DAC Amp for PC | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

Bartosz · Mar 27, 2023 at 1:43 PM

Good morning guys.

I need some advice in my first AMP DAC that's not be a Gaming sound card.

I want something that's gonna be nice for PC gaming, music & films, and also can drive a few different iems or headphones from low impedane up to 300Ohm.

The unit must have 4.4 headphones output, coaxial output & optical output. Nice addition will be a USB and optical input and a bluetooth transmitter with Aptx and LDAC.

Budget is max 800 Euros.
I'm a layman on this subject, so please bear with me.

I currently see two solutions like:

Creative Sound Blaster K9
FiiO k9 Pro

msing539 · Mar 27, 2023 at 2:50 PM

Bartosz said:
The unit must have 4.4 headphones output, coaxial output & optical output. Nice addition will be a USB and optical input and a bluetooth transmitter with Aptx and LDAC.

Can you please elaborate on your setup? Why the coax and optical out?

Bartosz · Mar 27, 2023 at 3:06 PM

msing539 said:
Can you please elaborate on your setup? Why the coax and optical out?

The optical output is enough to possibly out with the sound to the amplifire

Bartosz · Mar 27, 2023 at 5:06 PM

someone something?

BrokeAudiophileMan · Mar 27, 2023

I don't know of any DAC that has digital outputs. That sort of defeats the purpose of it being a DAC. The Fiio K9 is definitely a good option for you. It has all the most common analog and digital inputs, can be used as a dac, a dac/amp, an amp, or a preamp. For what you're describing it really doesn't sound like you need any kind of digital outputs and if you're using the unit with your PC your best option is going to be USB. I have the K7 and can definitely say the K amps form Fiio sound very clean and very good. It's not the bad kind of clean that you get with some cheaper stuff where it sounds cold and dead. It's a good kind of clean. The k9 is supposed to be way better than the K7 so I'm sure it sounds good but you can probably find people on here who have one and can tell you more about it. Also I'm pretty sure there is an AKM K9 and also an ESS K9. AKM and ESS DAC chips sound a bit different and some folks out there are die-hard ESS or die-hard AKM and although it's not going to make or break the sound, if you're paying for a good mid range product (K9 is definitely not entry level) you should make sure you get the right version of it.
And definitely don't buy a Soundblaster product for that kind of money. I don't know of any audiophiles who use Creative Labs products. Get the Fiio it's a good unit. Also in the $1000/800 Euro range, you really ought to look at some of the entry level Burson brand Dac/Amp units. They sound very very nice. It's a different sound from the Fiio but it's really enjoyable. Burson is Australian and Fiio is from China. Both very good.

BrokeAudiophileMan · Mar 27, 2023

Bartosz said:
The optical output is enough to possibly out with the sound to the amplifire

So, the Fiio K9 is an amplifier, and a DAC, and does a terrific job of both even for high end headphones that are hard to drive. You don't need other equipment. You can definitely use the K9 with an amp, but if you did digital into the fiio and digital out to the dac, the fiio becomes a puff of smoke and is not doing anything. You would go digital to the Fiio then analog to the amp, but again, if you're not using the amp in the fiio and you just want seperates, it makes more sense to look at a straight DAC and straight AMP so that you're not wasting money on functionality you won't use. You have two options in the desktop world, DAC/AMP (two seperate units), or a DAC-AMP in one unit (fiio K7, Fiio K5, Fiio K9, etc etc). A quick example of seperates would be something like "The schiit stack" which is a modi DAC and magni AMP from an American company called Schiit. They are hard to beat for the $200 it costs for the stack (or at least it used to be $200). Each unit does one thing. The dac is only a dac. The amp is only an amp. They need eachother. Something like a Fiio K9 has a DAC section and an AMP section. It is possible to just use one of the two, whichever you prefer, but if you aren't using both, you're wasting half the money you paid for the unit which makes no sense at all. Also, please don't use bluetooth with an 800 euro amp/dac and decent headphones. You're not going to have a good time. You will very much hear the compression and artifacting from the bluetooth. Get the K9 and a really good quality in-spec USB cable. Get the balanced cables for your headphones, and enjoy clean sound. Bluetooth is available on a alot of units but you're not going to have a good time. It's much much less clean sounding than a good USB connection.

inoace · Mar 28, 2023

Maybe this is for you? https://ifi-audio.com/products/zen-air-blue/
or https://ifi-audio.com/products/neo-idsd/

iFi audio · Mar 29, 2023 at 6:52 AM

inoace said:
Maybe this is for you? https://ifi-audio.com/products/zen-air-blue/
or https://ifi-audio.com/products/neo-idsd/

Thanks for mentioning these two products. Just to clarify, ZEN Air Blue was designed as a pure wireless DAC, while NEO iDSD is a balanced DAC/amp device with a wireless input among other things. Thanks!