Best combined headphone Dac solution?

ethan · 29 Mar 2013 at 21:46

I have got my eye on the Musical Fidelity M1 dac and the M1HPA with a view to buying (sometime this year). However, does anybody know of a all in one solution with comparable quality? Thank you.

Edit: just noticed there is a M1 Sdac which includes the headphone amp but the price is the same as purchasing the two items already mentioned.

AbsenceJam · 29 Mar 2013 at 22:18

I would do some reading on sound science before you drop all that money.
A DAC is not a complicated piece of equipment, should it make a difference to the sound then it's broken or built poorly. This is a nice place to start regarding amplifiers.

What source equipment and amplifiers do you have at the moment and what headphones do you use?

TALON1973 · 29 Mar 2013 at 22:19

what's your max budget OP ?

ethan · 29 Mar 2013 at 22:34

I have a Dacmagic plus linked to the pc via usb. it's a nice bit of kit but the headphone amp on it is the let down. It is this particular problem I was looking to improve. As mentioned in a previous post I have by way of headphones the Dennon AHD 2000 and the Amperiors. Other equipment is a Yamaha avantage AV receiver and some Boston Soundware speakers which I would expect to be superferluous to this query. Thanks.

Budget would be 500-600 but could stretch to more.

AbsenceJam · 29 Mar 2013 at 22:57

Those are both low impedance headphones driven easily by any portable player, and you have a non-faulty DAC.

I'm going to assume you've been reading one side of audio forums/blogs and think you need something else. It's very likely that if you buy something it will sound like an improvement, but it's going to be placebo only.

£5-600 buys you a lot of headphone. How about spending the money there? You'll get differences that can not only be measured, but heard. A good pair of open headphones perhaps?

ethan · 29 Mar 2013 at 23:36

Hadn't considered that. Thanks

AbsenceJam · 30 Mar 2013 at 00:04

ethan said:
Hadn't considered that. Thanks

I've been into audio for years. wasted so much and never heard much of a difference till I actually started doing some reading, research and testing. Cables = lol, and DACs and amps account for 5% of the sound at best unless something is faulty or wrong (eg. high impedance phones direct from a phone). Well, some super high-end amps are intentionally altered to sound different rather than transparent. Unfortunately this is still heresy but you'll only find pseudo-science and non-human tests to oppose it.
But headphones/speakers really do sound very different.

Sennheiser HD600 is a classic and there's nothing more comfortable then their headphones of this design. I prefer the 650's myself, bit more life to them, I don't know if there's still a vast price difference between them. All depends what you listen to though, and also if you want something for games, movies, etc as well.