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Looking for amp/DAC in $500 range for DT880/600 - Page 2

post #16 of 27
6/27/10 at 1:01pm
Thread Starter 

What upgrades should I go for, if any?

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post #17 of 27
6/27/10 at 1:09pm

I'll be opening a whole can of worms here, and I have no idea how my amps performance will have any bearing on how the much less expensive Fun would perform, but....

 

I had heard many good things about the 600 Ohm Beyer 880's, so when I saw a set of them at the Spring NY meet I asked the owner if I could try them on my Amp. The Amp that I had brought along for the meet was my Audio-gd Phoenix. In my experience the Phoenix is not nearly as good as the very vocal Audio-gd fan-base purports it to be. It is a much better Preamplifier than headphone Amplifier. It does synergize nicely with my Balanced 25 Ohm Denon AH-D7000's (Siltech Re-Cable), other than that I have found the Phoenix to be fairly lackluster, especially with higher impedance headphones. With the 600 Ohm 880's the sound was outright Bad, so much so that I would have blamed the headphones, except for the fact that many whose ears I trust have reported that the 880's are indeed good sounding headphones. (The same results with Sennheiser HD-800's).

 

I'm not saying that the Fun won't work, but I would proceed with caution. I for one found the Phoenix and 880 pairing to be unlistenable (lacked dynamics, dull sounding). Of course that is with my ears and my admittedly extremely High End Bias.

 

My Phoenix has taken up residence in my bedroom system where it is mainly used as a Preamp driving a Rotel RB-991 amplifier. I know of no other preamp anywhere near its price point that even comes close to the Phoenix's performance (As a Preamplifier), and it drives my Denon's nicely, but it isn't a good enough headphone amplifier to be my go to amp. Maybe the Fun is better than the Phoenix

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post #18 of 27
6/27/10 at 2:20pm

DacMagic > emu0404 big time. I had both at one point.

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post #19 of 27
6/28/10 at 3:35am
Thread Starter 

Allow me to now throw the Yulong D100 in the mix.

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post #20 of 27
6/30/10 at 5:54am
Thread Starter 

So I think I'm going to order the Audio-gd FUN from Pacific Valve if there are no better options available in my price range. The version they sell for $398 is the Version A. Anybody have some thoughts?

 

EDIT: How about some units below my price range, like $200? If spending $200 can get me something that has most of the features I want and sounds better than my Darkvoice, I'd have to go for that instead of splurging on a $400 unit. The Maverick D1 has really caught my eye.


Edited by evanft - 6/30/10 at 8:33am
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post #21 of 27
6/30/10 at 7:30pm

Evanft, have you considered basic sparrow?

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post #22 of 27
7/1/10 at 10:47am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by haloxt View Post

Evanft, have you considered basic sparrow?


No. Should I be? Isn't the price somewhere around $300?
 

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post #23 of 27
7/1/10 at 12:11pm

No, basic BNC version is $125, basic USB version is $150. Plus $36-40 for shipping+paypal fee. It doesn't have as much tweakability as the FUN but Kingwa says they are comparable sound quality-wise, just different sound signature.

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post #24 of 27
7/1/10 at 12:32pm
They don't get much attention these days, but I ran a PreSonus Central Station before I went primarily analog and needed to integrate a headphone and speaker rig. A number of people owned it here - it got high marks as both an amp and as a DAC. Go check out the reviews. Pro gear doesn't get much respect in the audiophile realm, but much of it is excellent. This is one of the excellent ones.
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post #25 of 27
7/1/10 at 5:09pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by haloxt View Post

No, basic BNC version is $125, basic USB version is $150. Plus $36-40 for shipping+paypal fee. It doesn't have as much tweakability as the FUN but Kingwa says they are comparable sound quality-wise, just different sound signature.


Ah, must have gotten confused. Tweakability isn't important for me at all. What kind of sound signature does the Sparrow have?

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Erik View Post

They don't get much attention these days, but I ran a PreSonus Central Station before I went primarily analog and needed to integrate a headphone and speaker rig. A number of people owned it here - it got high marks as both an amp and as a DAC. Go check out the reviews. Pro gear doesn't get much respect in the audiophile realm, but much of it is excellent. This is one of the excellent ones.


Pro gear, of course! What if I keep my Darkvoice and just go for something like the Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 Equalizer? It doesn't have USB and can only do 24/92, but it's like $250 or less and has more features than pretty much anything else. I mean, all I would have to do is buy a USB to digital out converter, which are going to drop in price more and more with time. The reliability issues worry me greatly, but I could easily open it up and add some heatsinks if I could find someone else online who has done it.


Edited by evanft - 7/1/10 at 6:22pm
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post #26 of 27
7/1/10 at 8:04pm

I don't know if anyone besides those at audio-gd has compared sparrow and FUN so you should try emailing audio-gd. I personally think stock sparrow sound signature is punchy dynamics but not particularly flexible at expressing multiple ideas at once, kind of like the saying, "one-track mind".

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post #27 of 27
7/2/10 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by haloxt View Post

I don't know if anyone besides those at audio-gd has compared sparrow and FUN so you should try emailing audio-gd. I personally think stock sparrow sound signature is punchy dynamics but not particularly flexible at expressing multiple ideas at once, kind of like the saying, "one-track mind".


Hmm, very interesting. 

 

I think I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm willing to let go of USB for now if it means some more amp/DACs in the $200-$300 range come into the picture.

 

Any more pro gear I should be looking at? I'd love to find something like that Behringer unit but with a headphone amp.

 

I'd say right now I'm leaning towards the Sparrow Version-A USB or the Maverick D1. The DEQ2496, or something very similar, would also be great since my Darkvoice already works with the DT880s quite well. Adding a DAC with an EQ seems like the perfect way to improve the overall sound while allowing me to alter some of the sonic characteristics. Plus, it's not really any more expensive than the other 2 options.


Edited by evanft - 7/3/10 at 1:47pm
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