[kg21]

I've searched and obviously there are tons of threads about the AV-710 but I didn't find any about this exact setup. I bought the AKG K701s about a month or two ago and yesterday my Headfive Amp arrived. I plan to use my computer as the main source of my music although I do have a Iaudio X5L with lineout. I bought the AV-710 for bang for the buck and have been running it with foobar/kernel streaming for awhile but I would like to know just how much it would hold back my new setup and assuming it is holding it back significantly, what you would recommend that goes well with the headfive/k701. I have a lot of flac and wav with some 320cbr for most of my music, only some in lower bitrate mp3 btw.

 

[TheMarsVolta]

From what I understand, the bottleneck in that rig would be the AV710's built in DAC. Bit-perfect only helps you as far as the DAC in the chain, seems like a lot of headfi'ers use the digital out of the AV710 -> external DAC -> Amp. Maybe someone who's tried both ways can comment on how much difference you would notice going that route.

 

[Xakepa]

I have no expirience with Headfive, but 701 are slightly bright for my taste. AV710 NOS KS is generally neutral and w/o the mod it has a pronounced rolloff/sibilance in the highs and lacks some detail there. These are exactly the stenghts of 701, so you should be just fine.

For a "balanced"/neutral setup I'd rather look for external DAC to be fed by the optical of AV710. EMU0404 is too harsh and analytical, and M_Audio cards sound similar to me. EMU1212 is better, but can't be found for less than $100

 

[kg21]

thanks for the replies, hmm time to research external dacs any suggestions on those? I don't mind paying more than 100 for a soundcard btw but if going with an external dac will produce a better overall sound then I have no problem going with a dac instead.

 

[alex_cs]

consider the juli@, it punches above its weight very well.

to your original question though, youll probably want to at the very least pickup a dac-ah or a zhaoluD2.0. people on here consider the C smoother than the A, but i only have the C and cant comment there. the C adds a bit more money. the DAC-AH is apparently lusher again, but having not heard it cant say for sure. it would seem consensus is that the zhaolu offers more detail, and the expense of a bit of warmth, but then youll get the opposite opinion from some.

if you want to step up, you might want to try a Storm D02, but I reckon if you are keeping price sync with your opther stuff, a zhaolu wont steer you wrong.

the chaintech dac wont do your akg's any service, and you will probably be dissapointed.