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Amp/DAC integrated into headphones?

post #1 of 4
1/11/13 at 11:49pm
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Given how small amp/DAC combos have gotten these days I wonder whether anyone has thought of building them into headphones? You'd need a short cable connecting the amp to the phones, then the normal headphone cable would become the input for DAC. That would save on the bulk we have to carry. There seem to be some gaming type headphones that sort of do this already.

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post #2 of 4
1/12/13 at 12:56am

Fiio has done this for years and it's meh. The critical aspect to amp design is always going to be it's power supply and it's difficult to do good ones that small. Check out the Halide dac for the closest/first home device to what your talking about but it still uses and external power source. Dragonfly gets lots of press but the Halide DAC HD is a better line out.


Edited by goodvibes - 1/12/13 at 1:02am
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post #3 of 4
1/12/13 at 12:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodvibes View Post

Fiio has done this for years and it's meh. The critical aspect to amp design is always going to be it's power supply and it's difficult to do good ones that small.

Really? Pretty sure Fiio hasn't made any headphones with a built-in amp/dac O.o

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post #4 of 4
1/12/13 at 3:33am
The Bose QuietComfort 15 are self-amped, and the cable acts like a line-in. The advantage is that they don't suffer from high output impedance, they behave similarly with any source. I guess the same goes with any headphones that sport active noise cancellation.

Also, digital wireless headphones have both a DAC and an amp inside.
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