Are the line outputs variable (affected by the volume knob) or fixed?

Are you thinking about HD650 level headphones or even higher? Right away I can spend about 400-500$ to improve my SQ as much as I can.

I used to own AKG K450 and I sold the after few days. Bass is prominent but lacks of control, the mids are recessed the vocal is placed far away and the highs are cut off. The headphones are not that bad actually. I compared them mostly to my HD555 which sound signature I like very much. The...

Quote:   And that is what I'm mostly afraid of. Not that the NFB-12 will sound bad but that the improvement will be minimal or non. For about 200$ I can buy either HD598 or m50 that I think will definitely be an improvement of my HD555.

Well in my case the problem is slightly different because I have custom made amp that is quite good (based on TPA6120A2, OPA2134, LM317 and LM337 - http://holdegron.dlf.interia.pl/graphic/little2.jpg) plugged into X-fi Music , and the difference between having my HD555 plugged into X-Fi alone...

Thanks!!!

How does the NFB-12 compare to Creative X-Fi? Right now I have X-Fi music and I would like to know how big improvement the NFB is.

I'm going to use it with my pc/netbook only so it doesn't matter at all.

I'm very interested about further comparison with Audinst mx1 because I'm going to buy the better of the two as a dac, I'll be using separate amp so the SQ of the built in amps are not of my concern.

Hmm I wonder, would the NFB-12 and Matrix M-Stage sound better than the Yulong D100 alone? Does anyone know how good exactly is the NFB 12 as a DAC?

I have exactly the same problem, but as far as I know there is no direct comparison so far.

I'm also thinking about getting the dac/amp combo and right now I'm waiting for some good Yulong D100 and Nuforce hdp comparison because they are clearly the foworites under 500$ mark.

You should also consider the Yulong D100 as it is superb DAC and great headphone amp.

  What are the differences between the low and high headphone output? How high should the headphone impedance be to actually plug it into the high output?