[TheGru]

So I own the above listed integrated amp and just bought these awesome (to me) headphones - Focal Elears. These are 80ohms. Do I set up the Marantz amp for Low/Medium or High gain?

If I set it to low, I have to turn on the knob to 80% to hear it loudly. If I set it to High, I need it to go to 9-10 o'clock and I'm good. While this work, is that the proper way to set up?

I contacted Marantz but they were not sure and escalated the ticket to Tier2 support with a call back tomorrow. Weird.

Anyway, I figured someone here would probably know better from technical standpoint.

Thanks.

 

[MindsMirror]

Technically it is best to use the lowest gain setting needed, since higher gain can amplify the noise floor of the amp. Even on high gain the noise is probably still not enough to be audible yet. As you can probably tell by listening, it doesn't make much if any practical difference apart from changing where you need to set the volume knob.

 

[PurpleAngel]

So I own the above listed integrated amp and just bought these awesome (to me) headphones - Focal Elears. These are 80ohms. Do I set up the Marantz amp for Low/Medium or High gain?
If I set it to low, I have to turn on the knob to 80% to hear it loudly. If I set it to High, I need it to go to 9-10 o'clock and I'm good. While this work, is that the proper way to set up?
I contacted Marantz but they were not sure and escalated the ticket to Tier2 support with a call back tomorrow. Weird.
Anyway, I figured someone here would probably know better from technical standpoint.
Thanks.

There may not be what would be a "proper" way the gain should be set for your headphones.
More like use whichever setting you prefer or works best for your current headphones.
Me, i would leave the Marantz's headphone output set to high gain.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

So I own the above listed integrated amp and just bought these awesome (to me) headphones - Focal Elears. These are 80ohms. Do I set up the Marantz amp for Low/Medium or High gain?

If I set it to low, I have to turn on the knob to 80% to hear it loudly. If I set it to High, I need it to go to 9-10 o'clock and I'm good. While this work, is that the proper way to set up

There is no hard, fast, and absolute rule to selecting a gain setting because these depend on a number of variables - the sensitivity of the headphone (or speaker), the nominal impedance of the headphone vis a vis the powerband of the amplifier, and finally the multiplier factor of the amp's gain settings.

Some desktop amps for example can have a very low multiplier on low gain so as to be able to drive very high sensitivity, low impedance loads like IEMs, though more for convenience than the need for power (ie some people will use an IEM as a portable but also for home listening). Meier amps prior to the digital potentiometer for example had a very low -10dB low gain setting to run Grados and IEMs without 1) easily blowing the listener's eardrums while 2) avoiding channel imbalance inherent to most analogue pots at lower than 9:00 setting; after getting the zero imbalance digital pot they went for IIRC -4dB on the low gain and a higher high gain instead.

At the other end of the spectrum though high gain tends to make electronic noise from upstream components and from the amp itself more easily audible.

Basically, the most general rules to follow would be either being able to get to a loudness setting you like at the lowest gain possible or use higher gain as long as neither scenario results in noise, clipping, or distortion, while having flexible without sudden build up of loudness on high gain. If you're not getting any of these problems on either setting then use whichever one you can, but I'd go with high gain on your amp as it seems to be that low gain on your amp, like with older Meier amps, seems to be really geared for high sensitivity, low impedance headphones/IEMs.