[156219]

 
 
 
Hi
 
 
 
I have purchased a pair of Audio Technica AD700 headphones for music and gaming. I plan to be using it in conjunction with my Sony Playstation 3 to receive audio from the headphones. The only audio input i be live currently on the playstation 3 is Optical input.
As you may know or not hardly any headphone amp have optical inputs, which brings me onto my next question.
 
Do you guys think i should by a Dac/Amp or Buy a Dac then in the future by an amp to use with the dac?
 
Please suggest in what your best Dac/Amp,Dac,Amp are for this headphone or guesses compared to previous experiences?
 
My budget:
 
Dac/amp=£150
Dac=£150
Amp=£200
 
Just a few thoughts...
 
Thanks in advance.
 
Please chime in what your best amps are for this headphone or educated guesses compared to previous ortho experiences.
 
I am considering purchasing a pair of Sennheiser HD650 audiphile headphones for use at home. I plan to be using it in conjunction with my Sony Vaio laptop to listen to my iTunes collection, which contains quite a few lossless albums.  As I have seen here on this forum and many other locations, a headphone amp is highly recommended for use with the HD650s. My question, like many before me, is what would be a good amp to use with them? I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money, but I do understand that one gets what they pay for.

 

[swbf2cheater]

The good thing about the AD700s is that you don't need a great amp to make them sound excellent.  Any half decent amp will do just fine, a cheap cmoy on Ebay is more than enough and I HIGH recommend the Cmoy 2.02 Bass Booster.
 
Also, do a little googling for a TOSLINK to standard mini adapter.  They have lots of choices that let you to from an optical male end to a standard or even a 1/4 ( larger size ) end as soon on headphones.  Im not really an amp expert though
 
best of luck to you

 

[stang]

Amplifiers are analogue, no digital inputs such as USB, Optical and Coaxial. DACs are Digital to Analogue Converters. They usually have Optical input, USB and Coaxial. AD700 don't even need a good amp, if one at all. I would take a look at something like the Audio-GD Sparrow or Zero DAC/Amp. I have the latter and it serves me well.

 

[kite7]

Do you have to use the optical output of the PS3? You can use the RCA output instead and you have a whole world of amps opened to you. Any amp will do because the AD700 does not scale with a high quality amp.

 

[156219]

Quote:

The good thing about the AD700s is that you don't need a great amp to make them sound excellent.  Any half decent amp will do just fine, a cheap cmoy on Ebay is more than enough and I HIGH recommend the Cmoy 2.02 Bass Booster.
 
Also, do a little googling for a TOSLINK to standard mini adapter.  They have lots of choices that let you to from an optical male end to a standard or even a 1/4 ( larger size ) end as soon on headphones.  Im not really an amp expert though
 
best of luck to you

Do you mean something like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29296&C=Froogle&U=29296&T=Module
 
How would this work and where would i plug this adapter into on a headphone amp?
 

 

[156219]

Quote:

Do you have to use the optical output of the PS3? You can use the RCA output instead and you have a whole world of amps opened to you. Any amp will do because the AD700 does not scale with a high quality amp.

How would this work and how would i set this up?

 

[156219]

 
Link to playstation 3 

 

[kite7]

Use the A/V cable
 
http://us.playstation.com/ps3/accessories/scph-10500.html
 
I believe every PS3 comes with one, though the above one is a better looking cable. You can use HDMI for video and have the audio go through RCA
 
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/3_15/settings/audiooutput.html
 
Choose "Audio Input Connector / SCART / AV MULTI" which is RCA output for the audio output settings

 

[156219]

 
Quote:

Use the A/V cable
 
http://us.playstation.com/ps3/accessories/scph-10500.html
 
I believe every PS3 comes with one, though the above one is a better looking cable. You can use HDMI for video and have the audio go through RCA
 
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/3_15/settings/audiooutput.html
 
Choose "Audio Input Connector / SCART / AV MULTI" which is RCA output for the audio output settings

Thanks for that..
 
 
... Now i have whole world of amps now.
 
Can you recommend one for £150.

 

[kite7]

The ones I can think of right now are
 
The Aune DAC/Amp combo <- I would go with this one
 
Maverick D1 <- More expensive than the Aune
 
Zero DAC , This one has optical input but no RCA input. Build quality seems okay at best
 
You will probably have to look at ebay for the above DACs / Amps.
 
There's more, hopefully someone else can give their input as well. I can't think of any standalone amps right now on my mind right now other than looking at the For sale section on this forum for some Meier Corda Headfive or Arietta amps.

 

[156219]

 

I dont see any reason why not, its a seperate connection, that could still be plugged into your tv, or LCD whilst the audio can also be fed into the headphone amp for your phones, you would have to double check to make sure the PS3 can do that, just incase it has any weird circuit where it turns off the HDMI when your plug the multi AV plug in, although I highly doubt that!

QUOTE I dont see any reason why not, its a seperate connection, that could still be plugged into your tv, or LCD whilst the audio can also be fed into the headphone amp for your phones, you would have to double check to make sure the PS3 can do that, just incase it has any weird circuit where it turns off the HDMI when your plug the multi AV plug in, although I highly doubt that!QUOTE
 
Just read this from a diffrent site....
 
Is this a possibility?

 

[kite7]

The HDMI does not turn off when you plug in the AV cable, the PS3 is fairly customizable in the idea that you can mix up various video outputs with various audio output options

 

[156219]

 
Quote:

The HDMI does not turn off when you plug in the AV cable, the PS3 is fairly customizable in the idea that you can mix up various video outputs with various audio output options

Ok
 
Thanks
 
That`s one issue solved " thanks"
 
Now can someone recommend i headphone amp between £100-£150
 
Thanks

 

[156219]

Quote:

 

Ok
 
Thanks
 
That`s one issue solved " thanks"
 
Now can someone recommend i headphone amp between £100-£150
 
Thanks

 
Anyone?
 

 

[Radio_head]

No personal experience on the phones in question, but here's a link to a thread on inexpensive amps for them:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/423618/ad700-amps
 
Also, it depends if you want used or new.  There's better amps you can get on the FS forums for your budget than new off ebay or a website.