[Sergedc]

Hi, I have a Yulong DA8 II DAC and a pair of Shure Aonic 5 (36 ohm and 119 dB SPL/MW @1kHz sensitivity)

The headphone amp is way way too loud, and produce too much noise.

What would happen if I connect the IEM on the RCA out (at the back) instead (I know I need an adaptor)? Not enough power to drive the IEM? Any risk of damage?

 

[chemosapien]

Chance of damage 0%, no risk at all, worst case it's too low volume, but you might be okay with such high sensitivity iems, for the price of an adapter, I'd try it before I bought a whole other amp/dac

 

[Sergedc]

After reading I wonder if there might be an impedance problem.
For these IEM seems like the recommended output impedance is less than 1 ohm.
The RCA output is probably a lot more than that, no? (I found out the XLR output is 50 ohm)

 

[chemosapien]

After reading I wonder if there might be an impedance problem.
For these IEM seems like the recommended output impedance is less than 1 ohm.
The RCA output is probably a lot more than that, no? (I found out the XLR output is 50 ohm)

While I'm unsure of the rca output impedance, you might be right in identifying that as the problem, in that case an impedance adapter would solve it

 

[Sergedc]

I thought I would give an update: I bought a RCA male to 3.5mm female, and the result is the following:
- In pure dac mode (pre amp off): the sound is very distorted, not usable
- With the pre amp on:
- the trick is to leave the preamp to minimum level and foobar volume to max. This give awesome result. No distortion, no noise, perfect. And the volume is still decent.
- However, as the preamp volume goes to full volume, the same issue as above occurs (distortion especially high frequencies, unnatural sound, reduced soundstage).
- At 50% its still very good. I even think I get a little more bass than the headphone amp.

I wonder if the 25 ohm impedance of the RCA out is for full volume, and whether the impedance is less at lower volume. I know this is true for a passive preamp, not sure for an active one.