Ive been reading this forum for several years now. I pay close attention to what most of you say, ask for suggestions even. Till now the only gear ive bought is a set of ety er6i's that i dont really use anymore, found out that cans are more comfortable for my ears. And then i bought a pair of Audio Technica ATH A900's that i like. Bought them for the soundstage for use in gaming, but ive found i like them alot for music as well. I also play alot of Rock Band. I have a pioneer SE DIR800C that i have been using for its dolby headphone implementation. I used this for all my gaming and Rock band. Then one day i thought what if i turn off all the processing on this thing and just use it as my amp. So i did, and the sound quality did go up noticeably, so i kept doing that. Then i started listening to music more out of my laptop, since all my music is on there. I just plugged the headphones straight into my Macbook Pro, and i realized it sounded like **** compared to my speakers running off my Yamaha DSP A1 receiver. I realized i could run optical from my MBP to the dir800 and use it as my dac and amp. This also got me noticeable gain in sq. Then i started reading on here some more about cd quality compared to my mp3's and about having a good source. So i figured using my Blu ray player for transport to my dir800 would increase also in quality, which it did. This is when i started noticing that i the amp in the 800c wasnt the best, running the cd's to it, i knew they werent sounding as good as they could. So im thinking everyone is raving about the audio gd compass, maybe i should get one?? At this same time i was digging through my whole room looking for something when i happened upon the 1/8 to 1/4 inch adapter for my ATH900's, and i see that my receiver has a 1/4 HP out on it. Now this isnt some new pos receiver with awful amps, this beast is from 1998 and weighs upwards of 60 pounds, its know as one of the better integrated amps ever for hometheater use. So i think hmm..this must have better amps for my hp's then that pos 800c. And also this is when i remember that id read that the DAC's in my Pioneer BDP 51fd blu ray player on the two channel outs were supposed to be really good ( wolfson 8740's) so then i run audio from the two channel outs on the pioneer using it as my transport and using those, by comparison, awesome dacs, into the multichannel ins of me yamaha receiver so that it doesnt touch the audio just amplifies it. And right now im marveling the the quality of the audio im getting from my headphones
Not only did i want to share my journey with you all, but im curious about something. What would benefit me the most on my next upgrade? Would a standalone dac help? or im looking at a set of AKG 702's? or would a standalone HP amp help the most? Im just wondering cause it seems like my receiver has plenty of oomph to power almost anything. Or as i said earlier would a compass benefit me alot? since the dacs are supposed to be so good in the 51fd? and it just doesnt seem like the tiny little compass could be as good as my ginormous receiver...
sorry if i rambled but i wanted to get it all out, and i didnt know where to put this, but since my DSP A1 made the biggest difference i thought in my upgrades that it would go into the amps section
thanks for any input in advance
Soup
Not only did i want to share my journey with you all, but im curious about something. What would benefit me the most on my next upgrade? Would a standalone dac help? or im looking at a set of AKG 702's? or would a standalone HP amp help the most? Im just wondering cause it seems like my receiver has plenty of oomph to power almost anything. Or as i said earlier would a compass benefit me alot? since the dacs are supposed to be so good in the 51fd? and it just doesnt seem like the tiny little compass could be as good as my ginormous receiver...
sorry if i rambled but i wanted to get it all out, and i didnt know where to put this, but since my DSP A1 made the biggest difference i thought in my upgrades that it would go into the amps section
thanks for any input in advance
Soup