedance, then you get massive compression and a loss of detail. Think like excursion based inductance, but now on an amp level. No thank you.

Try a pair of focal utopia, and you will hear what I am talking about for the <100ohm issue. About your ie800s, they have 125 dbv efficiency, and we know they are an outlier both because of their efficiency, in addition to the fact that they are IEMs, not cans.

To each their own, and it sounds like we at least both have our money where our mouths/ears are.

 

I actually got the try the Mojo vs a Bifrost Multibit my buddy has a month ago or so. Clear difference on the ie800s. HD800s would have needed an amp though.

And yeah it's definitely a lower end implementation of the 9018, I just meant not many laptops could top it.

To be fair, I have not tried low impedance over ears on the Clevo so I'll take your word for it. The ie800s are indeed special.

I'm a sucker for soundstage, and I haven't really found better value than the ie800s or my HD800SDRs. But yeah to drive the HD800s I've used the Clevo like one time to try it I usually use a WA7 duo.

 

What Sabre equipped machine did you test it out on?

 

I've actually got o-scope measurements for quite a few, anything Haswell onwards I've likely listened and benchmarked. Why do you ask?

 

It would be interesting to see the results, there is not much third party testing data.

 

Oh interesting you're saying it really did change a lot between laptops? My MSI GT60 had a SABRE chip but I had much crappier headphones. I'd love to see the data.

I agree with @Meaker@Sager I'd love to see the data. It'd be interesting to see how it compares to say and Oppo HA-2 or HA-2SE.

 

Will the desktop cpu based machines obviously have a different motherboard and the np9873 has a separate audio PCB.

 

Busy this week, but I'll put together a presentation for you guys. Hopefully I can give some input on mods/fixes for the more common issues as well.

Obviously these aren't going to be anything special, but some implementations are definitely better than others. The bit that pissed me off the most about some of the systems is where the audio would pick up GPU whine and bluetooth chirps. Super annoying if you ask me.