Please help. Headphone Amp and Ohm confusion

Tomtom3989

Tomtom3989

Tomtom3989

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Hello,
I have a Sound Blaster Z and currently a pair of AKG 550's. I would like to get a pair of Beyerdynamic DT880's or something of similar quality. There is an 80, 250 and 600ohm version. The sound blaster says it will drive 600ohm headphones however from reading through a lot of forums, the general consensus is that it doesn't do it very well. So with a budget of say 150 for cans i.e (Beyerdynamic DT880 250ohm version) and 50-100 for a desktop AMP. What are the best amp's that i should be looking at and what connection should i be using from the sound card to the amp (optical or 3.5mm). I am a complete amateur at this and am driving myself mad trying to work it out.
Thank you for any help you can give
 
DT 770 Pro are closed backed and come in 32 ohm, 80 ohm and 250 ohm versions

DT 880 Pro are semi-open backed and are only available at 250 ohm

DT 880 Premium are semi-open backed and come in 32 ohm, 250 ohm and 600 ohm versions

DT 990 Pro are open backed and are only available at 250 ohm

DT 990 Premium are open backed and come in 32 ohm, 250 ohm and 600 ohm versions.

There used to be a huge price difference between the Pro and Premium versions but due to the newer Tesla series the Premium prices are now much lower, so it's a good time to buy.

The Sound Blaster Z can drive any of the above up to the 250 ohm versions without any trouble. I used to drive my 250 ohm DT 990 Pros from a SB Z and they sounded fine and I didn't need to upgrade the card until I got my AKG K702s and Sennheiser HD650s.

You can actually get the DT 880 Premium (250 ohm) for £185 and the SB Z won't have any trouble driving those.

By splitting your purchase (£150 for phones and up to £100 for DAC / Amp) you're not really going to get anything appreciably better than the SB Z. Sure you could get a FiiO E10K or E17K but they are USB only, so would totally bypass the SB Z and are lower powered than the SB Z anyway.

You don't say what you will be using them for. Will it be for gaming and movies or just music? If it's for gaming and movies you will want to keep the surround sound and positional audio features of the sound card while the opposite is true for music, you're better off with no extra processing whatsoever.

For an external DAC & Amp that will be appreciably better, you'll be looking at something like the Epiphany O2Di or the Schiit Modi optical & Magni 2 stack, both of which are about £170. It may also be worth looking at the Schiit Fulla (USB DAC & Amp) at £75 and the Audioquest Dragonfly at around £125. Any USB fed DAC will be strictly stereo, so no surround features, while the optical Modi (plus Magni 2 amp) can take the feed from the SB Z giving you the better sound quality plus the positional audio features of the card.

Another option is the Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card which is a lot better than the SB Z but that too is up around the £140 mark.
 
I would recommend him the epiphany amp dac tbh.

You get a lot of amp dac for the money.

I find it better against the fiio e17 i once had.
 
Thank you so much for the information, it has really helped me put things in perspective.

The usage would be just for games and music, but the reason i want to upgrade is for music. I have at the minute a x-fi fatal1ty pro but don't use any of its features so i'm just using the onboard Realtek ALC1150 because its so easy to switch between edifier 2.0 speakers and headphones using the cases front jack.
I ordered the Sound blaster Z but not opened it yet, so i could return it, i just thought when i ordered it, it would be enough with its headphone amp built in. So i have a few options from my understanding.
1)Cheapest
Keep the Soundblaster Z (£60ish) and get max 250ohm headphones (£150-200)

2)Best Audio
Return Soundblaster Z and get Epiphany O2Di (£180) and the sound quality will be better and i could buy any headphones pretty much and not worry up to 600ohm? (£150-250)

3)all the above
keep sound blaster z for now and get the DAC/AMP later if i feel its necessary.

I didn't like to look of the ASUS Xonar essence because for the price i think it would be better to get the DAC & AMP.

What do you think i should do?
Money is tight like everyone else but i am willing to part with the money if it is worth it.

Thank you again.
 
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My own personal choice for gaming headphones are AKG K702 (£150) which have a huge sound stage and ridiculous amounts of detail. As stock they are somewhat bass shy and have a very lively high end and while that is brilliant for gaming (positional audio) it's not ideal for music. So I removed the sticky pads covering the ports inside the ear cups and the result is a lot more bass, specially down very low and I've tamed the highs with a spot of EQing and the result is quite spectacular for the money and way better than my DT990s which now sit in their box in the cupboard.

If you don't use any of the positional audio features and don't intend doing so in the future then don't even bother opening the SB Z, send it back.

So if straight stereo is all you need, what is your absolute budget?
 
3 is your best bet, as you may never feel like you need the ODAC. SB Z should also be able to power the K702s, which would also be my choice for gaming at this budget (and for music too (with or without the bassport mod, but then I have a different preference to Rids in terms of sound signature).
 
If your budget really does go up to £430 (£180 + £250) then there are a couple of really good options available:

Get the Schiit Fulla USB dongle DAC/Amp for £80 and the HiFiMan HE400i for £360, both available from Electromod in the UK.

For a bit less you could get the Schiit Fulla (£80) or Audioquest Dragonfly USB DAC/Amp (£125) and the AKG K712 Pro (£250)

Either of those would be a lot better than even the DT880 Premium (which uses the same drivers as the Pro by the way)
 
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Is the Fulla able to power the 400is? I've not even heard of it, so genuine curiosity-based question :p
 
It drives HD650s without any problem and they peak at over 500ohms, so should power the easy to drive 400is without any trouble
 
I'm considering one for driving my IEMs, the Schiit Vali is hopeless for that as it's noise floor is too high.
 
E11K/E12 are excellent amps for IEMs, useless if you want a DAC/Amp combo though. Guess it depends on how much your more 'budget' (in the most positive way of meaning it) IEMs will benefit from a DAC? If so, I wonder how the Schiit stacks (no pun intended) up against the FiiO E07K?
 
That is an incredibly positive review.. Not much to it though and not a single negative uttered, so somewhat biased. Not sure of the point in making an DAC/amp designed to be fully portable and then not allowing it be powered from most phones/DAPs though - thats a bit lacking... Also, how on earth did they think it was a good idea to mount the volume knob on the top face and have it almost the same depth as the rest of the case...stacking it will be a PITA - not that you can stack it ofc, as no phone/DAP can power it...
 
It's not meant for stacking or using with phones, it's the same as the Audioquest Dragonfly, a USB dongle based desktop DAC/Amp that is aimed at using with PCs, Macs or Laptops. It's also why he was comparing it with the E10K and not the E07K and E17K.
 
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rids57 said:
Any USB fed DAC will be strictly stereo, so no surround features, while the optical Modi (plus Magni 2 amp) can take the feed from the SB Z giving you the better sound quality plus the positional audio features of the card.
Click to expand...

Not quite sure how you mean that but there are a few USB DACs that can do i.e. Dolby Prologic IIz mixing a surround source into stereo virtual surround (for headphone use).

EDIT: Not that I'd recommend any of them mind.
 
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Well OcUK sell a few of them in the shape of the U3, U5, U7 and X-Fi but none of them are really up to powering higher impedance headphones and are not really a step up from the SB Z in sound quality, so I left them out.

There are undoubtedly others from the myriad unheard of Chinese start ups but most of them are going to be of questionable quality both in build and audio fidelity.
 
rids57 said:
It's not meant for stacking or using with phones, it's the same as the Audioquest Dragonfly, a USB dongle based desktop DAC/Amp that is aimed at using with PCs, Macs or Laptops. It's also why he was comparing it with the E10K and not the E07K and E17K.
Click to expand...

And yet Schiit are marketing it as being usable with phones/DAPs? It's not strictly dongle based at all either, its still utilising a full USB cable.
Im all for it as a laptop/desktop entry-level DAC/amp, don't get me wrong but I feel they're losing out on a whole market area. You mentioned the E07K, for example, its a desktop DAC/amp thats very capable and can drive phones equally as well - okay the Fulla probs has a better DAC with the AK4396 - but it can also be used with IEMs (very low noise floor, no issues with volume - unlike the review you posted whereby it was far too loud), can also be powered from phones/DAPs and is more or less the same price, which would you rather when looking for a portable DAC/amp? As I said, I really feel they've missed a trick.

EDIT: It also seems you can separate DAC from amp...which you can on the E07K and others. If this is marketed as budget and/or entry level, wouldnt it make sense to be able to use it just as a DAC connected to an external amp? (Lets face it, most people will buy an amp before a DAC).
 
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I think maybe Schiit and FiiO came at this from opposite directions. Schiit wanted the best sound quality at the lowest price and left out features to keep the price down, while FiiO had a set feature list and went with cheaper components to keep the price down, with the sound quality suffering as a result.
 
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