this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Headphones
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I don't have really nice headphones, but i do have a really nice dac/amp.
Just two weeks ago i got out my old AKG K340 (the electrostatics, very hard to drive) and plugged them into my mid-tier audio interface (OctaCapture): it sounded absolutely shit.
Thin, no low end.
Then, i got to the living room and plugged them into my RME dac/amp and behold: that's how it should sound! I'm not under the impression a good and a very good dac make that much difference, but having a headphone amp with enough headroom and a low output impedance does matter. The SSL too has a pretty bad headphone stage if i remember correctly, they had to cut some corners somewhere for that price.
Now, i got myself a Sabaj A20d dac/amp to replace the audio interface and that was a big step up from the OctaCapture and guess what: it was a lot cheaper than the interface and about 9 times as cheap as the RME. Does the RME sound 9 times better? Nope, not even twice.