My setup adventure...

Ok this might be kind of a long thread, but I really would like to figure this out.

First off I am running music from my PC and the gear I have is:

Pc Firewire>Presonus Firepod http://www.presonus.com/products/detail.aspx?productid=3 (using this as a soundcard/DAC)

Astro Mixamp (wanted this for gaming)

Tube preamp and poweramp

AD700's

Before I got the Mixamp in the mail I was using the headphone out of my firepod. Once I received the Mixamp I first tried it out in game and this thing is great. I was happy there, but I decided to see what it sounded with music. It seemed to sound better than the firepod's headphone jack. 

Now I started to wonder if I would be getting a better sound if I plugged the mixamp into the firepod so I would have a dac (did I need one? Does the mixamp have one?). I plugged the mixamp into the cue mix line out of the firepod and everything still sounded good.

At this point I am also wondering if I would benefit from a different DAC/Headphone amp. 

I would like it to be tube, but tubes are expensive, and I already have a tube preamp and poweramp so I want to some how make them work in my headphone setup! 

I now have it connected as follows:

PC Firewire>presonus firepod>tube preamp>(this usually would go out into speakers)Preamp out into Mixamp>ad700

To me this seems to sound the best, but I'm new to this and maybe it is the placebo effect. If I have the sound going through firepod to tube amp to mixamp and then headphones into mixamp am I even getting tone from the tube amp or is it still just from the mixamp?

The bottom line is i am going crazy thinking about this and I would like to know if how I have it set up now is good or if I would benefit with a DAC or headphone amp (or both) and If so what!?

Choices I have been looking at are the Fiio E9, Little dot I+, trying to make a starving student or any suggestions...

Thanks for reading and anything you can offer is much appreciated!

Quote:

Originally Posted by kboe 

 

 

Yeah the help around here has seemed to trail off here in the last 6-8 months or so... not sure why!

 

It would seem that the tube amp you have in the chain before your Mixamp helps give some body to the signal before the Mixamp bland things down.  You may also just really like the signature of tube amps.  The little dot 1 would be a good choice as its a hybrid amp and would do well with your 700s.  As far as a DAC is concerned, Im not familiar with the firepod, so someone else will have to help you there.

thank you! yeah I am not sure either! I'm kind of leaning towards just getting a nice dedicated DAC. ANy suggestions? If I got one I could maybe just use that with my tube amp I have already. Only thing is it doesn't have a headphone jack so wondering if I can just use the one on a dac and still get the tone from it.