biggest difference: DAC or AMP?

[Musicboy]

I was just wondering what makes the biggest change in music quality, DAC or AMP?

 

[slwiser]

With your HD650 I would say a balanced amp. If you had another headphone my opinion would differ.

 

[krmathis]

I rank the source (which the DAC is a part of) higher than amplification.
Meaning that you need a clean audio signal to get great sound. A $100,000 amplifier can't fix a "broken" audio signal.

 

[ILikeMusic]

There's no absolute answer to the question without knowing more about the specific hardware. If the internal DAC is already pretty good an external unit won't necessarily generate an audible improvement, same with the amp. Substituting one component for another doesn't always and automatically equal better sound, no matter how much you spend.

 

[brainsalad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILikeMusic /img/forum/go_quote.gif There's no absolute answer to the question without knowing more about the specific hardware. If the internal DAC is already pretty good an external unit won't necessarily generate an audible improvement, same with the amp. Substituting one component for another doesn't always and automatically equal better sound, no matter how much you spend.

I agree. I think that a good rule of thumb is 50/50 for DAC & AMP. Just because you spend $1000 on an Amp and $100 on a Dac or visa versa, won't necessarily get better sound one way over another. As far as the POTENTIAL for influencing the sound, I would say the DAC. It is a much more complex circuit and has many stages of processing, changing one form of signal to another. In it's simplest form, an amplifier is merely a valve.