Audio PC DAC amp and headphone

[fred82]

Hello, I am happy have discovered this forum. I just live in canada since covid (oh yeah damned).

is it possible some of you could help me to understand things and know what you, yourself experienced with your own set

Well coming from Europe i need to buy again everything.

 

Me: i'd like bac kto gaming wiht good surroung, i do work (cybersecurity) on the pc i am building now. i am big fan of epic music and classical a lot a lot (90% time)

 

what i look for:

1. i will use dolby atmos and all soft on PC : am i right? 

am i right i don't need any material for surround?

2. all my audioo files will be on that PC (no other stuff .. my bug change since before i got a SACD and amp only for theheadphone)

3. i will need a good headphone... i got three for different sources: AKGQ701 for pc, chord&mayor and HD650. only second i too here but left is broken arghhhhh

i need an advice for the headphone used only on PC and i would use with a DAC... that the next question

4. is the DAC/amp ext(don't want inside bcause noise and seems audio card lot of crap, no?) good for surround game by my software (movies and game) and used in same time for high quality audio (classical music flac)

any advice?

so you think

PC with softs ----> DAC/amp ------> headphone .. would be fine?

note: don't know budget but no problem to spend hundreds of dollars even thousand for all

 

thank you

 

[fred82]

5 minutes ago, BlueScope819 said:

Well, if you are just looking for a solid all rounder gaming machine, this list is what I recommend to everyone.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kcwZb8

This is about $1200, and it has PCIe slots to spare if you want to install a fancy sound card, and it has all the ports you need if you want an external amp or whatever. I'm not very much into audio, so you probably more know about it than I do.

thx BlueScope. this config is great and not far from what i buy (wondering waiting for graphic card).

yep for audio i clearly want it outside for the best quality but hopefully i can get the surround stuff by software using PC->DAC/amp->a new headphone

thx again

[Tigerleon]

19 minutes ago, BlueScope819 said:

Well, if you are just looking for a solid all rounder gaming machine, this list is what I recommend to everyone.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kcwZb8

This is about $1200, and it has PCIe slots to spare if you want to install a fancy sound card, and it has all the ports you need if you want an external amp or whatever. I'm not very much into audio, so you probably more know about it than I do.

I wouldn't take the MSI board. Either a gigabyte or Asus.

[fred82]

7 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Dolby Atmos... ?

oh sorry 

it seems i wrote too fast the topic

what i mean in the PC i only want solftware not audio card (different softwares ) for cinema for exemple

 

i wonder more about the :

is it experience PC (with softs) -> DAC/amp -> headphone is good for surround effects in cinema and gaming too

espciially with a clealy hifi audio headphone (i still not decided which one :D)

 

[rice guru]

1 hour ago, BlueScope819 said:

I have recommended and bought a total of 6 MSI b450 Tomahawk Max motherboards for friends around the world, and every single one of them loved it.

Gigabyte kinda sucks for ryzen best value and performance is between Asus and msi right now especially the tomahawk series

[fred82]

1 hour ago, rice guru said:

Gigabyte kinda sucks for ryzen best value and performance is between Asus and msi right now especially the tomahawk series

hey canadian

this topic was not about momboard but since you say about: i long hesitated between Intel and AMD because of the VMs i will do for job (and wondering for game too)

so AMD on the way  then yeah you suggest more ROG like ? (i got one in France and was so happy with) seems u more fan of MSI?

[fred82]

So i gonna buy DT 1990 Pro

Any experience or suggestion for the DAC/amp? 

thx 

have a good night there

[fred82]

ok guys (and girls)

so to let u know i took y decisions :

RME ADI-2 PRO oh yeah

and almost sure to take DT1990 pro but still comparing to another

 

[The Flying Sloth]

25 minutes ago, fred82 said:

ok guys (and girls)

so to let u know i took y decisions :

RME ADI-2 PRO oh yeah

and almost sure to take DT1990 pro but still comparing to another

 

ADI-2 PRO is only stereo IIRC and you don't need to spend anywhere near that much on a DAC unless you're a serious audiophile or mastering engineer....
I mean, if you really want to spend that much you can but there are similar options available for much cheaper.

[rice guru]

2 hours ago, fred82 said:

ok guys (and girls)

so to let u know i took y decisions :

RME ADI-2 PRO oh yeah

and almost sure to take DT1990 pro but still comparing to another

 

damn as much as I like how the re adi 2 sounds thats a lot of money to dro p on a signal chain for a $600 headphone I generally always reccomend spending more on the headphone and less on the signal chain. as the headphone makes the most difference in sound quality as for that price range you can start looking at ZMF headphones, some nice audezes, something like the focal clear , or a nice setup like the arya. the 1990 is a great headphone and definitely appreciates with power and  good signal chaing but I just want to say IMO your spending too much on the signal chain I would reverse how you are spending your casph persoally and go 1000+ on the headphone or even a couple of headphones and then go $600 on the signal chain 

[fred82]

@rice guruthat's why i hesitate for DT1990 pro : ananda , focal, and few electrostatic.. still reviewing

@The Flying Sloth music is an high importance to me . but i didn't see of similar which ones u mean?

[rice guru]

4 hours ago, fred82 said:

@rice guruthat's why i hesitate for DT1990 pro : ananda , focal, and few electrostatic.. still reviewing

@The Flying Sloth music is an high importance to me . but i didn't see of similar which ones u mean?

I think what he is trying to say is you don't need to spend that much money. I get you care about music quality but you can easily spend less money on a signal chain. Something like a schiit modiuos and a rebel amp or a Asgard 3 if you want to go cheaper should be enough for most people. Or even a topping a90 or the geahelli tripple stack so many much better value options than the adi2

[fred82]

i don't know if you know how things are made but if you check what is inside you can see a high difference with modi that is entry level

so yes that's a huge difference

ut you're right on a thing.. is dt1990 pro enough for it? this is more a problem.. i don't know which headphone could replace my old hd650 i found that time was not the best of anyway

thx anyway miss rice guru  

[rice guru]

26 minutes ago, fred82 said:

i don't know if you know how things are made but if you check what is inside you can see a high difference with modi that is entry level

so yes that's a huge difference

ut you're right on a thing.. is dt1990 pro enough for it? this is more a problem.. i don't know which headphone could replace my old hd650 i found that time was not the best of anyway

thx anyway miss rice guru  

I understand that why I reccd the modios and not the modi it's a very good balanced and unbalanced dac using new components. The Snr and sinad  scores are super good and proved to be a much better value and is not entry level in terms of performance. And spend more on the amp as that makes more if a difference than the dac in terms of sound quality. What I'm trying to explain is the headphone makes the most defforence in how your system sounds so if you want a rme adi 2 you should be looking into things like a focal utopia , zmf headphones, and headphones many like to call summit fi

[rice guru]

Always base what amp s and dacs you want to buy based on the headphones you have and what you want later not the other way around

[rice guru]

Also I'm a dude

[fred82]

7 hours ago, rice guru said:

Also I'm a dude

nobody is perfect. i am a dude too.:D

 

anyway 

1/ i know about headphone as end ... to be the most important... thay's why choice is terribly hard

2/ thx .. it is modius then not modios i guess: i didn't know i will try to see reviews on it . thx dude

3/ i am quite a mid age and i knew in France the audiophile communauty let's say the most famous one... some good guys there help me a lot

especially they knew that i am extra super sensitive toward recordings to be respected kind of: i like hear everything even the default 

for exemple if i show this photo maybe you can guess a recording famous for being so noisy old .. most peoplle would hate

https://www.google.fr/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2Fbeethoven-as-nazi-propaganda%2Fa-53262640&psig=AOvVaw18fiH0ofqEBNHXAEFRVeaB&ust=1595025920271000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKiZ6tzs0uoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

but when u love music u love it because it is exceptionnal one

that's difference between audiophile and music lover. i am music lover. but i need people expert in audiophile help find the right choice or to listen myself (but well it would take such time and in canada i hardly find as much as in paris for testing)

thx anyway for ur help

as u can understand still i am hesistating like a big frustrated guy there

[HM-2]

If you're spending 1990 Pro money I would highly recommend looking at the Shure SRH-1540s and Audio-Technica ATH-A1000Zs. They're a cut above the BeyerDynamics IMO. 

[fred82]

4 hours ago, HM-2 said:

If you're spending 1990 Pro money I would highly recommend looking at the Shure SRH-1540s and Audio-Technica ATH-A1000Zs. They're a cut above the BeyerDynamics IMO. 

shure i don't know much this brand honestly and being closed i will loose quality i had wiht my sennheiser

oh ATH-A1000Z i don't know but i can remember ATH-R70X: people i know in audiophile the guys having 5000 euros headphones they love DT1990 and this one (and stax srs2170 or something like that) that they say for the price it is wow

very good imaging , fast, realistic (forgot the english word)

but all i say all of them say that for the price the best is DT1990 pro sadly i never heard any .. i know lot of bose (i hate), sennheiser (cheap but i like audio), AKG (not my taste except on PC to hear something else than classical music)

not easy to choose .anyway one thing is fo sure: in canada prices are highly over exagerated i buy in germany (or usa if possible)

[HM-2]

3 minutes ago, fred82 said:

shure i don't know much this brand honestly and being closed i will loose quality i had wiht my sennheiser

You won't lose quality. You might lose a bit of soundstage. That's the only real advantage open-back headphones hold over closed-back ones.

[fred82]

41 minutes ago, HM-2 said:

You won't lose quality. You might lose a bit of soundstage. That's the only real advantage open-back headphones hold over closed-back ones.

thx for your comments.  

well but it is important because i almost only listen classical music and some of the recordings soundstage is important 

i don't like things which are made smooth like it was passed throught a mixer . 

my ex having only closed .. like the bose 700 i bought to her... i really don't like. it is cheat in audio. i don't get why people buy this.

anyway ... you see maybe why choice is hard and takes time: it is important i take pleasure to hear my classical music and i am really scared i am not satisfied for a price. maybe i should start less expensive and wait after covid crazy period to get better ... so more listne the advices of rice guru.. still i miss so much havign the terrible exiting feeling when hearing my recordings. maybe i should try to find someone with a dt1990 pro first or shure and listen for hours sessions

thx anyway all for such helps

[HM-2]

Oh I missed the fact you were primarily listening to classical. I would suggest the ATH-W1000Z over the A1000Z then. If you do want open backed there's also the Shure SHR-1840. 

[geo3]

On 7/3/2020 at 11:13 AM, fred82 said:

yep for audio i clearly want it outside for the best quality but hopefully i can get the surround stuff by software using PC->DAC/amp->a new headphone

thx again

In the most technical sense, yes this works. The surround effect is done digitally in software on the PC and then passed through your dac and amp and you do get the effect on the other end. That said. It doesn't work well, but this is true regardless of what your signal chain looks like. 

 

The only "good" solution is a real physical 7.1 speaker set up. All of the software solutions I've heard are trash.  The only virtual surround solution I've heard, or even heard of, that is passable is the Sennheiser GSX 1000, which is a dac/amp that can do virtual 7.1 on the device itself. (It will present itself to the PC as a 7.1 device) The effect is pretty meh though. But you can actually discern some directionality to the sound. It still sounds like trash like listening inside a tin box. It does allow you to turn the effect off and fall back to 2 if you want to listen to music. 

[The Flying Sloth]

1 hour ago, geo3 said:

Snip

With respect, humans only hear in stereo but we use the minute differences in time between sound hitting each ear and things like spectral pinnae cues to effectively locate audio. These binaural effects let us hear surround from an inherently stereo source, our brain does the decoding.

 

Modern virtual HRTF (Binaural stereo) sounds exactly like what our brains expect to hear so in reality when it's done right it's perfect. Valve has a really great binaural audio encoding plugin that's free to use on GitHub for game development but many other options also exist and they're great. Some of the older 'virtual surround' systems from Dolby, Razer and the like sucked ass, I agree but these newer ones are great.

[geo3]

2 minutes ago, The Flying Sloth said:

With respect, humans only hear in stereo but we use the minute differences in time between sound hitting each ear and things like spectral pinnae cues to effectively locate audio. These binaural effects let us hear surround from an inherently stereo source, our brain does the decoding.

 

Modern virtual HRTF (Binaural stereo) sounds exactly like what our brains expect to hear so in reality when it's done right it's perfect. Valve has a really great binaural audio encoding plugin that's free to use on GitHub for game development but many other options also exist and they're great. Some of the older 'virtual surround' systems from Dolby, Razer and the like sucked ass, I agree but these newer ones are great.

The problem is that everyone has different shaped ears and our brains have learned to interoperate positional sound as it's effected by that specific shape. The virtual effect has no way of knowing the shape of the individuals ear. So what we are hearing is sound as it's shaped by some generalized ear. I guess for people who's ear is close to that general ear shape the effect will work better.  I've tried Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos and the Sennheiser implementations and they all fail. Sennheiser fails less so however, they at least give some sense of positionality, but add this awful tin box effect that's just natural at all .  I've heard a couple preprocessed effects, ones baked into the recording, that sounded passable, but not great.  But the ones done on the fly are terrible.