Support Bridged Mono (for larger headphones)

[RichardN]

Many phones (such as my Galaxy S3) are designed to drive relatively small, light earbuds. They also tend to assume that the music has a style with a nearly-constant loudness.

But, for larger headphones (or with less sensitive headphones), and for Classical/Jazz music, this doesn't work well - the music is either too quiet, or too distorted when the gain is turned up.

However, there is a trick which would get far better performances out of the limited amplifier in the phone, namely bridged mono.

 

1. Process the signal as follows:

 

left_output =    (left_track + right_track) /  sqrt(2)

right_output =  - left_output

 

 

2. re-wire the headphones as follows:

 

left_ear in parallel with right_ear,  connect to tip and ring, but ignore shield.

 

 

The result will be a mono signal to both ears, but where the amplitude is doubled, and thus the power quadrupled. In practice, this will allow more headroom, and prevent distortion when the op-amps would otherwise saturate.

 

I propose that Poweramp should:

 

(a) support bridged mono - one more switch in the interface, and make R = - L   rather than  R = L  in normal mono.

( document the headphone modification required.

 

Thanks very much

 

[MikeCerm]

Why not just buy a better headphone amp, and enjoy high-quality, stereo sound? Seems to make more sense than rewiring your heaphones to listen to poor-sounding music 4 times louder than normal.