HD 650's paired with?

For your price range, I'd say either a Schiit Magni or JDSLabs Objective 2 amp. Both are within your budget, and some of the best bang for items in the market. If you can stretch a larger budget and have the skills. You can't get much better than the Bottlehead Crack Kit, if you have some DIY skills or know how to follow a simple schematic. There's also the Matrix M-Stage, with a an excellent amp generally for just about any headphone. Good luck with your search.

 

Heya,

 

I would say to avoid the soundcard and go directly to discreet DAC/AMP options for the desktop. The Schiit Modi/Magni would be an excellent start for the value. It's over budget by a little, but overall think of it as an investment for now and the future as it will handle most headphones out there with only a few exceptions. Great setup.

 

If your budget is absolute, then simply look into a Xonar STX to cover both DAC/AMP needs. Or a Xonar DG outputting to a Schiit Magni if you want dolby headphone and other fun things with an external more powerful amplifier.

 

Very best,

My Hd650 pair nicely with my iBasso D4. You could look in the b/s for a USB dac/amp.  A D4 or similar with the topkit would be a great solution at about $150. As a bonus, you have a portable amp in case you ever want to travel around with it.

 

otherwise, I'd save up a little more for the Magni/Modi setup as stated before- great value for the quality.

Edited by smcginni - 2/4/13 at 5:04pm

I would recommend the O2 amp paired with a Behringer UCA-202 as the dac. Both are great pieces for the price. Best of luck and and enjoy your 650s!

 

I really like the ODAC+O2 combo with my '650. Previously, I had used a Behringer UCA-222 (essentially, the UCA-202 in a red case). The '202 and '222 are genuine bargains. I'd recommend any of these; the O2 (or ODAC+O2) would be my first choice.

 

Edit: Grammar.

Edited by HamilcarBarca - 2/4/13 at 6:52pm

 

Going beyond your budget is what Head-fi is all about! Welcome! You may as well jump right in - get the Modi/Magni stack. You may be $50 poorer than you thought you'd be, but it's a good match for the HD650. Schiit Audio makes great products and it should keep you happy. For a while. As long as you don't spend too much time here.

Edited by swmtnbiker - 2/4/13 at 5:46pm

If I bought the HD650 and a Magni - it is a good enough pairing out of my laptop, or I need the DAC/Amp combo and that's still pretty solid for powering the 650's properly? It also seems like maybe I would need to buy some cables for them? Or did I read that wrong?
 

Edited by Zalithian - 2/5/13 at 8:50pm

 

To the OP as well as you, the Schiit Magni is a good amp for your needs.  Also, there's a DAC that can give you the same, if not a slight bit better performance, which is the Muse Mini, and is sold through Amazon and shipped from China.  Received in about two weeks.  It has a Burr-Brown PCM2704 chip which the DAC is built around.  It's limited to 16-bit, but it gets the job done beautifully.   In contrast with the FiiO built DACs built around Wolfson chips, which based on my testing and my hearing, were a bit too strident.  Detailed.  Yes.  But maybe somewhat over-the-top, too.  I'd love to hear some other Wolfson-based DACs other than FiiO so I'd have a different perspective of their offerings.  But, for now, it's the $30 wonder, which fits my musical appetite quite nicely.

 

Edit: I've been driving the Sennheiser HD-555, HD-595, HD-600, and HD-650 as well as my HifiMAN HE-400 with the Schiit / Muse combo.

Is E09K good for these?

 

It works.  However, after my recent round of tests, the Schiit Magni fared slightly better to my ears.  Just a bit more refined.  

The Magni pairs very well with the HD-650. I have the Magni, Lyr, and Mjolnir--there's no question the higher level amps sound better, but the Magni is pretty darn good for a $100 amp.

Get a DAC. Without a DAC (or sound card), you can't even get a line level signal out of your computer into the amp. So you get a cheap DAC feeding a very crappy amplifier circuit, that feeds into your amp. I wish it were otherwise, but most PCs output a very low quality signal via the headphone jack. The Modi is worth the $100, but get something.