Gamers, What's Your Audio Set Up?

Angst said:
Sounds like a great purchase then. I might pick one up on amazon to have a look at as I've just sent back a topping l30 and an smsl da300ex.
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I like it a lot. I have waited this late to say this but after all night on them, no fatigue.

What's wrong with them? Especially the SMSL, isn't that like £400?
 
Probably not all DACs sound the same and price doesn't really matter with things like this,. you can get garbage sounding DACs that are nearly 4 figures yet amazing flagship sounding ones that are under £500 like we are seeing in this thread. Or there are some features/quirks that not everyone likes. Just like the Topping DX3 Pro+ which I had for a week before it died on me and I didn't even like some missing features the older MX3S has, plus the volume knob on the DX was rubbish compared to the MX and missed increments often.

I would be temped to try out that AX sounds like but the silver wouldn't fit the theme of my desktop layout,

Also I found a solution to hide the RGB logo, even though it's off :p

aXiKKhq.jpeg


Rather convenient :D
 
Raymond Lin said:
I like it a lot. I have waited this late to say this but after all night on them, no fatigue.

What's wrong with them? Especially the SMSL, isn't that like £400?
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Nothing wrong with either of them to be honest, both sound good, im just experimenting as ive not bought any in nearly a decade now so i want to see what the new stuff is like.
The topping is a wonderfully powerful little amplifier, too powerful really for my headphones and the smsl is a very nice combo unit.
Both in my opinion do things better the the k11 r2r (it is much cheaper though) and are also marginal improvements over my old unit with an ever so slightly "crisper" but less warm output. However, as the improvement is so small it's not really worth keeping them. It's a shame really I was kind of hoping things had advanced more. The xduoo interests me though as it's class a like my old unit whereas all the others are class d.
 
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I have Audeze Maxwell. They are planar magnetic and I think theyre the best headset i have had. I liked the Arctis pro wireless but they suffered from the common issue of breaking where the ear cup is mounted to the headband.
 
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Angst said:
Nothing wrong with either of them to be honest, both sound good, im just experimenting as ive not bought any in nearly a decade now so i want to see what the new stuff is like.
The topping is a wonderfully powerful little amplifier, too powerful really for my headphones and the smsl is a very nice combo unit.
Both in my opinion do things better the the k11 r2r (it is much cheaper though) and are also marginal improvements over my old unit with an ever so slightly "crisper" but less warm output. However, as the improvement is so small it's not really worth keeping them. It's a shame really I was kind of hoping things had advanced more. The xduoo interests me though as it's class a like my old unit whereas all the others are class d.
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I have to begin with the caveat that I have not heard all the amps, probably less than yourself but I think since the emergence of Chi-Fi, the rule of diminishing returns has dropped significantly to a point where I don't know whether it really is worth it to go much above what I have at this point. It can drive the HD600 with an impedance of 300ohm quite easily. On low gain mode, it only need to go to about 45/100 (about 32 in High Gain). So on the power side, it is not lacking. It also happens to be one of the few if only Class A amps, which was more by happenstance.

Good build quality, sounds good, and is reasonably priced (would have been better if I didn't get caught by customs so in the end I saved only like £15 instead of £50.). I like the simplicity of it. Works out of the box straight away, paired on Bluetooth on my phone 1st attempt and held a stable connection. I find myself the older I get, the less techy stuff I want. Just want to set it up and leave it to work and this does that.

If I were to nitpick, it does not have RCA in so can't use external DAC into it, the notches on the turn dial don't always correspond to each increment of the volume. It will do it and then it might skip one. It's like it's set in between (like 1.1) and then the display catches up when it gets to 9 and jumps to 10. No dimming on the display or the ring light or able to change what the display shows besides the bitrate at idle.

Most of these are cosmetics and do not affect the sound one bit.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I find myself the older I get, the less techy stuff I want. Just want to set it up and leave it to work and this does that.
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I can definitely identify with this, I just want stuff that is good quality and reliable, I don't want to have to faff with it. Ive got the xduoo on the amazon list for now, I'll likely leave it till after ive moved house now before picking it up, unless you update before I do saying its failed or something :D.
 
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Angst said:
I can definitely identify with this, I just want stuff that is good quality and reliable, I don't want to have to faff with it. Ive got the xduoo on the amazon list for now, I'll likely leave it till after ive moved house now before picking it up, unless you update before I do saying its failed or something :D.
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The only things I can change really are...

1 - Red kob - turn for volume. Press in to change source
2 - Menu button, it only has 3 settings. Filters, low/high gain and Bass Boost.

That's it, there is no other buttons or settings. On the back there is a hard rocker on/off button. There isn't even a 110-240v switch as it's done automatically.

This amp isn't for people who wants to adjust and tweak things, it feels like an old school amplifier with a simply OLED screen. I also started to like the ring light in the end because of it starting to fade to red when the volume gets to dangerous levels. A good visual warning in case you plug in headphones with music playing.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
i am only on 32/100 on the volume on high gain and it's a good listening level on the Edition XS. I might even try low gain to give myself more control in the volume adjustment. The bass boost button is fun, but not sure i will use it with the XS though.
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What is interesting for me in comparison is that for a good listening level on my K11 R2R I have it set to 55/100 on high gain (using 3.5mm not sure if yours is balanced?).
 
Jenz said:
What is interesting for me in comparison is that for a good listening level on my K11 R2R I have it set to 55/100 on high gain (using 3.5mm not sure if yours is balanced?).
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I am using the balanced out, if I am using 3.5mm single ended then it has like half the power.

I feel I could go higher than 32/100 but that was the number I ended up stopping at. I could get to 55 but not for long and not good for my ear drums..
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I am using the balanced out, if I am using 3.5mm single ended then it has like half the power.

I feel I could go higher than 32/100 but that was the number I ended up stopping at. I could get to 55 but not for long and not good for my ear drums..
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My balanced cable is on the way so will come back on what that number looks like.

Unusually I also find that Games (rather than music) need to go upto 70/100. I am not sure why Games would be needing this.
 
motu.com

M2 | MOTU.com

The M2 is a 2-in/2-out USB-C audio interface for Mac, Windows and iOS that offers best-in-class audio quality, best-in-class speed (ultra-low latency) and best-in-class metering with a full-color LCD.
motu.com motu.com

Bought one of these.

Should arrive in a few day's.

I've heard it has one of best sound qualities out of most dacs.
 
jonneymendoza said:
motu.com

M2 | MOTU.com

The M2 is a 2-in/2-out USB-C audio interface for Mac, Windows and iOS that offers best-in-class audio quality, best-in-class speed (ultra-low latency) and best-in-class metering with a full-color LCD.
motu.com motu.com

Bought one of these.

Should arrive in a few day's.

I've heard it has one of best sound qualities out of most dacs.
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That’s to make music, rather than listening. It’s the opposite. The headphone amps in those are not the same quality.
 
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jonneymendoza said:
Wh


Ahh right ok. Might cancel the order then.

What exact model dac did you get?

Does it have mic input? USB connector and native loopback feature?
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For hifi listening, like mine, it has various inputs.

Bluetooth, Optical, USB and Coaxial. - that is DIGITAL input into the DAC. I am just using USB-C right now.

Then some models have RCA (analogue) input for the amp section, bypassing the DAC. That way you can use a separate DAC.

Mine doesn't have the RCA in.

Then output, mine has 3

3.5mm single ended and 4.4mm balanced, both for headphones
RCA out - for powered desktop speakers or Hifi Amps (stereo).

Loop feature is usually for an INTERFACE like that Motu, that's what they are called, an Audio Interface. They are for music production. You plug a guitar in, or a piano, or even a microphone and sing, either using desktop monitors speakers or put in a pair of monitoring headphones and listen it back to yourself. HiFi Quality output headphones are not their first intention. The money is spent on the DAC to convert from Analogue to Digital (rather than Digital to Analogue), the purpose of them are different.

If you are not making music, you shouldn't need a loop back feature. If you do, they are tend to be separate devices.

For gaming headphone amps or DACs or for listening basically, you can break it down to subcategories. Like there are more gaming centric ones from Creative Labs with a "soundstage knob", or you can get really HiFi focus ones using XLR outs, the size of a PS5 that is only 2 channels.

It all depends what you want to do. Mine is for listening with headphones, at my desk, via the Mac.
 
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@jonneymendoza you want a dac/headphone amp with a mic input, more a gaming dac so you can use a headset with a mic.

Unless you don’t mind using a mic separately. Like me. Although the front audio out in my Caldigit dock also can do that too if I want, or the Mac I think...I have multiple headphones out in mine, I think I counted 5 in total, and 3 analogue mic in !!!

3sBAklh.jpg
 
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