Just thought I would post to say that I wanted to upgrade my setup and get a high-end sound with headphones without going nuts on cost.
I tried the HD850's and settled on the HD650's as I thought they had more bass. For the DAC everyone seemed to be using Hugo DAC's at all the demo booths I visited so I bought one blindly.
I placed my spotify account on notice and moved to Tidal.
I have conducted some blind tests of my own, using mp3, Tidal and SACD souces with and without the DAC using a Alienware 17 R3 laptop which uses a Recon 3Di board (which I assume uses a Cirrus Logic CS4382 DAC) and a reference point in the shape of some closed back Bose QC25 phones.
Summary is, the HD650+Mojo combo is pretty incredible, the most notable difference between using the Mojo DAC and not using it is that the band instruments on a track can be heard individually. I did not think the external DAC would make that much of a difference but it does.
The other surprise was Tidal, its a pretty awesome source of material. To the point where I am looking at my Mp3 collection and considering deleting it all as it has been comprehensively out-moded and out-dated.
In terms of SACD, if there is a difference I think its with orchestral music, pop music, rock and everything else I tried did not seem to benefit to my ears.
The biggest difference is of course, the headphones, they need 100 hours burn in but so far they are well beyond anything I have heard at this price point. Highly, recommended! They are still very capable without the DAC however, you lose about 15% of the music quality (if I were to put it into numbers).
In terms of cost, I managed to get the HD650 cans with the promo 45% discount (£240), the Mojo I paid full whack for (£399).
No snazzy cables or accessories required.
I tried the HD850's and settled on the HD650's as I thought they had more bass. For the DAC everyone seemed to be using Hugo DAC's at all the demo booths I visited so I bought one blindly.
I placed my spotify account on notice and moved to Tidal.
I have conducted some blind tests of my own, using mp3, Tidal and SACD souces with and without the DAC using a Alienware 17 R3 laptop which uses a Recon 3Di board (which I assume uses a Cirrus Logic CS4382 DAC) and a reference point in the shape of some closed back Bose QC25 phones.
Summary is, the HD650+Mojo combo is pretty incredible, the most notable difference between using the Mojo DAC and not using it is that the band instruments on a track can be heard individually. I did not think the external DAC would make that much of a difference but it does.
The other surprise was Tidal, its a pretty awesome source of material. To the point where I am looking at my Mp3 collection and considering deleting it all as it has been comprehensively out-moded and out-dated.
In terms of SACD, if there is a difference I think its with orchestral music, pop music, rock and everything else I tried did not seem to benefit to my ears.
The biggest difference is of course, the headphones, they need 100 hours burn in but so far they are well beyond anything I have heard at this price point. Highly, recommended! They are still very capable without the DAC however, you lose about 15% of the music quality (if I were to put it into numbers).
In terms of cost, I managed to get the HD650 cans with the promo 45% discount (£240), the Mojo I paid full whack for (£399).
No snazzy cables or accessories required.
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