this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Headphones

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Do your headphones REALLY perform much better with more expensive DAC/AMP? (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by FrankieWilde11@alien.top to c/headphones@hi-fi.community
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I have the Sennheiser HD600, Neumann NDH-30, Audeze LCD-X.

I use these with my SSL2 hp out, and with Qudelix 5K.

I spoke to someone about my impressions and his first question was: which dac/amp? and when I told, he just winked.

So my question is: is the difference this obvious with a more expensive dac/amp combo? Should I spend another 6-800 euro to get one? Do your headphones open up/perform that much better?

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[–] J05H5M1TH@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'd say buying a DAC is more about features than it is about sound. Some features on an rme DAC for instance wouldn't be able to cram in a $100 DAC.

As for amps I'm a bit torn. I think it really depends on your headphones more than anything. The amp on my rme sounds a bit thin comparing it back to back with my burson but it very well could be it's not perfectly volume matched. I did a blind test and had my gf switch it and I could tell, but who knows.

[–] blorg@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Burson has gobs of distortion, it's in tube amp territory. RME is the exact opposite, very clean. This could result in a perception of the clean amp being thin vs the sprays of distortion adding more body, this is after all something people tend to say about tube amps as well.

[–] RonWannaBeAScientist@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

I feel a bit different playing my Focal Stellia on Astell&Kern 3000 or on iFi Blu. Yes, it’s not a fair comparison as one is 200$ portable DAC/amp and one a very expensive player , but I feel the combination of better DAC chips and amplification in Astell & Kern makes it much better . I also btw feel like digital portable players are much too expensive , but it’s also much better to be able to play on the go. I quite regretted my electrostatic headphones purchase (4500$ for the Dan Clark Audio Corina, 1260$ for Stax SRM-D50 DAC/AMP ), because I can’t take it anywhere and it’s always annoying to set up .