New headphones are fabulous, what DAC setup to get now?

darthed1981

Punted for a pair of these Phillips X2s sound perfect for my HiFi in the evening!

Megii

stickyfiddle said:

Excellent! There's not much better than sitting down with great music and a good set of headphones. 

usedtobe said:

I can’t believe I’m saying this about a pair of headphones, but they look really cool!

duotone said:

Glad you are enjoying them!

Thank you chaps! Was a late gig last night (finished playing about midnight) so have only been up an hour, and feeling a bit zonked - just been skipping about a few Youtube videos, just with the new headphones straight into the laptop headphone jack. Not as good as through the hi fi, no surprise there - the grip on dynamics and precision in the sound is reduced, but they are still an absolute pleasure to use, and sound extraordinarily good considering. Very musical-sounding phones, if that's not a daft thing to say. I think they look cool too - the ear cups are huge - they make my HD202's look like mini-headphones by comparison. Really comfortable to wear also, which is great.

Any advice re DAC/Headphone amps very welcome by the way, and/or if there is any kind of DAC product that would allow me to wire the laptop into my hi-fi effectively?

Wish I knew anything about noise-cancelling headphones @Axe_meister - but someone else on here should do I sure.

Megii

darthed1981 said:

Punted for a pair of these Phillips X2s sound perfect for my HiFi in the evening!

If you like them as much as I like mine @darthed1981 you will be a very happy man. Evening hi fi listening would be an ideal use I'd say.

stickyfiddle

Axe_meister said:

Sorry for the thread hi-jack. My Bose QC25 noise cancelling headphones have died (a common problem the right hand side speaker dies). Need to get some new noise cancelling headphones as I fly a lot and they are a god send, but don't want to spend the £300 I original Bose.

Another set of QC25s? They were discontinued last year so you should be able to get them for well less than 300 now. 

darthed1981

Megii said:

darthed1981 said:

Punted for a pair of these Phillips X2s sound perfect for my HiFi in the evening!

If you like them as much as I like mine @darthed1981 you will be a very happy man. Evening hi fi listening would be an ideal use I'd say.

I'll keep my fingers crossed

DAC for your laptop look out for Richer Sounds regular selling of the Cambridge audio dacmagic xs for £50 they just plug in to a USB port and are IMHO great little things

TheBigDipper

Megii said:

Any advice re DAC/Headphone amps very welcome by the way, and/or if there is any kind of DAC product that would allow me to wire the laptop into my hi-fi effectively?

Wish I knew anything about noise-cancelling headphones @Axe_meister - but someone else on here should do I sure.

I'm really, really happy with the Oppo HA2-SE DAC/headphone amp. Not cheap but very cute, totally portable and well put together.  Takes a USB feed or a Lightning feed if you have an iOS device. It has a line level stereo output to feed your hifi amp. 

Megii

TheBigDipper said:

Megii said:

Any advice re DAC/Headphone amps very welcome by the way, and/or if there is any kind of DAC product that would allow me to wire the laptop into my hi-fi effectively?

Wish I knew anything about noise-cancelling headphones @Axe_meister - but someone else on here should do I sure.

I'm really, really happy with the Oppo HA2-SE DAC/headphone amp. Not cheap but very cute, totally portable and well put together.  Takes a USB feed or a Lightning feed if you have an iOS device. It has a line level stereo output to feed your hifi amp. 

That looks excellent I must say, cheers. I'm already starting to look into DAC/headphone amps now - the new phones seem to have revitalised my hi-fi bug (dormant since the 90s). What I'm thinking would be good is something that has a superior DAC in it, that I could use

a) next to my laptop, using a headphone output to improve the sound there, but also

b) could connect up to my hi-fi, so I can feed in digital outputs from my 90s cd and minidisc players, to get the benefits of improved DAC technology, and I can send outputs into a channel on the hi-fi amp. Obviously I could then also route my laptop through the DAC and into the hi-fi system. I guess I'd have a few wires to connect up every time I did this, which could be a pain - unless there's some way of using Bluetooth?

Things to research anyhow. Thinking about it, the one thing I'm unlikely to need is something ultra-portable to use with a smartphone or tablet.

Quite liking the look of the Audiolab m-dac mini:

https://www.richersounds.com/audiolab-mdacmini.html?nosto=nosto-page-category2

Also this https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/dacs/cambridge-dac-magic-100-blk.html except there's no headphone output, so it would have to be with the hi-fi only, and use the hi-fi headphone output. But then maybe I could just buy an additional  small DAC/headphone amp for use with the laptop on it's own.

TheBigDipper

Megii said:

TheBigDipper said:

Megii said:

<snip>

b) could connect up to my hi-fi, so I can feed in digital outputs from my 90s cd and minidisc players, to get the benefits of improved DAC technology, and I can send outputs into a channel on the hi-fi amp. Obviously I could then also route my laptop through the DAC and into the hi-fi system. I guess I'd have a few wires to connect up every time I did this, which could be a pain - unless there's some way of using Bluetooth?
<snip>

@Megii ;Bluetooth has hitherto been seen as limited as a method for transmitting quality audio to powered speakers or headphones. It converts the analogue audio into a low quality digital data stream and compresses it so there is less data to transmit (and therefore faster transmission). 

On another thread recently, regarding using Bluetooth to send data to powered monitors/headphones for mixing projects, we had advice that Bluetooth latency was just too long (100ms was quoted) to be able to track effectively when adding extra tracks to your project - irrespective of sound quality. That wouldn't matter if you were just listening to music, of course.

As a result of that thread, I learned that some people say there is a new standard for high quality music files over Bluetooth which improves sound quality if both the sending and receiving devices support it. They're claiming support for 24bit data, but I couldn't find out what the sample rate was. There is still data compression in the transmitted data, but that's what FLAC and ALAC do. So it just means more processing time to compress/expand, not a loss of data.

B&W (for one) are now selling Bluetooth-based headphones, so I'd assume things are better, but if you're running your music through a DAC to generate an analogue audio signal from your digitally-stored one, then you'd want to be sure the second AD process (to make the signal digital again) and the DA process in your speakers or headphones doesn't throw away all the goodness your first DAC created. 

I've got a B&W powered speaker in one room. That has a decent DAC and amplifier built in, and uses Apples Airplay protocol over the house wifi (not Bluetooth) or connected via an Ethernet cable. There isn't any DAC processing of my data until it gets to the speaker. That doesn't seem to reduce the quality of the digital data stream at all - or if it does, I can't hear it. I'm using Apples lossless format, ALAC, as a data source (44.1kHz/16bit from ripped CDs stored on a NAS drive. 

Choices...  Decisions...

Megii

TheBigDipper said:

Megii said:

TheBigDipper said:

Megii said:

<snip>

b) could connect up to my hi-fi, so I can feed in digital outputs from my 90s cd and minidisc players, to get the benefits of improved DAC technology, and I can send outputs into a channel on the hi-fi amp. Obviously I could then also route my laptop through the DAC and into the hi-fi system. I guess I'd have a few wires to connect up every time I did this, which could be a pain - unless there's some way of using Bluetooth?
<snip>

@Megii ;Bluetooth has hitherto been seen as limited as a method for transmitting quality audio to powered speakers or headphones. It converts the analogue audio into a low quality digital data stream and compresses it so there is less data to transmit (and therefore faster transmission). 

On another thread recently, regarding using Bluetooth to send data to powered monitors/headphones for mixing projects, we had advice that Bluetooth latency was just too long (100ms was quoted) to be able to track effectively when adding extra tracks to your project - irrespective of sound quality. That wouldn't matter if you were just listening to music, of course.

As a result of that thread, I learned that some people say there is a new standard for high quality music files over Bluetooth which improves sound quality if both the sending and receiving devices support it. They're claiming support for 24bit data, but I couldn't find out what the sample rate was. There is still data compression in the transmitted data, but that's what FLAC and ALAC do. So it just means more processing time to compress/expand, not a loss of data.

B&W (for one) are now selling Bluetooth-based headphones, so I'd assume things are better, but if you're running your music through a DAC to generate an analogue audio signal from your digitally-stored one, then you'd want to be sure the second AD process (to make the signal digital again) and the DA process in your speakers or headphones doesn't throw away all the goodness your first DAC created. 

I've got a B&W powered speaker in one room. That has a decent DAC and amplifier built in, and uses Apples Airplay protocol over the house wifi (not Bluetooth) or connected via an Ethernet cable. There isn't any DAC processing of my data until it gets to the speaker. That doesn't seem to reduce the quality of the digital data stream at all - or if it does, I can't hear it. I'm using Apples lossless format, ALAC, as a data source (44.1kHz/16bit from ripped CDs stored on a NAS drive. 

Choices...  Decisions...

@TheBigDipper - many thanks for looking into things, and also going to the trouble to post the findings. From what you say (and I did look into it a little yesterday myself) I have decided to avoid Bluetooth - at least for hi-fi purposes. So, perhaps with a total budget around £250 ish, and allowing for wallet recovery time, I think I'm looking for:

a) a DAC to add to my separates hi-fi, which will have a usb input I can connect the computer to, but also digital inputs (optical for my minidisc, coax for the cd player, as well as phono outputs so I can route the output to the amp. A headphone output would be handy (better sound?), but I suppose I could always connect them to the amp's headphone socket.

b) something to improve the sound for headphones when I've got the laptop on it's own - so one of those portable USB dacs probably. - @darthed1981 - if I see one of the dacmagic xs ones for £50 I'll probably snap that up. Richer Sounds asking £79 at the moment, hope they have a sale before long.

beed84

As previously mentioned, I’ve got a sound blaster E5 which is superb. It also sounds fantastic on Bluetooth.

If you’re looking for something portable and to accommodate your laptop listening needs, @Tenebrous is selling a FiiO E12 which I would certainly consider. You can find it here:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/136732/fs-ft-sennheiser-momentum-2-0-over-ear-fiio-e12-sony-dap-snes-mini-price-drops-on-everything#latest

Megii

beed84 said:

As previously mentioned, I’ve got a sound blaster E5 which is superb. It also sounds fantastic on Bluetooth.

If you’re looking for something portable and to accommodate your laptop listening needs, @Tenebrous is selling a FiiO E12 which I would certainly consider. You can find it here:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/136732/fs-ft-sennheiser-momentum-2-0-over-ear-fiio-e12-sony-dap-snes-mini-price-drops-on-everything#latest

Cheers @beed84 ;! The sound blaster looks pretty cool I must say - afraid it doesn't quite have the combination of inputs/outputs I'd want for incorporating into my home hi-fi. Maybe more of a contender in the portable unit to use with the laptop or whatever though, and the price is certainly good.

That FiiO E12 looks like a nice thing too, and tempting for the money, although it doesn't have the DAC. Reviews saying it improves the sound a lot just going from a typical headphone output though...

Rocker

Cambridge Audio Dac is pretty good but for a buy it right by buying once, the Ciunas DAC from John Kenny (Google JK Dac) is very hard to beat. And highly recommend.

Megii

Rocker said:

Cambridge Audio Dac is pretty good but for a buy it right by buying once, the Ciunas DAC from John Kenny (Google JK Dac) is very hard to beat. And highly recommend.

Cheers @Rocker - the Ciunas DAC I'm sure is superb, but it's just more money than I can afford or justify, sadly. I guess I'm more of a Cambridge Audio/Richer Sounds kind of punter - have already been looking at the CA dacmagic 100, which appear to be a contender.

spark240

Since. I Won those Focal Pro clear cans recently .Im also looking out for a DAC job.

darthed1981

Listening to my new Phillips X2s now, great cans!

Megii

darthed1981 said:

Listening to my new Phillips X2s now, great cans!

Yay, result! Glad you like them @darthed1981 ;

Stuckfast

I am a bit sceptical about bus powered USB DACs. There simply isn't enough power available over USB to operate a serious headphone amp.

TheBigDipper

Stuckfast said:

I am a bit sceptical about bus powered USB DACs. There simply isn't enough power available over USB to operate a serious headphone amp.

Can you expand on that a bit further? I've said further up the thread how much I like my Oppo HA2. It's battery-powered (recharged over USB) rather than directly powered from USB at "play the music" time - so I expect you don't mean units like this. But, I'm curious - I've not heard this said before.

Sporky

Given that a device can request 2.5W over USB 2, and assuming a Class D amp section, that's a watt into each ear. Which is potentially deafening, depending on the headphones. 

duotone

Not something I know much about tbh, but this might be worth a look into further;

https://www.whathifi.com/best-buys/hi-fi/best-dacs