Hey there,
A new member to Head-Fi and (slightly) better headphones in general. Got to say, I'm quite overwhelmed...
I bought Fidelio X2's mainly for PC use a few weeks back and noticed that my onboard soundcard is quite subpar: Just barely passing volume-wise and some high frequency details were completely lost. Compared against my phone (OPO). This leads me to believe there's some room for improvement with an AMP(/DAC).
I have an ESI Juli@ (http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/) card lying around, which from what I've read seems like a very competent DAC, albeit internal. So a value-oriented choice to eliminate the bottleneck seems to be an external headphone amp for the Julia. Since Julia has balanced outputs, SMSL SAP-9 (105€ on amazon.de) seems like a good choice to eliminate inteference in the weak signal between the card and amp. Aside from balanced IO the review on that amp seemed quite neutral on Z-reviews.
No strict budget, but getting the best value for money with this setup probably lands me somewhere in 50e-150e territory. Looking for a clean, accurate and neutral sound rather tha tube ampish vibe.
That's about as far I've gotten with my research, but I'm wondering if:
- I'm overestimating the value of balanced? Would a great overall amp like the Magni 2 provide better value?
- I'm underestimating the QC issues people seem to have had with SMSL products. Some of their other stuff had disturbingly many "died after X months/weeks/days" -reviews.
- I'm ignoring something important in regards to compability:
Any thoughts?
A new member to Head-Fi and (slightly) better headphones in general. Got to say, I'm quite overwhelmed...
I bought Fidelio X2's mainly for PC use a few weeks back and noticed that my onboard soundcard is quite subpar: Just barely passing volume-wise and some high frequency details were completely lost. Compared against my phone (OPO). This leads me to believe there's some room for improvement with an AMP(/DAC).
I have an ESI Juli@ (http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/) card lying around, which from what I've read seems like a very competent DAC, albeit internal. So a value-oriented choice to eliminate the bottleneck seems to be an external headphone amp for the Julia. Since Julia has balanced outputs, SMSL SAP-9 (105€ on amazon.de) seems like a good choice to eliminate inteference in the weak signal between the card and amp. Aside from balanced IO the review on that amp seemed quite neutral on Z-reviews.
No strict budget, but getting the best value for money with this setup probably lands me somewhere in 50e-150e territory. Looking for a clean, accurate and neutral sound rather tha tube ampish vibe.
That's about as far I've gotten with my research, but I'm wondering if:
- I'm overestimating the value of balanced? Would a great overall amp like the Magni 2 provide better value?
- I'm underestimating the QC issues people seem to have had with SMSL products. Some of their other stuff had disturbingly many "died after X months/weeks/days" -reviews.
- I'm ignoring something important in regards to compability:
- Min connected impedance to Julia is 100 Ohm. Can't find input impedance on this, or many of the other candidates.
- From what I've read optimal output imperance for 32 Ohm headphones is around 4 Ohm. Can't find this number for SAP9
- If I'm just way off the base and making weird assumptions about something in general- From what I've read optimal output imperance for 32 Ohm headphones is around 4 Ohm. Can't find this number for SAP9
Any thoughts?
Last edited:
