[NiteRiter]

I'm a musician who is new to the audiophile hobby. I purchased a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 to use for recording guitar and voice tracks, but am not impressed with the headphone out capability of the unit. I would like to add additional gear to make the use of headphones and iems just 'pop' musically. I would like to buy a desktop dac/amp combo that significantly improves the audio quality of headphones/iems, but there are so many options. I have a variety of iems and have been recently using Focal Clear headphones, but I'm wondering if I can get more out of them with a desktop unit. I would ideally like it to connect through my Focusrite so I can hear back recordings with minimal fuss as well as use flac files from my laptop/phone and stream Tidal/Qobuz for streaming. I would also ideally like multiple headphone out ports on the unit - to accommodate 1/4 inch as well as 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced outputs. 90% of the time I'm using my portable rig with is either a Samsung Galaxy S22-->FiiOBTR7/iFi Gryphon or a FiiO M11 Plus DAP.....but the audiophile geek in me won't be happy until I have a good desktop setup

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Jim

 

[msing539]

Hi Jim, did you have a budget in mind? And are you opposed to buying used?

 

[NiteRiter]

Hi Jim, did you have a budget in mind? And are you opposed to buying used?

Hi. No I'm not opposed to buying used. My budget would be below $1k if possible. I was also considering returning the Focusrite and upgrading to an Apollo quad interface, but I don't know if the headphone experience would be better or if I need that much of an interface for mainly guitar and vocals

 

[msing539]

Take a look at the iFi Pro iCan... it has 3.5, 4.4, dual XLR and balanced XLR.

It does come up under $1000 but I'll try to think of something a little easier to find.