Moniker/Name:    Uhly   Answer D.           There are 781 components

I'm looking for a dac to pair with my laptop and Sennheiser HD 598 and Audio-Technica ATH-A900X. I'm between DacMagic XS and Microstreamer (both cost about 190 dollars in the US). Which one would you pick?

Quote:   My whole collection is in FLAC (around 300 Gb). I used to have a rockbox ipod for years, but it went missing last week.   At home and wherever I can stay for a while, I use a laptop with Headstreamer DAC and Sennheiser HD 598. The player I want to buy is to be used mostly...

I'm looking for a portable player with support for FLAC and given that I have only $300, it seems that Cowon X7, X9 and C2 are the ones I can afford (if there are others please let me know). How would you compare them? Is there a clear choice among such models?

Quote:   I have done so already. I expected that the foobar volume control would be disabled when using wasapi or asio, but this didn't happen. For this reason, I wonder about which level to set the foobar volume control and then forget about it afterwards.

How can I make sure that Foobar's attenuator is not being used? (i.e. I want to disable it, so that I can control volume only from the system, which is tied to the DAC in the analog domain).

I've just got the HD 598. Now, how should I burn it in? I mean, I wonder at which volume level I should set the sound and for how long.

Great review, m3_arun. I've just purchased this gadget to plug in my laptop to enjoy some classical music and Mr. Halverson helped me with a SPL calculator.   Now it's time to pick a good open headphone (trying to choose from Senn HD558, Senn HD598 and Grado 225i) and enjoy!

Quote:  I mentioned the HD 558. The HD 598 you seem to favor is a little more expensive. Maybe it is worth the difference...

Transparent, I suppose. The Headstreamer would give: Grado SR225i: maximum SPL of 133.2 dB Sennheiser HD 558: maximum SPL of 143.5 dB.7 As for the Beyerdynamic, maximum SPL would be around 113dB, which may be too low.

Hello guys!  I'm looking for advice on buying an open headphones to listen to classical music (FLAC 16-bit and 24-bit) in a laptop computer with a HRT HeadStreamer USB-powered Headphone DAC/Amplifier attached. As far as my budget goes, it would have to be either one of these three:   1-)...