Not 3.8V but 3.8W

Volt =/= Watt. big difference

But: even low gain single ended should be powerful enough to rattle your skull, if the specs are to be trusted.

Edit: Looked up the device, those manufacturer claimed numbers sound like a load of horseshit to me! Even big desktop amps dont have these ridiculous power figures, let alone any 50 buck mobile dac...

Use whichever works best for you. I know, that doesn’t really answer anything. Rule of thumb is low gain has less distortion than high gain. Some headphones require a bit more juice, so the high gain option would work better if you’re not getting enough volume. In my experience, it can also help increase the bass and slam a tad bit. So if they’re sufficiently powered on low gain, stick to low gain. It really depends on the headphones.

They are actually voltage figures, and they are accurate. It even says "voltage". Someone added on the mW by mistake, it should be mV, it's a typo. On the device it says 1.8V / 3.8V.

These are typical numbers for a high power dongle, these typically do up to 1V low power SE, 2V high power SE, 2V low power balanced, 4V high power balanced. Max power will typically top out around 200-240mW in high power balanced, they are current limited into low impedances and won't do anywhere near the full 4V. They will do full voltage into higher impedances, 3.8V into 300Ω is only 48mW.

These numbers are just below that, 900mV, 1.8V, 1.8V, 3.8V. That's right for a dual CS43131 dongle.

Thats just dumb then, isn't it?

If they can't even label their spec sheet correctly, how can I trust them to do anything else right?

Imagine intel saying their CPU clocks to about 3.8 Gigabyte lmao ...

Welcome to ChiFi, they are actually a lot better at making this stuff than writing English marketing materials.

Would you trust companies like Apple, Mercedes-Benz, Coke or Pepsi? They have made similar mistakes translating for the Chinese market.

>1) Pepsi “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” Mistranslated into “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Dead”
>2) KFC “Finger Lickin” Good Mistranslated into “Eat Your Fingers Off”
>3) Mercedes Benz Used The Name Bensi Which Means “Rush to Die”
>4) Apple’s iPhone 7 Was Translated as a Sex Organ in Cantonese
>5) Coca-Cola’s Band Name Translates “Bite the Wax Tadpole” Initially

https://limpid-translations.com/2022/02/08/when-chinese-translations-gone/

Using the wrong unit has nothing to do with translation tho?

For an over-ear like the HD600 with a dongle, I would tend to use high gain.

For IEMs, I would stick to low gain.

How common or audible are distortions? I heard high gain may have more likeliness to cause distortions

If you have a low impedence headphone or IEM and used high gain you would probably get distortion.

However, if you used high gain and an EQ and reduced the gain output on the EQ side you might get better results.

When I get anything new I start at a low gain setting and adjust from there. Once I find the sweet spot, I just leave it.

Almost all my IEMs use low gain. High Gain I only use for headphones that require extra power.

Okay, thank you will try that.

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You're more likely to get distortion running on low gain with something that needs high gain, it can run out of power and clip. This is more likely though on low impedance low sensitivity stuff, generally with high impedance stuff it just won't get loud.

Generally with high gain it doesn't increase harmonic distortion but rather increases the noise floor. If you hear this, it would be as a background hiss, so you might hear this for example on sensitive IEMs.

It's very unlikely you'd hear it on a 300Ω overear like the HD600.

It depends on the specific device too, some devices all the low gain is doing is putting a cap on the max voltage. General rule, high gain has higher noise but some devices it doesn't, or it's tiny, well below audibility.

I don't know about this specific dongle but it uses dual CS43131 DAC chips from Cirrus Logic. Most Cirrus Logic based dongles whether CS43131 or CS43198 (I have several) have insanely good noise and distortion numbers and you really don't need to worry about it. I don't think I've seen a bad one. More likely to get distortion from trying to run something that needs more power off the low gain IMO.

>If you have a low impedence headphone or IEM and used high gain you would probably get distortion.
>
>However, if you used high gain and an EQ and reduced the gain output on the EQ side you might get better results.

Thank you for the detailed explanation.