Before you buy amp and DAC + recommendations.

[Unknown69]

Hello guys. I been reading what you said in this thread but i'm still a bit confused. Because @Dackzy said in older replies that the only reason to get a DAC is if the mobo makes noises, and that the only reason to get an amp would be if my headphones aren't powered up enough. But later He said that an amp and a dac can make the sound of headphones clearer and more detailed. So my question is, do i get a DAC and an amp for my Beyerdynamics 990 dt pro 250 ohms ? I have a dell laptop inspiron 5748 and i'll use my headphones mostly for music production and mixing. Thank you guys ( In the case I need an amp or a combo, i'm considering the fulla 2 or the modi+magni )

[Dackzy]

1 minute ago, Unknown69 said:

Hello guys. I been reading what you said in this thread but i'm still a bit confused. Because @Dackzy said in older replies that the only reason to get a DAC is if my onboard makes noises, and thet only reason to get an amp would be if my headphones aren't power up enough. But later He said that an amp and a dac can make the sound of headphones clearer and more detailed. So my question is, do i get a DAC and an amp for my Beyerdynamics 990 dt pro 250 ohms ? I have a dell laptop inspiron 5748 and i'll use my headphones mostly for music production and mixing. Thank you guys ( In the case I need an amp or a combo, i'm considering the fulla 2 or the modi+magni )

don't get a fulla 2 for high impedance headphones get a monoprice desktop amp or well the schiit stack.

Yes it will make a difference, but the difference will vary a lot. The differences would be bigger with headphones like HD800 or high end IEMs like Ultimate ears 18+ than they would be with well DT990.

 

Just keep in mind when you mix your music that you headphones got a treble and bass boost  

[Unknown69]

1 minute ago, Dackzy said:

don't get a fulla 2 for high impedance headphones get a monoprice desktop amp or well the schiit stack.

Yes it will make a difference, but the difference will vary a lot. The differences would be bigger with headphones like HD800 or high end IEMs like Ultimate ears 18+ than they would be with well DT990.

 

Just keep in mind when you mix your music that you headphones got a treble and bass boost  

Thanks for your quick reply. I didn't know that, the DT990 are recommanded in a lot of forums of music production. Anyway, it is okay to only get an amp and using my mobo DAC knowing the model of my laptop ?

[Dackzy]

27 minutes ago, Unknown69 said:

Thanks for your quick reply. I didn't know that, the DT990 are recommanded in a lot of forums of music production. Anyway, it is okay to only get an amp and using my mobo DAC knowing the model of my laptop ?

I mean it is okay, but the improvement are going to be smaller than if you also got a DAC, plus you might end out double amping, since I doubt that your laptop can do a fixed output instead of the normal amped one.

[Unknown69]

34 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

I mean it is okay, but the improvement are going to be smaller than if you also got a DAC, plus you might end out double amping, since I doubt that your laptop can do a fixed output instead of the normal amped one.

I didnt understand the last part. So in your opinion my best option here is to get the Schiit stack to get the full of my headphones ?

[Dackzy]

1 minute ago, Unknown69 said:

I didnt understand the last part. So in your opinion my best option here is to get the Schiit stack to get the full of my headphones ?

double amping is when you amp a single and then you amp it again, this will add distortion. Your laptop will amp the signal and then the magni 3 will amp it up again. So the distortion you have with you current headphone out on the laptop will also get amplified.

 

The Monoprice desktop amp is a combo (so both DAC and amp) even though it is just called amp and would TBH be good enough. If you want better then get a Magni 3 and Modi 2

[Unknown69]

3 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

double amping is when you amp a single and then you amp it again, this will add distortion. Your laptop will amp the signal and then the magni 3 will amp it up again. So the distortion you have with you current headphone out on the laptop will also get amplified.

 

The Monoprice desktop amp is a combo (so both DAC and amp) even though it is just called amp and would TBH be good enough. If you want better then get a Magni 3 and Modi 2

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=11567 its this product ?

[Dackzy]

19 minutes ago, Unknown69 said:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=11567 its this product ?

yep, it is good for high impedance headphones like your DT 990 250 Ohm

[Unknown69]

Just now, Dackzy said:

yep, it is good for high impedance headphones like your DT 990 250 Ohm

Okay thank you for your help ! Unfortunately they are out of stock and will be in in two weeks, ill look to buy them from another buyer

[pommedeterror007]

21 hours ago, Dackzy said:

Meh, not that good of an idea. They are pretty easy to drive and they don't really scale. At most get like a schiit fulla 2.

I dont seem to see a place to order them. Secondly is the sennheiser gsx 1000 as good? I can grab one for 140$ right now.

 

Not to mention the dragon fly usb amps

 

Red version for 115$

Black version 55$

 

Thoughts?

[Dackzy]

16 minutes ago, pommedeterror007 said:

I dont seem to see a place to order them. Secondly is the sennheiser gsx 1000 as good? I can grab one for 140$ right now.

 

Not to mention the dragon fly usb amps

 

Red version for 115$

Black version 55$

 

Thoughts?

You would have to order from schiit.com or if you are in EU then schiit-europe.com, they might be out of stock since they are very popular. I can't really recommend the dragonfly series, but I mean for 55$ you can get a lower noise floor and maybe a bit more power. I find the Sennheiser gsx 1k to be awful

[Guest]

On 16/01/2018 at 2:50 PM, Dackzy said:

I mean it is okay, but the improvement are going to be smaller than if you also got a DAC, plus you might end out double amping, since I doubt that your laptop can do a fixed output instead of the normal amped one.

Welcome to the wild world of personal audio, @Unknown69 . Frustrating, isn't it?  I had to get it into my skull that a new DAC and amp won't drastically improve my listening experience.  I still went out and bought a Schiit Magni3 & a Modi Multibit (uh huh, I wanted to pay the extra money and get the unorthodox chipset).  I'm happy with the results.

 

Keep us in the loop with your successes?  I should be marking student papers right now, but your comments are far more interesting!

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Unknown69 said:

Okay thank you for your help ! Unfortunately they are out of stock and will be in in two weeks, ill look to buy them from another buyer

Common sense tells me that you'll already know this: buy from a legitimate vendor. I've heard some good things about the Monoprice product line. Here in Canada, I'd get dinged for exchange and customs ordering stuff from Monoprice. Hopefully you can get a better deal, eh. Just my 2 cents...

[shizmoo]

I decided im going to buy the Chord Mojo, heard it was the best for sound quality in that price range. My question now is how to hook it up to an amp and my headphones when I use my computer?

 

Chord mojo - 

Dayton DTA class T 15WPC - 

Im guessing computer > mojo. Mojo has 2 headphone sockets on other side so a double 3.5mm going from mojo to the Dayton's audio input. But how would I hook up my headphones to the clamps?

[Dackzy]

6 hours ago, shizmoo said:

I decided im going to buy the Chord Mojo, heard it was the best for sound quality in that price range. My question now is how to hook it up to an amp and my headphones when I use my computer?

 

Chord mojo - 

Dayton DTA class T 15WPC - 

Im guessing computer > mojo. Mojo has 2 headphone sockets on other side so a double 3.5mm going from mojo to the Dayton's audio input. But how would I hook up my headphones to the clamps?

Do you need it on the go and what headphones do you have? 

 

It doesn't offer any options when it comes be being used as a pure DAC. The mojo has two amped stereo 3.5mm out so you can have two headphones run off it at the same time. It is a DAC and headphone amp combo after all. If you add a amp then you will end up double amping which will introduce a lot of noise, since the second amp will amp up the noise and distortion that the first amp made.

 

Why would you even dream about hooking up your headphones up to a speaker amp? That just doesn't make any sense, unless you want to blow up your headphones...

[Volbet]

12 hours ago, Dackzy said:

Do you need it on the go and what headphones do you have? 

 

It doesn't offer any options when it comes be being used as a pure DAC. The mojo has two amped stereo 3.5mm out so you can have two headphones run off it at the same time. It is a DAC and headphone amp combo after all. If you add a amp then you will end up double amping which will introduce a lot of noise, since the second amp will amp up the noise and distortion that the first amp made.

 

Why would you even dream about hooking up your headphones up to a speaker amp? That just doesn't make any sense, unless you want to blow up your headphones...

To be fair, people have hooked headphones up to speaker amps before in order to power them:

http://www.diyaudioblog.com/2015/06/speaker-amp-to-headphone-converter-box.html

 

I'm just wondering how the hell it can power speakers off a 5v power supply.

 

[Dackzy]

29 minutes ago, Volbet said:

To be fair, people have hooked headphones up to speaker amps before in order to power them:

http://www.diyaudioblog.com/2015/06/speaker-amp-to-headphone-converter-box.html

 

I'm just wondering how the hell it can power speakers off a 5v power supply.

 

The headphones you typically hook up to speaker amps is HE 6, K1000 and that is TBH the only ones.

Also those DIY ones do so you can regulate the power a lot better and well do so you don't hear the noise that might be there when trying to run let's say 120 ohm instead of 4-8 ohm and higher sensitivity.

 

What shizmoo seems to be wanting was to hook headphones directly up to the amp without something inbetween, plus why even do that when you have a headphone amp in the mojo?

 

Where are you seeing 5v? The amp he showed is 12v.

[Volbet]

5 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

Where are you seeing 5v? The amp he showed is 12v.

I'm just a bit confused.

I confused the two pictures shown.

[shizmoo]

Yea I need a portable DAC/AMP because im going to use it with my iphone x + B&W PX headphones and wanted to use it for my computer system when im home since I dont have a DAC for it. After further reading, you are right that the Mojo amp cant be bypassed, but I see many people saying they use it for their desktop set-up and have no problems. Supposedly it has a line level mode you can set it to if you want to use it for this purpose.

[Unknown69]

Hey guys, i just recieved my beyerdynamics 990 dt pro. I'm a bit disappointed with the way it sounds on my laptop ( plugged directly without a combo). Furthermore, believe it or not, in find that my iphone 6s original earbuds sound better lol. Is that normal ? Will getting a combo improve the sound ?

[Dackzy]

7 hours ago, shizmoo said:

Yea I need a portable DAC/AMP because im going to use it with my iphone x + B&W PX headphones and wanted to use it for my computer system when im home since I dont have a DAC for it. After further reading, you are right that the Mojo amp cant be bypassed, but I see many people saying they use it for their desktop set-up and have no problems. Supposedly it has a line level mode you can set it to if you want to use it for this purpose.

What the hell it outputs 3V when on line level, that actually might course some problems with amps, since the norm is about 2V. To connect it to another amp you would need a 3.5mm to RCA cable, so the 3.5mm becomes two RCA. I wouldn't recommend hooking headphones up to the amp you showed since it is a speaker amp, but if you are really set on doing that, then make one of the DIY boxes volbet linked. 

 

6 hours ago, Unknown69 said:

Hey guys, i just recieved my beyerdynamics 990 dt pro. I'm a bit disappointed with the way it sounds on my laptop ( plugged directly without a combo). Furthermore, believe it or not, in find that my iphone 6s original earbuds sound better lol. Is that normal ? Will getting a combo improve the sound ?

They won't change the main characteristics, so if you don't like let's say the highs, then a DAC and amp won't fix it. All a DAC and amp is going to do is refine the sound a bit, maybe bring more detail and maybe widen the sound a bit, no big sound signature change or anything like that, there might be a smallere one if the omboard you have is very bright or dark sounding.

 

With that being said have you tried them out of anything else than your laptop? It might just be that your laptops onboard is incredible bad and colors the sound a ton, which is likely since it is a laptop. Have you tried them out of your phone? Maybe also try them out of a friend's PC.

[shizmoo]

3 hours ago, Dackzy said:

What the hell it outputs 3V when on line level, that actually might course some problems with amps, since the norm is about 2V. To connect it to another amp you would need a 3.5mm to RCA cable, so the 3.5mm becomes two RCA. I wouldn't recommend hooking headphones up to the amp you showed since it is a speaker amp, but if you are really set on doing that, then make one of the DIY boxes volbet linked. 

It can be reduced to 2v. The only input I have on the amp is a 3.5mm so im guessing a regular 3.5mm cable would do. I was thinking of something else with the headphones, I realized there are two headphone jacks I can use one for headphones

[Dackzy]

1 hour ago, shizmoo said:

It can be reduced to 2v. The only input I have on the amp is a 3.5mm so im guessing a regular 3.5mm cable would do. I was thinking of something else with the headphones, I realized there are two headphone jacks I can use one for headphones

if I understand what chord says correctly, then both outputs will be turned into line out, meaning useless and kinda dangerous to hook headphones up with. You could always just switch between line out and normal mode, so when you use speaker you switch to line out mode and connect the speaker jack and disconnect the headphone.

[Laucien]

Hello!. 

 

Looking for a headphone amp/dac for my computer. I was gonna go with the Schiit stack but they're out of stock and since I'm gonna be traveling to the US in a couple days I can't wait until they get them back. 

 

For headphones I'm currently using a pair of V-Moda Crossfade Wireless 2 (wired). What would you guys recommend that's US$300ish tops? Although after reading @Dackzy 's post about another set of V-Moda's above looks like a Fulla 2 might be more than enough?. 

[applesuxD]

2 hours ago, Laucien said:

Hello!. 

 

Looking for a headphone amp/dac for my computer. I was gonna go with the Schiit stack but they're out of stock and since I'm gonna be traveling to the US in a couple days I can't wait until they get them back. 

 

For headphones I'm currently using a pair of V-Moda Crossfade Wireless 2 (wired). What would you guys recommend that's US$300ish tops? Although after reading @Dackzy 's post about another set of V-Moda's above looks like a Fulla 2 might be more than enough?. 

Yes it's more than enough, test it by using a phone app volume tester. If it is 80-85dB that's pretty much the limit of how loud anyone will go before harming themselves.