[guynbluejeans]

I soon will be getting my Denon D2000s in the mail and was wondering what would be cool to buy at Best Buy or Circuit City or some place else that will go nicely with these fine headphones that will soon arrive?

I have an Imac that I plan to use them with (YouTube) and a nice sounding portable Panasonic CD player and a Bose Wave radio. But all those sources aren't necessarily good enough to take advantage of the headphones, thus I was wondering what some of you might suggest?

I don't own an Ipod, so maybe it would make sense to buy one of those and download some songs from Itunes. Or maybe getting one of those new sterios that play digital music would be the way to go, yes?

Anyway, money, what little extra I get now and then, burns in my pocket sooo I would appreciate your thoughts on how to get the most bang for the buck with regard to my humble set-up?

I know I'll need a great amp one day, though I have no clue what type ... and I'll need to redo the cable ... such tough choices!

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!! I check them out after I get back from work. THANKS!!!!!

 

[arterius2]

rule #1, never buy hifi equipements from best buy, why would you buy from a place that sells Skullcandy and Bose for ridiculous price?

but for a grand you can buy something decent. you could get an external DAC and amp. amp wise you can take a look at the darkvoice 337/336, little dot mkIV SE. dac you can take a look at Zhaolu or beresford tc-7510. other people might have more suggestions as well.

 

[granodemostasa]

from what I see in your post... buy CDs.

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guynbluejeans /img/forum/go_quote.gif I soon will be getting my Denon D2000s in the mail and was wondering what would be cool to buy at Best Buy or Circuit City or some place else that will go nicely with these fine headphones that will soon arrive? I have an Imac that I plan to use them with (YouTube) and a nice sounding portable Panasonic CD player and a Bose Wave radio. But all those sources aren't necessarily good enough to take advantage of the headphones, thus I was wondering what some of you might suggest? I don't own an Ipod, so maybe it would make sense to buy one of those and download some songs from Itunes. Or maybe getting one of those new sterios that play digital music would be the way to go, yes? Anyway, money, what little extra I get now and then, burns in my pocket sooo I would appreciate your thoughts on how to get the most bang for the buck with regard to my humble set-up? I know I'll need a great amp one day, though I have no clue what type ... and I'll need to redo the cable ... such tough choices! Any thoughts would be much appreciated!! I check them out after I get back from work. THANKS!!!!!

Dark voice 337/Great march II DAC..

 

[romanalexander]

HD600 w/ blue Cardas cable

 

[boomana]

Check out the Pico, Predator and Move. The D2000s are fairly easy to drive and with an amp/dac, you'll be able to use your computer as a transport, then if you get your ipod, you'll be able to take it with you as a portable amp.

 

[pianomav]

For a $1K you should get an amp and dac.

 

[The Monkey]

Benchmark DAC1 or Lavry DA-10.

 

[guynbluejeans]

THANKS EVERYBODY!!

I'm a-gonna do a bunch of things (including sleep and then really give your suggestions a good lookover and do the Internet research to get plenty of info and see what happens.

I do have quite a few CDs so I think I'm good in that regard.

I didn't know Best Buy was a bad place to shop. Learn something every day.

Again, Thanks Much for sharing your time and thoughts!!

 

[guynbluejeans]

I just took a quick look at that (costly) DAC and was wondering if it's easy for a simplton to use and would such a thing even make sound coming from my Imac better? I"m willing to get one if they really do great things (even though I"m not sure I've ever heard of them before).

Also, I in fact have $1200 to blow ... .

Again, Thanks!

 

[The Monkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guynbluejeans /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just took a quick look at that (costly) DAC...

Which one? Several are listed.

 

[Henmyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guynbluejeans /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just took a quick look at that (costly) DAC and was wondering if it's easy for a simplton to use and would such a thing even make sound coming from my Imac better? I"m willing to get one if they really do great things (even though I"m not sure I've ever heard of them before). Also, I in fact have $1200 to blow ... . Again, Thanks!

This surely sounds like an Meier Opera dac+amplifier: http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/

Reviewers have said that D2000 sound very good together with this amp.

 

[jp11801]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Monkey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Benchmark DAC1 or Lavry DA-10.

I would also add the apogee usb , if you can find one out there the headphone section is pretty good and would tide you over for a bit, also either of the above dacs are also great amp/dac combos. A dac/amp combo to me is where I would start for best bang for the buck. If you get an amp you would be amping the signal coming out or the mac or fairly cheap cdp. If you get the dac you would usb out of your mac to the dac amp combo unit. This would be significantly better than a stand alone amp amping the current audio signals you have available, IMHO of course. Computer lossless audio out of the mac is a great way to go and will rival cdps costing several times the expense of either of the dacs listed.

 

[jp11801]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guynbluejeans /img/forum/go_quote.gif Also, I in fact have $1200 to blow ... . Again, Thanks!

used the benchmark, lavry, grace and apogee are all within that range with cash left over for music and a 500 gig hard drive.

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guynbluejeans /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just took a quick look at that (costly) DAC and was wondering if it's easy for a simplton to use and would such a thing even make sound coming from my Imac better? I"m willing to get one if they really do great things (even though I"m not sure I've ever heard of them before). Also, I in fact have $1200 to blow ... . Again, Thanks!

I think a lot of the recommendations above must be hard to compute, and people haven't yet really tried to give you an idea of what you should be thinking of and what the possibilities really are.

First of all, it sounds like you're fairly new to computer-based audio and mp3 files. If you decide to go further down this road, you'll have to learn a little about bitrates, file types, encoding programs, and so forth. It's too much to say here, but a bit of internet browsing should suffice to give you an idea of how to turn your cds into decent lossy or lossless files. (say, lame-encoded 192kbps vbr mp3, or flac, respectively)

Next, will you be using the headphones mostly sitting still at your computer, mostly on the go, or both? For the first option, a full home rig might be a good idea, especially considering your healthy budget. This means a dac or soundcard and a biggish plug-in headphone amp. Either one of these will clearly and healthily improve the sound coming from your computer, never fear, and they're actually quite easy to use, especially the USB ones. There are also certain good components that include both dac and amp in one box. For this you might want to take a look at the amp, source, and computer forums here.

If, on the other hand, you'd like to build up a portable rig, then you'll probably want to buy a good mp3 player--for recommendations see the portable audio forum--and a portable amp. There are two kinds of mp3 player, flash and hard drive, with the flash ones tending to have much smaller memory capacity but often lower price, higher durability, smaller size, and better sound (but not by much). Essentially you get a hard drive player if you want to carry around a full library of options, and a flash player if you only need a few dozen albums at a time. Portable amps are key for a good-sounding portable rig, and there are good options ranging from about $80 to $500. Check the amp forum for comprehensive comparative reviews.

So, all told, say you wanted both a home and a portable rig. Here are a couple of schemes that might satisfy your ear chosen mostly from options mentioned above:

Home:

files on imac > Great March II DAC ($250) > Little Dot Mk.III amp ($250) > D2000

or

imac > Beresford Mk. VI DAC ($200) > Darkvoice 336i ($300) > D2000

Portable:

files > iaudio 7 4gb mp3 player ($150) > Meier Corda Headsix ($160) > D2000

So, either one of these home options plus the portable rig gives you a nice set with $400 to spare for an extra open headphone for home or maybe some IEMs for additional portable use.

But Boomana mentions an interesting path as well, to get a top-end portable dac/amp and nothing more. This won't sound quite as good as a full home system and won't be able to drive some headphones well, but will be much cheaper, smaller, and easier to use, and should do fine with your D2000. The new Pico and Predator (both in sponsored threads above) sound great and will run about $500 each; for about half that you could get a Meier Move or an iBasso D1, either of which should be nearly as good as these new more expensive items, though with drawbacks of size, necessary modding, or dac performance that the expensive dac/amps solve.