At the moment have Denon 7100 plugged into Creative ZxR soundcard.
 
I have £700 to spend on a DAC/AMP.
 
I struggled to find a DAC/AMP at that price which would have source impedance lower then 4 Ohms. 
 
I know Sony UDA-1 is 4 ohms but i want a ESS901x DAC, not sure what Sony uses.
 
I looked at the following DAC/AMPs so far:
 
1.) Matrix Mini-I
2.) Schiit Gungnir 
3.) Teac UD-501
4.) Teac UDH01
5.) Audiolab MDAC
6.) Yulong d200
7.) Yulong DA8
 
I read on this forum that Yulong DAC was not made with low impedance headphones in mind. I think DA8 has source impedance of 16 Ohms.
 
If someone can recommend a suitable DAC at that price for low impedance headphones I would really appreciate your advice/comments, as I have not more "time" to give.
 
Comrade Boris

It's kind of ironic that in most cases, the more you spend on an amp, the *less* likely it is that it will work with your low-impedance headphones. I don't really have an answer for you, but one thing you might want to keep in mind is that in addition to a low output impedance, you will probably also want a low gain amp. Otherwise, you won't have much volume control and you'll likely get distortion. Low impedance IEM owners looking for a DAC/Amp often end-up here: http://www.headamp.com/pico/pico_dac_amp/index.htm

boris bollokov said:

  At the moment have Denon 7100 plugged into Creative ZxR sound card.
I have £700 to spend on a DAC/AMP.
I struggled to find a DAC/AMP at that price which would have source impedance lower then 4 Ohms. I know Sony UDA-1 is 4 ohms but i want a ESS901x DAC, not sure what Sony uses.
I looked at the following DAC/AMPs so far:
1.) Matrix Mini-I2.) Schiit Gungnir 3.) Teac UD-5014.) Teac UDH015.) Audiolab MDAC6.) Yulong d2007.) Yulong DA8
I read on this forum that Yulong DAC was not made with low impedance headphones in mind. I think DA8 has source impedance of 16 Ohms.
If someone can recommend a suitable DAC at that price for low impedance headphones I would really appreciate your advice/comments, as I have not more "time" to give.
Comrade Boris

Click to expand...

 
Assuming your gong to connect the external DAC/amp to the S/PDIF (optical or coaxial) output on the SB-ZxR.
Check out the Audio-GD products, I believe there headphone amplifiers has around a 2-Ohm output impedance.

...I am driving the D7100 with the ifi iDAC micro and I achieve truly stunning results...I love it...
 
Have a look here.

Guys thank you for the replies.
 
In your opinion, if I connect ZXR via optical to audiolab MDAC, and then connect that low gain/low source impedance amplifier like pico would that be better than just getting ifi iDAC micro by itself?
 
Or is the difference going to be negligible?
 
musikaladin, your post on that thread looks interesting, let me read through it.

boris bollokov said:

  Guys thank you for the replies.
 
In your opinion, if I connect ZXR via optical to audiolab MDAC, and then connect that low gain/low source impedance amplifier like pico would that be better than just getting ifi iDAC micro by itself?
 
Or is the difference going to be negligible?
 
musikaladin, your post on that thread looks interesting, let me read through it.

Click to expand...

 
Audio-GD NFB-11 external DAC/amp, comes with a sabre DAC chip, $355+shipping.
Headphone output impedance of 2-Ohms.
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB112014/NFB112014EN.htm

From specification they are exactly what I need but the design and black color is a no go for me. 
 
It just wish Yulong d200 or MDAC or something else came with this sort of spec.
 
I might consider iFi Audio iDAC but it is still kinda cheap £250. It has sliver aluminium Finnish, minimalistic. 
 
I also kinda wonder if I was to buy £700 DAC/AMP would i notice a huge difference in sound quality in comparison to iFi Audio iDAC?
 
I never owned a dedicated DAC so I am not sure.
 
Thanks,

boris bollokov said:

 From specification they are exactly what I need but the design and black color is a no go for me. 
 
It just wish Yulong d200 or MDAC or something else came with this sort of spec.
 
I might consider iFi Audio iDAC but it is still kinda cheap £250. It has sliver aluminium Finnish, minimalistic. 
 
I also kinda wonder if I was to buy £700 DAC/AMP would i notice a huge difference in sound quality in comparison to iFi Audio iDAC?
 
I never owned a dedicated DAC so I am not sure.
 
Thanks,

Click to expand...

...one of the great things about the 7100 is that it is rather undemanding in respect of the amplifier. I tried it with headphone amps up to approx EUR 2k and they not really delivered substantially better results than the ifi micro iDSD (!the micro, not the nano!). The ifi / 7100 even outperformed some of the (much) more expensive combos (i.e.HDVD800) and the fact that it goes very well with the DSD format is just a little additional candy on top. I had some really impressive musical encounters with DSD / iDSD / AH-D7100.
 
The micro iDSD also performs very well with my LCD-X and my HE400 by the way. Frankly, I never was a huge fan of the ifi product line and at the moment I do not see another product there that is tempting me, but this one absolutely convinced me.