I asked myself a similar question recently. I found it depended on how much I liked my current headphones. For me, my Focal Clears are as good as anything I’ve heard and I find their sound signature near ideal for my tastes. They may not be the very best out there, but they suit me well. I could...

I thought it was funny.

Interesting idea, but I’m not seeing how to feed the BF2 with the D50. The D50 has 3 digital ins and one analog out. How would I feed a digital into the BF2?

Well my Bifrost 2 arrived today and I just plugged it in. My initial impression is that it’s a very obvious improvement over my Topping D50. I’m actually surprised how obvious the difference is. When I switched from my Modi 2U the difference was small and I could see why some people would...

I tried my Clear pads on my Elex and I didn’t like it. It sounded like a less detailed and muddier version of the Clear, and it didn’t (to my ears) sound as good as the Elex//Dekoni pads on the Elex. I also tried the Elex and Dekoni pads on the Clear and didn’t like that either, as it took away...

Elear

I have an Elex (close cousin of the Elear) and the Clear. I run the Elex with Dekoni’s fenestraded sheepskin pads, which put the sound signature between the Elear and the Elex. The main difference between the two is the Clear is more detailed and neutral, the Elex has a little more slam. The...

Correct. Didn’t think the old Bifrost was still available.

I’d probably go Bifrost /Lyr 3 with the Elex and (assuming you have a solid wad of cash) Yggdrasil/ Mjolnir for the Empyrian. Not to say you couldn’t run both with either, But the Empy is a high end headphone and you’re going to need high end upstream gear to fully realize its potential.

The current Bifrost DAC is the 2nd version of the Bifrost, so everyone calls it the Bifrost 2. Same thing with the Asgard (which everyone abbreviates as A3. You might be able to still buy the previous versions in the “B Stock” bin on the website, but other than that you’re getting the BF2 or A3...

Here’s what Mike Moffat had to say about headphone killing: 1. Yes, we made some mistakes, back in the original "garage era" days. The original run of Lyrs (1) in 2011 did not have any protection relay in them, and killed some headphones. Some early runs of Asgard also didn't have a protection...

Thanks for posting! FYI, your Bifrost 2 review motivated me to buy one.

That should be interesting. From what I’ve read it’s a very musical DAC so I’m looking forward to hearing what that means for this particular piece of gear.

Now that you mention it, I remember your signature included a D50 for some time. I didn’t realize you upgraded. Anyway, thanks for saying so. It makes the departure of $699 a little less painful.

Start with a Focal Clear. It’s a decent step up in terms of clarity. You obviously don’t need a ton of power but I wouldn’t go For anything less than a Decent midrange amp and DAC. If you have the scratch maybe a Schiit Bifrost 2 and A3.

This thread is exactly why I need to stop visiting Head-Fi. I ordered a Bifrost 2 today to replace my Topping D50. On the bright side, if I can’t hear any difference, I have 15 days to send it back. will

Forgot to mention- Another way to add more mids is swap pads. The Dekoni fenestrated sheepskin pads to my ears add a bit more mids to upper mids to the mix as well as a little more slam.

I’ve never heard the Cavalli amps so can’t comment on how they compare with the Lyr 3 but I will say that many amps only pair well with certain types of headphones. The Lyr 3 plays nice with pretty much anything. That said, personal taste matters a lot so there is no amp that everyone likes.

If you want to stay in the Schiit family, the Lyr 3 may suit you. Depending on the tube it can get very dynamic and you can find plenty of tubes to bring out the vocals a bit more. I found it to be a significant step up from my Magni 3, being more dynamic, nuanced and euphonic.

I’m assuming you are considering the Modi 3 multibit version? Otherwise it’s not that different than the A3 card with the 4490 chipset. I replaced my Modi 3 4490 a year or two ago with a Topping D50 and found it to be smoother, less hard edged and better at imaging. In other words, to my ears...

I stopped paying attention to what headphone graphs say for anything above 1 kHz a long time ago. Too little graphical correlation between different testing set ups. It’s also really easy to misinterpret what the graphs say at lower frequencies given the difference in musical information present...

I’m curious about the same thing. I have the original AFC which I understand the Aeon 2 improves on, but I haven’t seen an AFC2 to Clear comparison.

Can you order directly from the Maker? https://danclarkaudio.com/shop/headphones/open/aeon-flow.html

I sometimes run mine directly off my iPhone 8 and it works fine so it will probably work fine for you too. Will it sound better with a quality amp and DAC? Sure, but it’s not necessary for it to sound good.