[krown]

Hey,
 
So I will be receiving my pair of Denon AH-D600 sometime this week and now was shopping around for a DAC and Amp. My budget is $200-250 and I would prefer to grab the equipment from Amazon. I have a Asus Xonar DX in my gaming pc and was wondering if I should still use it in my setup (is there any benefit? Gaming? Dolby? EQ?)
 
Originally, I was looking at the Schiit Magni & Modi but that setup uses a USB and bypasses the soundcard. So is there anything else in the price range that I could pick up? Since these cans are relatively easy to drive, will i benefit from an Amp? 
 
I am looking at three configurations, which would make the most sense?
 
1. PC>soundcard>DAC>AMP>Headphones
2. PC>Souncard>AMP>Headphones
3. PC>DAC>AMP>Headphones
 
These are the equipment I have looked at so far
 
JDS Labs Objective O2
Aune T1 (upgrade version?)
HiFI Man EF 2A
Schiit Modi & Magni
 

 

 

[Malfunkt]

Denon has really designed these headphones to be play directly from portables. I'd say the quality of your DAC will help, but try them with your existing setup.

Really enjoying these direct out of an iPhone.

 

[Matvei]

You can play them direct but they'd still sound better if you have a DAC. They're low impedence so anything should drive them.

By the way, the whole point of a DAC is that it bypasses the sound card. If you wanted to use the sound card the dac would only act as an amp.