$100 dac with spidf?
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:18 PM Post #3 of 29
jimmy16 said:
Thinking of upgrading the fiio d3 dac. Im not even sure how much better sounding a $100-150 dac would sound compared to the d3. Any thoughts, thanks
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I doubt a whole lot. I'm sure there will not be a OMG moment. Headphones make the most difference followed by amps and then dacs for the most part in that price range.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:21 PM Post #4 of 29
Thanks for the reply. Philips shp-9500, pioneer se-a1000 currently. Down the road im looking at sennheiser hd650 and akg k7xx. My amp is fiio eo9k. Sources are onkyo 7030 cd player and roku 4 streaming device. I will be streaming music with roku 4 (spidf) into said dac. Im really just trying to get as much performance as i can with the roku 4 and e09k amp. I do not have any interest in a laptop computer, i use a tablet. I have done a lot of research and have decided to stay with the e09k for a solid state amp and maybe get a nice tube amp down the road.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:38 PM Post #5 of 29
Thats pretty much what i thought, the fiio d3 gets great reviews (for a $30 dac) and theres only so much im willing to spend on a dac also by choice, i am not trained in critical listening. Thank you for your response.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:56 PM Post #6 of 29
jimmy16 said:
Thanks for the reply. Philips shp-9500, pioneer se-a1000 currently. Down the road im looking at sennheiser hd650 and akg k7xx. My amp is fiio eo9k. Sources are onkyo 7030 cd player and roku 4 streaming device. I will be streaming music with roku 4 (spidf) into said dac. Im really just trying to get as much performance as i can with the roku 4 and e09k amp. I do not have any interest in a laptop computer, i use a tablet. I have done a lot of research and have decided to stay with the e09k for a solid state amp and maybe get a nice tube amp down the road.
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Well haven't heard the phones you have but have heard the K7xx's and own the HD-6xx's same 650's. The 650's would respond well to a nice OTL tube amp the AKG's not so much. I'm not sure about streaming on the Roku 4 can you get Tidal on that? I have a Roku 2 and never thought of streaming music, The 4 does 4K video so it should do lossless music. Does the D3 do spiff?
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 10:21 PM Post #7 of 29
Im streaming spotify/amazon prime music on roku , i dont know if the roku has tidal. The fiio d3 has spidf optical and digital coaxial in and a pair of rcas and 3.5 out. I cant find a better dac for all my uses but would be willing to compromise some connectibility for sound quality. Does tidal have lossless audio and what does "otl" tube amp stand for. I know almost nothing about lossless music files and streaming, is it the highest quality(cd quality) you can stream music? I have spotify set to the "extreme quality" music setting whatever that means. Actually spotify is glitchy on roku and my music lists have been missing for a few weeks so im considering another service. Just checked roku and edited this post, tidal does not come up when i perform a search for it.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 10:32 PM Post #8 of 29
jimmy16 said:
Thanks for the reply. Philips shp-9500, pioneer se-a1000 currently. Down the road im looking at sennheiser hd650 and akg k7xx. My amp is fiio eo9k. Sources are onkyo 7030 cd player and roku 4 streaming device. I will be streaming music with roku 4 (spidf) into said dac. Im really just trying to get as much performance as i can with the roku 4 and e09k amp.
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You won't find a good SPDIF DAC for $100 except for NOS DACs on eBay using old 16-bit Philips chips that have no oversampling chips. Save up for a Schiit Modi2 Uber or the ODAC Rev2 from JDS Labs.
 
jimmy16 said:
I have done a lot of research and have decided to stay with the e09k for a solid state amp and maybe get a nice tube amp down the road.
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Just note there isn't a single kind of tube amp, and there's at least one that won't work with low impedance loads (and even worse on low impedance, lower sensitivity loads).
 
jimmy16 said:
...and what does "otl" tube amp stand for. 
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Output Transformerless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Output_transformerless
 
I tried "otl amp" on Google and found that link. For headphone amps specifically the problem is that they'll deliver a lot of voltage into high impedance loads, which is what they need (not necessary all of it), but they have a lot of problems on low impedance loads. For one, they have a high output impedance, which means lower damping factor - depending on the amp and the headphone combo it can sound like a tin can or like molasses. By contrast an amp designed to deliver high current to low impedance loads won't necessarily taper off the voltage output at high impedance to the point that it can't drive high impedance loads, not to mention that 250ohm to 300ohm headphones have a 96dB or higher sensitivity, while you have many AKGs and HiFiMans that operate at 62ohms or lower and have 93dB or lower sensitivity. Since the graph is logarithmic 3dB is a heck of a lot in terms of power efficiency.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 10:37 PM Post #9 of 29
jimmy16 said:
Im streaming spotify/amazon prime music on roku , i dont know if the roku has tidal. The fiio d3 has spidf optical and digital coaxial in and a pair of rcas and 3.5 out. I cant find a better dac for all my uses but would be willing to compromise some connectibility for sound quality. Does tidal have lossless audio and what does "otl" tube amp stand for. I know almost nothing about lossless music files and streaming, is it the highest quality(cd quality) you can stream music? I have spotify set to the "extreme quality" music setting whatever that means. Actually spotify is glitchy on roku and my music lists have been missing for a few weeks so im considering another service.
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Tidal is expensive for lossless music at $19.99 a month but has just about everything you want to hear. Go with ever your comfortable with. OTL means Output Transformer Less. It is a tube amplifier circuit that has a high output impedance meant for high impedance headphones like the HD-650's. The one I have is the Bottlehead Crack and it is fantastic with the 650's . Yes lossless is CD quality but some other mp3's can also be as good. It has a lot to do with the recording and the encoding. I can afford the Tidal price and I like the results. I also have Stopify and Amazon music too I just prefer Tidal. The others aren't too bad.
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 10:49 PM Post #10 of 29
Thanks so much for doing my homework for me. In laymens terms is such a thing as an all rounder amp in terms of dealing with different headphone impedance/sensitvity (loads). Also do you think there would be an obvious audible difference between schiit modi uber 2 and fiio d3
 
Apr 20, 2017 at 11:36 PM Post #12 of 29
jimmy16 said:
In laymens terms is such a thing as an all rounder amp in terms of dealing with different headphone impedance/sensitvity (loads).
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A push-pull transformer coupled tube amp like the WooAudio WA22 or WA6se. The problem however is that the transformers increase cost of parts, and by increasing the size and weight, also transportation costs.
 
The most cost-effective option is a hybrid amplifier that uses a vacuum tube preamp stage and a solid state output stage, like the Schiit Lyr and Mjolnir.
 
jimmy16 said:
Also do you think there would be an obvious audible difference between schiit modi uber 2 and fiio d3
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I wouldn't be surprised if I can hear a difference (note this is after level matching with a 1000hz test tone), but I can't answer for whether you can.
 
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