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Will a dac/amp setup make a noticeable difference? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by Illustrious_Fall_719@alien.top to c/headphones@hi-fi.community

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I’m new to the audiophile world. I just purchased a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pros yesterday. They sound great, but I was expecting more after reading reviews. I have no experience when it comes to picking up audio cues and analyzing music. Would a dac/amp make a noticeable difference in sound quality to an untrained ear? Right now I have them connected to a TC-Helicon Goxlr. Is the built in amp strong enough to efficiently power them? Or, would a real amp be a significant upgrade/worthwhile?

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[–] EllieBirb@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Not likely to, no. It might, depending on how distorted the GoXLR's head-out is, but pretty much any clean source will do the trick.

You might get some people telling you how much sources affect the sound; It's pure punk. Modern amps and DACs are very good, and they all do the job they're designed to.

Unless you're looking for esoteric stuff like R2R or Tubes, expect to hear nothing different. Unless you really expect it, then placebo and expectation bias will kick in to change things up. Hell, even a 0.5 dB volume difference can make you prefer one over the other.

TL;DR, if you have a good clean source, which is very easy to get these days, expect it to sound the same as all the other good clean sources.