Any recommendations for a DAC/AMP for headphone use from PC?

Man of Honour
Joined
8 Nov 2007
Posts
16,122
Location
Outer Space
Hey guys,

I'm looking at getting either of the following headphones (please also recommend which one to get)

  • Sennheiser HD598
  • Philips M1
  • Philips X1


But wanted to know is it worth while using an Asus STX soundcard (has headphone amp in built) or the new STX IIs?

Or get a USB DAC/AMP setup for the listed headphones above? Most I could spend would be about £150-170 but less if possible?

Thanks :)
 
Depends what you want them for.

If it's mostly for gaming then a Soundblaster Z (OEM) will do you fine for £50 and it has quite a decent headphone amp built in.
The STX will give you the same but with a better DAC, stronger headphone amp and a slightly better sound all around with a touch more detail. The STX is a better card if you listen to a lot of music.
Both of those sound cards have dedicated headphone sockets on the rear which mean you can leave the headphones plugged in permanently and just switch between them and speakers with the control panel. Avoid using the case front panel headphone sockets, they often act like antennas for interference.
If you'll be exclusively listening to music then an external DAC/Amp would be a better bet as they are less likely to suffer from interference, being outside the case and will generally provide a better sound, though the differences will be subtle over an STX.
Once you get to the level of an STX you won't find the differences in equipment to be "night and day", they will be subtle and you probably wouldn't notice them unless you were listening for them BUT they do add up to a better overall sound. I was very happy with my STX but eventually succumbed and bought an Aune T1, a DAC/amp with a vacuum tube acting as a buffer between the two sections. I did a lot of side by side listening (with the STX) and it slowly dawned on me that T1 sounded smoother, bass sounded stronger, just as detailed but the high end was smoother and more musical, the sound stage was wider and had a 3D quality that was missing with the STX.

Well reviewed DAC/Amps at your price point:

Epiphany O2D
Aune T1
Audioengine D1
Arcam rPAC
iFi Nano iDSD
Beresford TC-7533

The Philips X1 are a low impedance headphone and although they are not overly susceptible to low damping factor they will sound better with a low impedance amplifier such as the O2D. The Sennheiser HD 598 are decent but overpriced and you can get better for less, such as the Beyerdynamic DT770 pro (closed back) or DT990 pro (open back). You can get 80ohm DT770's should you wish to use the Soundblaster Z, otherwise go for the 250ohm versions which can be driven easily by any of the other options.

I'm presuming the budget you named is just for the soundcard or DAC/amp
 
Thanks for the excellent info :)

I knew I'd forget something, my main criteria is listening to music, with a little bit of gaming and yes the budget is either a soundcard or a DAC / AMP unit.

Would you get the X1 or DT990 Pro's?
 
I got the DT990 pros and love them, though the X1 wasn't flavour of the month when I bought them. Tyl at Innerfidelity really seems to favour the X1 although others find the bass overpowers the rest of the sound, so I guess a lot depends on how much bass you want to hear - though the DT990's are not lacking in the bass department either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5GxWTzK0CA
 
I'd spend no more than £50 on a sound card now. In the past I've often recommended a Xonar Essence to those spending around £130+ on headphones that will be primarily listening to music; however now I feel £100+ is too much to spend on a so called 'audiophile' product that has to work not only in an electrically noisy environment, but also requires drivers as well. Driver and EMI issues can make great sound cards, rather useless. All these high end sound cards sound wonderful for the people with no issues, but there are a fair number who do get issues. With a DAC, you just connect it up and away you go. There are some very good DAC/amps to be had now; for those looking for good quality audio, spending so much on an internal card seems crazy now. Since I've been using a DAC/amp, I wouldn't go back to using a sound card, except maybe a Xonar DGX if I needed a cheap decent card.

If you want to make use of sound card features, you could get a DAC/amp with optical input, then connect to something like a Xonar DGX.

As for the headphones, depends maybe on what the X1 are at the time. At £180, I'd probably favour the DT770/990 at £50 less. I wouldn't go for the HD598, like rids, I think they are overpriced.
 
an STX for £70 would definitely be worth getting, I didn't see much (if any) difference between it and my external DAC with the DT990's and it was only with the AKG K702's that differences became more apparent.
 
I personally wouldn't bother with a soundcard tbh. Get a combined dac/headphone amp and if you wish to upgrade at a later date you would have the option of selling on what you purchase for greater value. Your equipment would be of superior quality than a soundcard, regardless.
 
Do you want to use the headphones solely with the PC? or with a console, blu ray player, sky? etc as well?

Sent you a trust message

Just PC music (high quality rips direct from CDs) & some gaming but positional audio etc isn't needed.


an STX for £70 would definitely be worth getting, I didn't see much (if any) difference between it and my external DAC with the DT990's and it was only with the AKG K702's that differences became more apparent.

Just bought it, can't wait, thanks for your help :)


I personally wouldn't bother with a soundcard tbh. Get a combined dac/headphone amp and if you wish to upgrade at a later date you would have the option of selling on what you purchase for greater value. Your equipment would be of superior quality than a soundcard, regardless.

Just bought the STX before you posted, I think when rids said the difference is subtle from an STX to a DAC/AMP combo, I decided to save some cash (for now until the upgrade bug bites :D) and get some decent cans, should be better than onboard audio and a gaming headset lol :)
 
HD598's are very bass light, they have bass but it isn't the boom you get from like a sub. it's like a 2.0 system whereas the fidelio x1's are more like a 2.1 system with a bit of a boom in the bass.

sound card is fine and the one you picked is very good not worth upgrading it at all tbh unless you were to spend £300+ on a set of headphones which is an area most people don't venture into.

so it really depends on what type of signature you want. personally I would forget HD598's they are overpriced. I would be looking at something from Beyerdynamic, AKG (if you can drive them, some are very hard to drive) or Fidelio X1's.

I would only get the HD598's if you can pick them up for £90-£100.

I recently got both Fidelio X1's (for music mainly and some movies) and HD 558's (to replace my HD 595's) for gaming. I plan on modding my 558's into 598's (which is simple and costs nothing to do) and they only cost me £80 brand new (auction) which is a steal.
 
DT990's are built like tanks, they really are indestructible, they are also ridiculously comfortable with lovely soft velour ear pads. The pads are easily replaceable (you can get them on the rain forest) should they wear out. The only negative is that the cable is fixed but as there is nothing wrong with it, that isn't really an issue. Sound wise, they have a nice full bass for an open backed headphone and quite a decent sized sound stage. The mids are slightly reduced in level (compared with the bass) but they are nicely detailed and vocals sound great. The treble gets a lift from 6khz up to 9khz that some people find fatiguing but it doesn't bother me at all.

My newest headphones are the AKG K702 which are on sale at quite a discount at the moment. They are another circumaural headphone with velour pads and are auto adjusting for fit - they are also extremely comfortable. The cable on these is replaceable but as it is already very high quality there is no point changing it unless you manage to damage it somehow. The pads on these are replaceable, though they are not cheap and are harder to get hold of than those of the Beyers. Soundwise these are very different to the Beyers and the X1. For a start there is a lot less bass, though what is there is extremely well controlled and goes very deep, it's just not as loud as you get with the other two. The mids are amazing, vocals and acoustic instruments are fantastic with these cans. The highs are crystal clear and although there is a small lift around the same point as the Beyers it rolls off earlier, so they sound much smoother. The sound stage with these is huge and the separation between instruments makes it easy to just shut your eyes and imagine you are there. These are definitely not for anyone who likes a lot of electronic music or any genre that relies on oodles of bass. With that said, these have considerably more bass now than when I first got them and from what I hear they will just get better as they are used.

Another option would be the AKG Q701. Almost identical to the K702 (above) but with a slightly altered sound signature that gives a little more bass and lower mid-range at the expense of a slightly more constrained sound stage. These are currently selling for about £40 more than the K702's but the sound signature might be exactly what you are looking for, only you can say. There is one major difference between these and the K702's - the headband. For some inexplicable reason, the designers fitted these with a number of bumps on the underside of the headband and depending on how much hair you have, the experience can vary from perfectly comfortable to downright painful. Basically if you have a thick head of hair you'll be fine but if you don't I would avoid. The K702 has a flat leather headband which is very comfortable irrespective of how much hair you have. :D

The Philips Fidelio X1 is a stunning looking headphone and is extremely comfortable too from what I hear. It's cable, which looks great will need changing as it has a relatively high resistance that can affect the sound quality. The velour ear pads are reputedly just as comfortable as the Beyers but the difference here is that they are not replaceable. Soundwise the X1 has a somewhat boosted bass and the frequency response curve just slopes gently down all the way to the end. Some people find this to be relaxing and others find it dull, I guess the only way to decide would be to listen to some. As you have just bought the STX, I need to say that the X1 is not a perfect match due to it's low impedance. However, it is not overly sensitive to low damping factor, while something like the Sennheiser HD598 is (very). The ideal is to have a damping factor of more than 8:1, with the first figure being the input impedance of the headphones and the second being the output impedance of the amp. In the case of the STX and X1, that would be 30:10 or 3:1, which is a lot less than the ideal. However, because they are not overly sensitive to this, the worst that could happen is that the bass will not sound quite as tight as it could do, though they will still sound fine.
 
Last edited:
Thanks rids, again excellent information, appreciate it :)

I do listen to a lot of genres, but I love artists like Jarre, Vangelis, and especially loving the 2 albums by Daft Punk for the Tron Legacy movie (mostly electronic/orchestral)

From your experience, which headphones would you suggest? (and when you say the AKG K702s are greatly reduced, is the price £164 or are they cheaper elsewhere?)

Thanks :)
 
Just PC music (high quality rips direct from CDs) & some gaming but positional audio etc isn't needed.




Just bought it, can't wait, thanks for your help :)




Just bought the STX before you posted, I think when rids said the difference is subtle from an STX to a DAC/AMP combo, I decided to save some cash (for now until the upgrade bug bites :D) and get some decent cans, should be better than onboard audio and a gaming headset lol :)

Enjoy.
 
Can't recall hearing much Daft Punk but if you like listening to Jarre and Vangelis then the 702's or Q701's would take some beating. I listen to a lot of Yes, Oldfield, Jarre, Al Di Meola, King Crimson, ELP, Eric Johnson, Satriani and for this type of music the AKG's are a league above the others. I still prefer the Beyers for heavier rock as they have a more satisfying bass growl but most of the time I find myself using the AKGs. I do find though that the AKG's sound better with my Aune T1 external DAC/Amp and I wonder if that's because the amp is better able to drive them than the STX, I'm not sure about that and would need a third option to tell for sure.

I just went and had a listen to Daft Punk on YouTube, so quality wasn't the greatest, on the STX with both headphones:

There is a fair amount of bass on DP tracks and the Beyers definitely bring that out more and sound really musical but the more analytical AKG's made it much easier to pick out every instrument/voice and the Beyers were much more "compressed" in comparison.

I guess it boils down to where your priorities lie, if it's bass then go for the Beyers or if it's sound stage, mids and separation then go with the AKGs. The Q701's might be a good compromise but they cost more and depend on your hair. :D
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom