Dac/amp or audio interface? Recommendations?

[Froger96]

Hey all, 

I am looking to get a desktop dac amp combo to both power my powered monitors and headphones. There are man dac/amp combos with all the outputs. The issue is finding one that has a toggle for the outputs within my price range that is good.

I am ideally looking around £100-150. I was originally looking at the if zen dac. But I don't want to deal with constant unplugging of cables to select my outputs.

Does anyone have any recommendations for me? Would an audio interface be a good alternative due to output select and seperate volume control?

 

On a side note: I eq my headphones currently, but If I have both speakers and headphones coming out of the same dac. What is the best way to eq headphones without it effecting the speakers. Or do I just have to toggle the preset/profile?

 

Thanks

[rice guru]

What headphones are you running?

[GamerDude]

You have powered monitor, right? So, does the pair of monitor have a power on button, can't you switch it off when you're using the cans? IIRC, back when I was using my Rokit 5 3G, I simply didn't power it up when I was using my cans, I was, still am, using an iFi Micro iDSD BL. I've sold off the Rokit5 and have been using an LG soundbar via HDMI from my GPU.

[Froger96]

5 hours ago, rice guru said:

What headphones are you running?

I am currently running Superlux 681 Evo's (but they are weirdly quite for 32ohms)

However I am looking to go to the Sennheiser HD560s.

 

4 hours ago, GamerDude said:

You have powered monitor, right? So, does the pair of monitor have a power on button, can't you switch it off when you're using the cans? IIRC, back when I was using my Rokit 5 3G, I simply didn't power it up when I was using my cans, I was, still am, using an iFi Micro iDSD BL. I've sold off the Rokit5 and have been using an LG soundbar via HDMI from my GPU.

I could, and I have considered this. I do have my monitors and sub going into a remote controlled switch on my power bar so can use one button to turn them off. But then the headphones would always be running and I thought this wouldn't be ideal to have headphones running for so long. 

 

This is why I was looking at audio interfaces with audio controls for both monitoring as well as separate controls for the speakers. The Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 has separate controls. This issue with these as I doubt they sound as good as they are not dedicated dac's