Hey guys,
I've been pretty happy with my K701 headphones and Dynaudio BM15 speakers, but so far I've been feeding it through consumer components:
 
My amp is old Technics SU-VX500 from my father's "hi-fi" period and sound source is my mac mini.
 
When I used to have a PC I had ESI Juli@ which was at the time fantastic upgrade for the system (even with the speakers I had at then).
 
So now I am thinking of upgrading the source and getting dedicated USB DAC. Most of the time I listen to my speakers but switch to headphones when I want to play the music loud.
 
I also have a huge and heavy 200W balanced push-pull power amp my friend built for me, but don't use it as it doesn't have a headphone out, while my old amp does.
 
Please help me decide:
 
1) Should I get a dedicated DAC and then preamp+headamp or will all-in-one solution be good as well?
 
2) What would you get for 200-300 usd? I'd prefer to get a used unit, so that thing has to be on european ebay.
 
3) What would you get for 300-400 usd? Would there be a huge difference?
 
4) In the reviews I often read the DACs have limited dynamic range, or sound dull and other bad things. Should I take that with grain of salt (coming from just using mac mini's sound chip), or try to find one that has positive review?
 
5) Is it worth to get get a balanced DAC for the power amp?
 
 
Any advice in general for the setup, or how to find the right device?
 
Thanks!

You could get a DAC and separate headphone amp/pre-amp. Or a combined unit. Either can be good depending on the quality of the electronics.

I have no idea what is on European Ebay. But look into the Audio-GD NFB-15 and NFB-11 DAC/pre-amp/headphone amp units. Audio-GD is a factory direct company, so very good deals.

Thanks I had a look at Audio GD and found a French dealer. I also found the long thread about those units here.
 
After a while of reading, I think I'll go for dedicated DAC for two reasons
 
1) lot of people complain about the headpone/preamp stage in Amp/Dacs
2) my old amp produces zero heaphone hiss even at volume know all the way up so I guess its not bad
3) Hopefully the DAC will be less expensive without the amp part

hakunin said:

1) lot of people complain about the headpone/preamp stage in Amp/Dacs

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That's a terrible general rule. I have no complaints about my NFB-11. It easily equals or exceeds the popular Schiit Asgard 2 that I replaced it with. So it depends on the equipment. There are crappy DAC and headphone amp separates around, too.

hakunin said:

1) lot of people complain about the headpone/preamp stage in Amp/Dacs
2) my old amp produces zero heaphone hiss even at volume know all the way up so I guess its not bad

Click to expand...

Could be. Could be that the low output impedance is very high.

hakunin said:

3) Hopefully the DAC will be less expensive without the amp part

Click to expand...

Sure. If you don't need the headphone amp, then it's cheaper just to buy a comparable DAC to one that is in a headphone amp/DAC combo.

Thank you very much for setting me on what seems to be the right path.
 
I think I am going to go for Audio-gd, now only which model?
 
Few things I am pondering:
 
1) Wolfson or Sabre? People all over the internet talk about the musical Wolfson and transparent(?) Sabre, any guidelines there?
 
I will try to listen to them, one hifi shop has them in Poland, I hope they're in stock. But if you have any tips on that I'd love to hear them.
 
Most thread just talk about "its more important how they're implemented" but I guess when they're both implemented by Audio-gd they must have some sort of character someone already talked about here.
 
2) Head/Preamp or not. The preamp might be very useful if I happen to move to office instead of working from home, but the price goes up and up. The more I spend the more future-proof the solution is, maybe even the re-sale value goes up since anyone can use the head amp, hmm..
 
Basicaly there are four options anyone who is getting Audio-gd is thinking about.
 
Wolfson vs. Sabre (where saber makes it more expensive)
Pre/Headamp vs. pure Dac (again headamp making it more expensive)
 
So one could choose
 
A) the relatively cheap and pure dac only (wolfson)
B) the luxury dac only (sabre) 
C) for similar price a wolfson + headamp or
D) sabre+headamp, where I don't think I want to go
 
I will probably sit on it for a bit but if you had any input on the DACs that would be very helpful and eliminate a few choices
 
I also hope listening session will clear things up a bit.

I can't tell you the difference between the Wolfson vs. Sabre. I have the NFB-11. Never heard the NFB-15. The NFB-11 DAC sounds good to me