Well as some of you know, I am primarily a computer as source guy, and my rig was based on a MisterX PPA 2.0 and Grado RS-1's, with the M-audio Audiophile USB as my source.
Recently Jahn's Melos SHA Gold Reference went up for sale, and I had to have it, so I put my amp up on the forums, figuring it would take a while to sell. It ended up selling in one day, so now I am left without a headphone amp until I can pick up the Melos in a little under a week!
I tried hooking up my rs-1's to my M-audio's headphone out - blahhhhh they sounded so weak and thin. There is just no way I can listen to music out of them from my computer anymore! I was really getting worried at this point, because how can I live without my music?
Now even though I'm primarily a PC as source guy, I do have a decent number of CD's, which I basically keep in storage 24/7. In our living room, we used to have a Sony DVP-S300 DVD player feeding our TV, but it has been upgraded to something with better video quality. I knew it had a headphone out, so I decided to grab it and hook it up and run my RS-1's out of the headphone jack.
Let's just say it completley, utterly, annihilates the M-audio in every way, shape and form. This thing was one of the very first DVD players out there, it has to be almost ten years old since I bought it. The headphone out is simply spectacular for a player that now costs around $30 on ebay if you can find it (I paid $500 during launch week). I would go so far to say that it is sonically 85-90% of my MisterX PPA 2.0 with my RS-1's. Not only that, but it's a hell of a source too. It uses seperate pickups for DVD and CD, or as Sony calls it, "Dual Discrete Optical Pickup/96khz 24bit D/A Converter". Whatever it is, I'm noticing more detail, soundstage, life, from my music. I'm going to try to open it up and find out what DAC's it uses.
It's quite a shock considering how expensive the Audiophile USB is and how good I thought my music was sounding. It's one of those things that completley changes your paradigms. I'm not saying that it's the equivalent of the $1000 beasts, but I will say that it's the best bargain I've ever heard in audio (at todays prices, it was pretty expensive when it first came out).
Recently Jahn's Melos SHA Gold Reference went up for sale, and I had to have it, so I put my amp up on the forums, figuring it would take a while to sell. It ended up selling in one day, so now I am left without a headphone amp until I can pick up the Melos in a little under a week!
I tried hooking up my rs-1's to my M-audio's headphone out - blahhhhh they sounded so weak and thin. There is just no way I can listen to music out of them from my computer anymore! I was really getting worried at this point, because how can I live without my music?
Now even though I'm primarily a PC as source guy, I do have a decent number of CD's, which I basically keep in storage 24/7. In our living room, we used to have a Sony DVP-S300 DVD player feeding our TV, but it has been upgraded to something with better video quality. I knew it had a headphone out, so I decided to grab it and hook it up and run my RS-1's out of the headphone jack.
Let's just say it completley, utterly, annihilates the M-audio in every way, shape and form. This thing was one of the very first DVD players out there, it has to be almost ten years old since I bought it. The headphone out is simply spectacular for a player that now costs around $30 on ebay if you can find it (I paid $500 during launch week). I would go so far to say that it is sonically 85-90% of my MisterX PPA 2.0 with my RS-1's. Not only that, but it's a hell of a source too. It uses seperate pickups for DVD and CD, or as Sony calls it, "Dual Discrete Optical Pickup/96khz 24bit D/A Converter". Whatever it is, I'm noticing more detail, soundstage, life, from my music. I'm going to try to open it up and find out what DAC's it uses.
It's quite a shock considering how expensive the Audiophile USB is and how good I thought my music was sounding. It's one of those things that completley changes your paradigms. I'm not saying that it's the equivalent of the $1000 beasts, but I will say that it's the best bargain I've ever heard in audio (at todays prices, it was pretty expensive when it first came out).
