REVIEW: Audio-GD Phoenix Balanced Solid-State Headphone Amplifier - Page 10

There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to a DAC. The higher the resolution coming from your DAC, the more it will be apparent in your speakers. You don't need to have a $10,000 pair of speakers to take advantage of a high-end DAC.

NM

I wouldn't obsess about using a Single Ended input. Balanced outputs are only one aspect of a sources possible performance. None of my sources are balanced and my system sounds great.

I'm the first to admit that in a piece of equipment more in the "Cost no object" range balanced is likely to offer higher performance. However in a piece of equipment that is being built to a more modest price point offering balanced outputs may actually force other compromises elsewhere in the design.

If you had a $1500 budget would you go for $500 dac and $1000 active speakers or $1000 dac and $500 active speakers? Not having a lopsided setup is important if you want to utilize the potential of equipment.

I would spend more on the DAC as your speakers will only sound as good as the source its trying to replicate. Why not spend equal (750)? I spent slightly more for my Audio-gd DAC-19DSP (750) than my KRK Rokit 8 Gen 2's (550)

Which is why I think your setup right now is pretty balanced, but if you get the possibly $1000 dac and pair it with $550 active speakers it's kind of lopsided. This probably goes for headphones as well, I think in certain areas my phoenix is overkill for my recabled pro 900.

It's hard to overkill studio monitors with any source. With powered stereo speakers sure, but studio monitors are so neutral that you could be running just the RP5s and not have any overkill with a Ref 1.

He doesn't have Junk speakers. He would also be setup nice for a spkr upgrade later for a killer system.

Why buy something now that you would have to upgrade later?

Kind of, instead of taking 5 steps to get somewhere, take one step?

The 5 step method works out OK if you buy quality gear "used" that holds it's value.

He's already purchased the dac19dsp , so you have to factor that in when asking whether it's worth it to get a new dac. If he sells locally, maybe he will only lose ~$50-100. If that can be done then I say go ahead and get whatever dac you want even if your speakers cost $20. But since he already has speakers and already has dac, it might end up being foolish to upgrade to a dac double the price of the active speakers.

Depends on the Long term Goal to me. Buy a Quality DAC and you should be tight in the DAC dept forever basically. Great audio gear from 10 years ago or 20 years ago is still great audio gear.

Mediocre is forever...

I'm not saying you're wrong, but your analogies aren't perfectly applicable here. iIf you've already paid for audio-gd's mid-tier dac, you should at least give it a listen before deciding it's time to upgrade to the $1000 unreleased dac, which is the dac he is considering since he says audio-gd's top-tier dac is currently out of his budget and also too big. I could use your logic to discourage him from buying the $1000 dac, but apparently everyone here wants to argue I'm wrong whenever I say it . All I'll say is that he should really listen to the dac19dsp before freaking out about it possibly not being good enough for him. Quite frankly I'm satisfied with even the compass dac when paired correctly (ie not too revealing speakers/headphones).

Source/amplification is important but don't we all agree that higher-end speakers/headphones provide the most improvement to overall enjoyment of music? This is true from my experience.

I would err on that side of things for sure. But his monitors aren't bad. I've heard them when i was looking for monitors.

indeed, i would say the transducer is always the most important part, next would be source, and then lastly the amp. Though this is certainly a generality, some headphones are extenuating circumstances.

Compromise ?

I would disagree with that, if the source does not present a quality signal, no amp can amplify it better than it is and no transducer can make sound ok.

Now if you had said that up to a certain quality of source, I would fully agree with you that beyond that point you get much more bang for your buck upgrading your transducer than the source.

Please don't ask me to define that level, but I will wager that it is pretty high, not pretty expensive though as this is where the quantum leap in new tech has given us the edge.

I have read many posts where headfiers with what I would say "to die for amp and Headphones" have added a more advanced source, and then proclaim the sound to be better than ever. Though never blatantly and more belatedly mixed in with other stuff. ( This is primarily a headphone forum you know)

It starts with a quality recording, cd, vinyl and high rez stuff. Stereophile has a section, " Recordings to die for ", and " Recording of the month ", so does countless other Hi Fi and music magazines. Performance and Recording Quality rated in stars /5 . Your headphones can never make a 1/5 quality sound pleasant and truly enjoyable compared to a 5/5 rated recording, why do we find this rating system in use?

People notice quality at the true source, the thing you put in or on.

This is where I do my main searches for reproduced source material until I get my Transport and Dac/ Player, whatever, up to a certain level and then you would be absolutely correct, get the better quality transducer before spending on a source with ever decreasing sound quality per $ spent.

All as long as that Quality signal goes into an Audio-GD Balanced Phoenix.

Quality Shade.