The Beyerdynamic DT880 Appreciation / Discussion thread - Page 166

remember kids, EQ down, not up. 

;)

amp/dac under 200$ for the 880's 600Ohm? what would you recommend?

Desktop and only $200? 

Maverick Audio Tube Magic D1

Audioengine D1

HRT Headstreamer

Hifiman EF2a

or go DIY and make a grubDac kit and an O2 (or Millet Starving Student). 

Portable - FiiO E17

Headroom Total Bithead

If you can get your budget up to $250 or $300, your options go up considerably. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by DisalvoA992 

How much power would they need? I have a 12.5V output w/mine.

Are you sure about that? Even high end soundcards like Asus Xonar Essence ST or STX dont give out that kind of voltage trough the headphone output, and they're actually intended to run headphones.

What kind of a laptop is it?

Anyway, from my experience, in this budget of several hundreds of dollars, the best way to power the DT880 600 ohm (or any other 600 ohm beyers / 300 ohm senns) is from a headphone output out of a integrated speaker amp or a receiver. I've directly compared the cheapest integrated amp models currently on the market from manufacturers like Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Yamaha, etc. to integrated DAC/amp combos like Asus Xonar Essence One, Teac  UD-H01 and Cambridge Audio Dacmagic Plus. Well, integrated amps and receivers blew the dedicated head amps away. Both in terms of power (drastically more power available with high impedance headphones) and sound.  So a good solution might be a second hand integrated amp or receiver. (and btw, just for the record, their outputs sound great with low impedance headphones.... just saying to annoy those who take the output impedance / headphone impedance ratios very seriously. :P)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leonarfd 

Schiit mm stack

Oh, good call. I'd forgotten they released a lower price-point pairing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by liamstrain 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leonarfd 

Schiit mm stack

Oh, good call. I'd forgotten they released a lower price-point pairing.

+1

Oh hey yeah I forgot, how well does the Headstage Arrow amp (4G) pair with the DT880/600 Ohm? That's the amp I have my eyes on and I've heard it's one of the best portables around.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by liamstrain 

remember kids, EQ down, not up. 

 

;)

 

I lowered the overall volume/preamp, and have seen it done that way by many people. I can never get it to sound as good if I just lower other frequencies. There's no distortion or clipping, so I don't see why it's a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DisalvoA992 

Oh hey yeah I forgot, how well does the Headstage Arrow amp (4G) pair with the DT880/600 Ohm? That's the amp I have my eyes on and I've heard it's one of the best portables around.
 

I use it with mine - more than enough power.  Ideal companion to an iPhone or iPod Touch (mine remains permanently mated to the Touch G4).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooko 

 

I use it with mine - more than enough power.  Ideal companion to an iPhone or iPod Touch (mine remains permanently mated to the Touch G4).

I figured that very much myself, I calculated 240 mW of total power if the voltage is boosted up all the way (12V), well above the 100mW capacity of the DT880s, and about 7.75 for the 100mW of power.....how does the voltage get boosted btw? Turning up the volume?

Interesting measurements on golden ears.

They compared all 3 version of DT880 and based on their measurements and test, 600Ohm was the least trebly one, I knew I wasn't hearing things with 250Ohm being unbearably bright.

http://en.goldenears.net/11302

250 Ohm

600 Ohm

But but but, I got the 250 ohm It was $100 cheaper though..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew_WOT 

Interesting measurements on golden ears.

They compared all 3 version of DT880 and based on their measurements and test, 600Ohm was the least trebly one, I knew I wasn't hearing things with 250Ohm being unbearably bright.

 

http://en.goldenears.net/11302

 

 

 

I've already posted that FR graph and there are several ways to interpret it. If you're only talking "trebly", yes, the 600 ohm would seem to be the least bright (although that graph doesn't really line up with Headroom's). But you could also say that the 600 ohm has a rather bad suckout centered on 4khz, a very sensitive area of the frequency range. The thing is, that peak starting at 5khz is relatively easy to get rid of--a simple treble tone control on an integrated will suffice--whereas I'm not sure a suckout at 4khz is so easily dealt with. If you're happy with the sound of the 600 ohm go with it, but I wouldn't condemn the 250 ohm on that evidence alone. I had both versions at the same time and chose the 250 ohm, but I'm not prepared to go further with that comparison because the 600 ohm was used and the other new, and earpad fullness can have a large effect. All I can say is that with the 5khz peak largely ironed out, the 250 ohm (Pro in my case) is one hell of a headphone, even to the extent that I've been using it over an HE-500.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfetan44 

But but but, I got the 250 ohm It was $100 cheaper though..

Just to soothe your buyer remorse a little, both Tyll Hertsen and 'David Mahler' of the 57 headphones thread have said they don't hear a huge difference. In fact Tyll Hertsen went so far as to say the difference could be 'placebo'.

There, isn't that better? Now you can go and spend that $100 on iTunes downloads.