Looking for advice - Headphone DAC/AMP related

Carta · 16 Jan 2017 at 11:34

Hi chaps,

Got these headphones http://thestatusaudio.com/products/ob1 and at the moment they currently run of the front jack of my PC. Motherboard is a ASUS Hero VII and the onboard sound is Supreme audio 2014.

I was wondering what would be a good amp/dac combo or dac on its own to drive these? I have the Fiio D3 (found in my cable box) and I will use this via optical from the motherboard.

Would I benefit from getting an AMP+DAC or AMP/DAC combo like SMSL M3 or similar?

Thanks

Techen · 16 Jan 2017 at 13:36

Avoid the m3. Ive been down there and its just mushy atleast for me. Check out the new schiit Fiio i think its called. Those headphones wont need much in terms of grunt

rids57 · 16 Jan 2017 at 18:35

Schiit Fulla 2 (£110) from schiit.eu.com

Carta · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:34

Techen said:
Avoid the m3. Ive been down there and its just mushy atleast for me. Check out the new schiit Fiio i think its called. Those headphones wont need much in terms of grunt

Ah ok, had a bad experience, thanks for the advice

rids57 said:
Schiit Fulla 2 (£110) from schiit.eu.com

I like the look of the Schiit (pronounced the same as the naughty word?) stuff. Would the fulla 2 do everything I need? I see people have the magni and modi 2 what would be the difference?

rids57 · 16 Jan 2017 at 19:45

Power basically, the Magni 2 puts out more power.

To be fair though, the Modi 2 and Magni 2 especially, use discrete components while the Fulla 2 uses op-amps.

Carta · 16 Jan 2017 at 20:53

rids57 said:
Power basically, the Magni 2 puts out more power.

To be fair though, the Modi 2 and Magni 2 especially, use discrete components while the Fulla 2 uses op-amps.

And I take it that OP-AMPS are better? Thanks for this, just ordered the Fulla 2

C64 · 17 Jan 2017 at 02:40

Front panel audio connectors can dilute the quality I'd be plugging headphones straight to soundcard for the best sq.

I'd try directly connecting headphones to board before throwing money at an amp.

I'd throw money at a headphone upgrade before amp (don't mean that in a bad way) would just be throwing good money after bad I'd certainly stick to a low budget dac amp like an smsl.

rids57 · 17 Jan 2017 at 06:20

Carta said:
And I take it that OP-AMPS are better? Thanks for this, just ordered the Fulla 2

Better? Not necessarily. Smaller? Definitely.

Carta · 17 Jan 2017 at 07:37

C64 said:
Front panel audio connectors can dilute the quality I'd be plugging headphones straight to soundcard for the best sq.

I'd try directly connecting headphones to board before throwing money at an amp.

I'd throw money at a headphone upgrade before amp (don't mean that in a bad way) would just be throwing good money after bad I'd certainly stick to a low budget dac amp like an smsl.

At the moment the headphones go into the Fiio D3 DAC, then that connects directly to the board via TOSLINK. The sound quality is perfect but it could be a little louder.