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Dac/Amp or Amp for Audio Technica AD700

post #1 of 28
8/30/10 at 2:30pm
Thread Starter 

 

 
 
Hi
 
 
 
I have purchased a pair of Audio Technica AD700 headphones for music and gaming. I plan to be using it in conjunction with my Sony Playstation 3 to receive audio from the headphones. The only audio input i be live currently on the playstation 3 is Optical input.
As you may know or not hardly any headphone amp have optical inputs, which brings me onto my next question.
 
Do you guys think i should by a Dac/Amp or Buy a Dac then in the future by an amp to use with the dac?
 
Please suggest in what your best Dac/Amp,Dac,Amp are for this headphone or guesses compared to previous experiences?
 
My budget:
 
Dac/amp=£150
Dac=£150
Amp=£200
 
Just a few thoughts...
 
Thanks in advance.

 

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

Audio Technica ATH-AD700
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post #2 of 28
8/30/10 at 2:39pm

The good thing about the AD700s is that you don't need a great amp to make them sound excellent.  Any half decent amp will do just fine, a cheap cmoy on Ebay is more than enough and I HIGH recommend the Cmoy 2.02 Bass Booster.

 

Also, do a little googling for a TOSLINK to standard mini adapter.  They have lots of choices that let you to from an optical male end to a standard or even a 1/4 ( larger size ) end as soon on headphones.  Im not really an amp expert though

 

best of luck to you

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post #3 of 28
8/30/10 at 2:41pm

Amplifiers are analogue, no digital inputs such as USB, Optical and Coaxial. DACs are Digital to Analogue Converters. They usually have Optical input, USB and Coaxial. AD700 don't even need a good amp, if one at all. I would take a look at something like the Audio-GD Sparrow or Zero DAC/Amp. I have the latter and it serves me well.

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post #4 of 28
8/30/10 at 2:57pm

Do you have to use the optical output of the PS3? You can use the RCA output instead and you have a whole world of amps opened to you. Any amp will do because the AD700 does not scale with a high quality amp.

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post #5 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by swbf2cheater View Post

The good thing about the AD700s is that you don't need a great amp to make them sound excellent.  Any half decent amp will do just fine, a cheap cmoy on Ebay is more than enough and I HIGH recommend the Cmoy 2.02 Bass Booster.

 

Also, do a little googling for a TOSLINK to standard mini adapter.  They have lots of choices that let you to from an optical male end to a standard or even a 1/4 ( larger size ) end as soon on headphones.  Im not really an amp expert though

 

best of luck to you


Do you mean something like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29296&C=Froogle&U=29296&T=Module

 

How would this work and where would i plug this adapter into on a headphone amp?

 

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post #6 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kite7 View Post

Do you have to use the optical output of the PS3? You can use the RCA output instead and you have a whole world of amps opened to you. Any amp will do because the AD700 does not scale with a high quality amp.


How would this work and how would i set this up?

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post #7 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:07pm
Thread Starter 

 

Link to playstation 3 

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post #8 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:21pm

Use the A/V cable

 

http://us.playstation.com/ps3/accessories/scph-10500.html

 

I believe every PS3 comes with one, though the above one is a better looking cable. You can use HDMI for video and have the audio go through RCA

 

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/3_15/settings/audiooutput.html

 

Choose "Audio Input Connector / SCART / AV MULTI" which is RCA output for the audio output settings


Edited by kite7 - 8/30/10 at 3:23pm
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post #9 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:35pm
Thread Starter 


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by kite7 View Post

Use the A/V cable

 

http://us.playstation.com/ps3/accessories/scph-10500.html

 

I believe every PS3 comes with one, though the above one is a better looking cable. You can use HDMI for video and have the audio go through RCA

 

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/3_15/settings/audiooutput.html

 

Choose "Audio Input Connector / SCART / AV MULTI" which is RCA output for the audio output settings


Thanks for that..

 

 

... Now i have whole world of amps now.

 

Can you recommend one for £150.

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post #10 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:56pm

The ones I can think of right now are

 

The Aune DAC/Amp combo <- I would go with this one

 

Maverick D1 <- More expensive than the Aune

 

Zero DAC , This one has optical input but no RCA input. Build quality seems okay at best

 

You will probably have to look at ebay for the above DACs / Amps.

 

There's more, hopefully someone else can give their input as well. I can't think of any standalone amps right now on my mind right now other than looking at the For sale section on this forum for some Meier Corda Headfive or Arietta amps.


Edited by kite7 - 8/30/10 at 3:59pm
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post #11 of 28
8/30/10 at 3:58pm
Thread Starter 

 

QUOTE I dont see any reason why not, its a seperate connection, that could still be plugged into your tv, or LCD whilst the audio can also be fed into the headphone amp for your phones, you would have to double check to make sure the PS3 can do that, just incase it has any weird circuit where it turns off the HDMI when your plug the multi AV plug in, although I highly doubt that!QUOTE
 
Just read this from a diffrent site....
 
Is this a possibility?
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post #12 of 28
8/30/10 at 4:00pm

The HDMI does not turn off when you plug in the AV cable, the PS3 is fairly customizable in the idea that you can mix up various video outputs with various audio output options

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post #13 of 28
8/30/10 at 4:08pm
Thread Starter 


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by kite7 View Post

The HDMI does not turn off when you plug in the AV cable, the PS3 is fairly customizable in the idea that you can mix up various video outputs with various audio output options


Ok

 

Thanks

 

That`s one issue solved " thanks"

 

Now can someone recommend i headphone amp between £100-£150

 

Thanks

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post #14 of 28
8/30/10 at 4:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by maltar7 View Post


 


Ok

 

Thanks

 

That`s one issue solved " thanks"

 

Now can someone recommend i headphone amp between £100-£150

 

Thanks

 

Anyone?
 

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post #15 of 28
8/30/10 at 4:32pm

No personal experience on the phones in question, but here's a link to a thread on inexpensive amps for them:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/423618/ad700-amps

 

Also, it depends if you want used or new.  There's better amps you can get on the FS forums for your budget than new off ebay or a website.  

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

Audio Technica ATH-AD700
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