[Celsian]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what I'm suppose to be hearing. I'm not really sure how to start so I'll just go through my setup.
 
My headphones: Sennheiser HD 650
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Hero VIII
USB Audio Interface: Scarlett 2i2
DAC: Apogee Groove
 
About a year ago I purchased a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for XLR input to my computer. I have a phenomenal AT2020 mic which sounds much crisper in XLR with ASIO drivers than the USB alternative. At that time I was transitioning from Astro A40's since I didn't need/want the mic boom and decided to go with something a little higher end. After several bright cans I finally settled on the Sennheiser HD 650's, they are the best sounding headphones I've ever used. Initially I plugged them into my Scarlet 2i2 since it has a 1/4 inch connection, but I was always disappointed that the 2i2 only supports 16 bit audio via windows.
 
Fast forward a few months, I finally decided to give the built in sound card on my motherboard a whirl. Wow, what a difference, at least I think so. I'm by no means an audiophile, not even close, but I love quality in all things, especially sound. To me the jump from 16bit to 24bit is noticeable, however changing 24bit from 44.1 to 192 gives me no noticeable increase in quality despite having some high quality FLAC music to test the different rates at. Whatever, I have 24/192 so I might as well use it.
 
Fast forward a few more months and a friend of mine can't believe I'm driving my HD 650's with my motherboard, he insists that I need a DAC. I do some research and hear a lot of great things about the Apogee Groove. My dad had a pair of Apogee Diva's back in the day before our house burnt down and we lost them, (I'm talking about the big 2000 Space Odyssey Monolith Speakers) They always sounded phenomenal. Knowing they're great and Sennheiser themselves sell the Groove bundled with the HD 650's I figured I couldn't go wrong picking up a $300 DAC from Apogee.
 
To my surprise and subsequent disappointment, I don't hear even the slightest difference. Am I deaf? Every review I read have people ranting and raving about how much better their cans sound with this amp. How is it then that my $250 motherboard is putting out equatable sound to the Groove? Shouldn't I be blown away by this DAC? The only difference I've seen so far is that I have to turn the volume WAY down in windows otherwise I'll blow my ear drums out. What am I missing?

 

[buke9]

I think it is you need a amp not so much a DAC / amp. In that price range you will not find a lot of difference in DAC's as you would in a amp. A outboard DAC can relive some noise problems some computers give off but a amp would probably make more of a difference in my opinion. Most people love a tube amp for there 650's. The Bottlehead Crack gets rave reviews with the 650's and if you are handy with a solder iron can be had for $300. There are many others out there also just jump on the 650 thread and I bet you can find something that could make you happier. Hearing on a thread that this or that is so great happens all the time but your ears are different than theirs so take whatever you hear with the fact that they bought it and want to think it's great. Not to say that it doesn't sound great to them but sometimes people don't want to be wrong. The 650's are a 300 ohm headphone and that usually means a pretty good amp to get the most out of them. These are just my thoughts take it the same grain of salt as the others. Good luck.

 

[kimvictor]

Well few things. The Groove might not have good synergy with the HD650. Gears with poor synergy doesn't sound nearly as good with gears that go well together. For example, the HD800, known to be picky, sounds worse on many $500+ amps than the $300 amp that I'm running it from. Secondly, as buke9 mentioned, HD650 usually needs a good amp, meaning it is possible that the on board amping on your computer might have had more power. My computer certainly has more power than many small amps I've tried.

 

[Celsian]

Thank you both for the information. I'll be sending the Groove back and trying out some Amps before I buy.

 

[Hifihedgehog]

I realize this thread is rather old and the OP already had his question answered but, for the benefit of silent lurkers, let me note one key fact the OP was likely unaware of. His "motherboard" or "onboard" audio is actually the highly capable, premium SupremeFX 2015 Audio integrated sound card on his Asus motherboard. Contrary to popular notion, this is not your typical run-of-the-mill Realtek, wimpy, hiss-prone type of audio solution. This competes with full-pledged dedicated cards and is not far off from, if not on par with, Asus's own premium Essence STX line of cards. It features a premium Sabre DAC and headphone amplifier which would be right in its element driving many popular audiophile headphones. This likely explains why he heard no appreciable, worthwhile difference with the Apogee Groove. Had he owned a more mainstream motherboard with a typical onboard audio solution, his observations would have been quite different.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
I'm by no means an audiophile, not even close, but I love quality in all things, especially sound. To me the jump from 16bit to 24bit is noticeable, however changing 24bit from 44.1 to 192 gives me no noticeable increase in quality despite having some high quality FLAC music to test the different rates at. 

 

Upsampling the bit depth nor increasing the oversampling frequency doesn't actually do anything. On blind tests of the same recording, except one copy was transcoded to 16bit Redbook, results as to which is which or which is preferred tend to be no better than guesswork. If anything the DSP handling the up/oversampling in your motherboard could be adding the bits and allowing for higher digital gain, which is what you're hearing as anything slightly louder will be perceived as "better" (if you get the same album in 16bit and 24bit the gain on both will be the same). Oversampling typically wouldn't do anything either, and while for a time subjective tests seem to be somewhat convincing as to there being a difference, at some point in the last decade somebody figured out that there was actually more high frequency noise when very high oversampling was used and people confused this enhancing effect to be "clearer."

 

At best really you would still want a 24/96 capable DAC, not to over/upsample what you're listening to, but just in case you have copies that are in higher bit depth or higher sampling rates, there would be no need to downsample on the fly. 24/96 might become more common in the future - Dream Theater's The Astonishing for example is available only in CD (for those who still want hard copies), 320kbps mp3 (for those who don't care that much), and 24/96 FLAC. They probably figured that if you care enough to buy FLAC you probably have a 24/96 DAC anyway (which isn't all that rare with the ODAC and Modi, plus a few smartphones that support it), or at least want what essentially is the finished copy out of the studio for archiving and can process it to 16/44.1 on your computer.
 

 
Fast forward a few more months and a friend of mine can't believe I'm driving my HD 650's with my motherboard, he insists that I need a DAC. I do some research and hear a lot of great things about the Apogee Groove. My dad had a pair of Apogee Diva's back in the day before our house burnt down and we lost them, (I'm talking about the big 2000 Space Odyssey Monolith Speakers) They always sounded phenomenal. Knowing they're great and Sennheiser themselves sell the Groove bundled with the HD 650's I figured I couldn't go wrong picking up a $300 DAC from Apogee.
 
To my surprise and subsequent disappointment, I don't hear even the slightest difference. Am I deaf? Every review I read have people ranting and raving about how much better their cans sound with this amp. How is it then that my $250 motherboard is putting out equatable sound to the Groove? Shouldn't I be blown away by this DAC? The only difference I've seen so far is that I have to turn the volume WAY down in windows otherwise I'll blow my ear drums out. What am I missing?

 

The Maximus board has a decent DAC and HPamp circuit, on top of which, the Apogee is a USB powered DAC-HPamp. There isn't going to be a world of difference between them assuming both are reasonably well designed, ie, you're not comparing a crap motherboard to the Apogee or the Maximus board to a crap USB DAC-HPamp.

 

At the same time neither will really pump a lot of voltage into the HD650 (nor current into, say, the HE500), and then the question is whether you're even listening at a level where what you have now is piling on distortion, so if you want to see what an amp will really do, get something that at the very least can deliver a lot of voltage into 300ohms. Like the Violectric V100 or Schiit Valhalla.

 

[audioflaker]

I own both the Apogee Groove and Scarlett 2i2 and have used them both as sources for my headphones rig. I agree they are close in performance. I find the Groove to be warmer and more detailed, while the Scarlett has a slightly brighter sound and is still pretty detailed. I like them both! Make sure you adjust the output volume of either device to equal 2 volts, that way it's at the same level as a standard cd player going into your amp.

 

[HBen]

sorry to say it but you just made several of the most common mistakes in buying audio gear:
1. you bought some hyped up product relying on forum posts and "product reviews"
2. thus you had too high expectations
3. you didn't consider that the audio quality that comes out at the end depends on the whole chain and the synergy between all the parts.
4. finally, you didnt test before buying.
combine all those and the purchase becomes pure luck.
I had to learn this the hard way myself as well ...
Just dont make the same mistakes twice

 

[MorrisL]

I am also considering getting the Groove and I am rather suspicious about what this can do too. Apogee shows some dude carrying the groove with him everywhere just to play his music (through HD 650 headphones) to his friends and family. It doesn't mention that you could do mixing with it, which is what I need it for.

I've noticed that I can use my laptop's headphone jack for most headphones with no problems. I always buy larger (17 inch laptops) closer to a grand in price and they all seem to have decent enough built in sound cards that I feel too lazy to add an amp and drag two things around the house as I casually lay down here and there, doing mixing and whatnot. However, with something as small as the Groove, I actually wouldn't mind doing that. But will it provide significant improvement in sound quality? That's the question.