[NinjaVampire]

Hi guys,
 
I'm only starting my life as an audiophile and I have some noob questions to ask. I recently purchased some DT 880 Pros (250Ohm) second hand recently and I'm really happy with them, but I do not have an amp yet. When I plug the headphones directly into my laptop (via 3.5mm) and play some FLAC files out of my music player (musicbee), I'm not hearing anything amazing. Do you think I will notice a large difference when using an amp/dac while playing the same FLAC files?
 
At the minute, if I go into the equalizer on musicbee, and increase the preamp (dB up), the headphones go extremely distorted. Is this an issue with the useless equalizer on the music player, or is it because I am not amping the headphones up properly?
 
Sorry for the amateur questions, I will learn all this with some help from the experienced community
 
Thanks all.

 

[broski]

i have the same version of those phones and it was a night and day difference as soon as i got a solid amp for them.
 
i got the schiit asgard and coulndt be happier with the pairing. 

 

[NinjaVampire]

Hi thanks for the reply!
 
That's great to hear! The Asgard looks like a beautiful amp but a little out of my budget. Do you use a DAC with your Asgard? I was looking into buying a Maverick Tubemagic D1 for an amp/ dac combo as I've heard Beyers like tubes!

 

[davidsh]

Your eq problem is rather normal. Something that is important is, that you only equalize by moving the bands or the preamp down, so that none of the bands go above 0 dB.
 
Proper amping makes the 'phone come 'alive' IMO. It can be at least as much bang for the buck as the headphone itself. My  lent hifiman HE400 surpassed the HE500 by a fair margin with an amp i bought used for 300 dollar, compared to the HE500 amped by my fiio e17, which is a portable amp/dac costing 140$. But the HE500 is also quite demanding...
ust saying that an amp can definitely be worth the money, and IMO the dt-880 scales almost as well with better amp/dac as my HE500

 

[broski]

Quote:

Hi thanks for the reply!
 
That's great to hear! The Asgard looks like a beautiful amp but a little out of my budget. Do you use a DAC with your Asgard? I was looking into buying a Maverick Tubemagic D1 for an amp/ dac combo as I've heard Beyers like tubes!

 
nah nothing besides the DAC on my motherboard which definitely blows nutsack
 
i was thinking about adding the schiit bifrost to my rig but came across a deal on some ultrasone pro 900s recently and coulnt pass it up.

 

[NinjaVampire]

I never knew that about the equalizer, thanks for the help! I was only using the dB slider because my headphones weren't loud enough, but I assume that is a common issue when using 250Ohm headphones through a 3.5 jack on a laptop
 
That's also great advise about the amp, I have never thought about it that way, I always just assumed amps were an addition, not a necessity in so far as the headphones would have been!
 
I have also been looking be looking at the E17, looks like a really handy and great value piece of equipment, but I think have my sights set on the Maverick Tubemaster D1 dac/amp combo. Do you think a dac/amp combo is the way to go, or would I be better off paying more for a standalone amp and forget about a dac?
 
Thanks again for all the help, this site is great

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

I never knew that about the equalizer, thanks for the help! I was only using the dB slider because my headphones weren't loud enough, but I assume that is a common issue when using 250Ohm headphones through a 3.5 jack on a laptop
 
That's also great advise about the amp, I have never thought about it that way, I always just assumed amps were an addition, not a necessity in so far as the headphones would have been!
 
I have also been looking be looking at the E17, looks like a really handy and great value piece of equipment, but I think have my sights set on the Maverick Tubemaster D1 dac/amp combo. Do you think a dac/amp combo is the way to go, or would I be better off paying more for a standalone amp and forget about a dac?
 
Thanks again for all the help, this site is great

Idk, I don't really have a proper dac anyways. I see the dac in my e17 as a nice 'addon', but I can't hear a big difference. It is subtle. I'd say you should pay more on a standalone desktop amp, and then worry about a dac later on. Do you neeed a portable amp anyways?

 

[NinjaVampire]

I'm not too concerned about portability. I'm a student but I am going to be only using this at home connected to my laptop, all very static. I use my smartphone and standard IEMs for walking around town so I have no need for a portable amp, even though they look great! I like the idea of focusing on just buying a nice standalone amp, but from reading things online, I fear the DAC on my laptop might be quite poor....

 

[pp312]

Quote:

ust saying that an amp can definitely be worth the money, and IMO the dt-880 scales almost as well with better amp/dac as my HE500

 
 
I have both those phones and I'd be interested in your opinion of "a better amp". (Preferably something cheap).

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

 
 
I have both those phones and I'd be interested in your opinion of "a better amp". (Preferably something cheap).

For me it consist of my x-can v8p, which I have bought used... It is not perfect at all but it gets the job done quite convincingly
 
Quote:

I'm not too concerned about portability. I'm a student but I am going to be only using this at home connected to my laptop, all very static. I use my smartphone and standard IEMs for walking around town so I have no need for a portable amp, even though they look great! I like the idea of focusing on just buying a nice standalone amp, but from reading things online, I fear the DAC on my laptop might be quite poor....

You could get the magni/modi stack for a start..

 

[NinjaVampire]

I was having a look at magni/modi combo earlier, looks really nice. Do you know anything about how they compare to the Tubemagic DAC D1? I'm a guitar player and a big fan of tube driven amps, which is why I'm leaning more towards the Tubemagic.

 

[Kodhifi]

Quote:

Hi guys,
 
I'm only starting my life as an audiophile and I have some noob questions to ask. I recently purchased some DT 880 Pros (250Ohm) second hand recently and I'm really happy with them, but I do not have an amp yet. When I plug the headphones directly into my laptop (via 3.5mm) and play some FLAC files out of my music player (musicbee), I'm not hearing anything amazing. Do you think I will notice a large difference when using an amp/dac while playing the same FLAC files?
 
At the minute, if I go into the equalizer on musicbee, and increase the preamp (dB up), the headphones go extremely distorted. Is this an issue with the useless equalizer on the music player, or is it because I am not amping the headphones up properly?
 
Sorry for the amateur questions, I will learn all this with some help from the experienced community
 
Thanks all.

 
 
My experience with on board audio, especially in laptops, is that they have very low power but very high gain. I haven't found a laptop yet (other than my Ibook) that can be turned up all the way and not sound like a distortion pedal on a guitar. The low power but high gain also leads to thin sounding audio on any headphone but it's more apparent on good ones, and with out the punch in dynamics that a dedicated amp can provide. The DAC in the on boards tends to be low quality as well.
 
You will notice a massive increase in power, dynamics, transparency, musicality, and fidelity by using a DAC and a dedicated amp. If you want to go the inexpensive route, I've had good luck with the Soundblaster X-Fi go usb stick. It is not terribly powerful but it can drive most headphones, has a reasonably good DAC and it has a graphic EQ built into the driver for tweaking.
 
I'd say get a FiiO E7 DAC/Amp except that they have gain issues with the 250ohm DT880 to the point that they don't actually amplify them very much. But it would still sound better than your stock ones.Maybe an E17 or E7k which both have gain adjustments that should make them work better with the 880s