Niice!! glad you like em. it's amazing the sound quality that hifiman is able to offer at the $300 price point. makes a ton of other headphones seem extremely overpriced.
ya, try using some 320kbps mp3s or FLAC files and you'll be amazed at the SQ upgrades esp w/ a pair of nice headphones like the he-400. after using some nice source files w/ the he-400, you won't be able to tolerate youtube quality tracks heh. the two biggest determining factors of SQ are 1) source files 2) headphones (in that order). amps & dacs have minimal impact on SQ.
I know when I used my he-400 straight out of a laptop/phone, the volume usually has to be maxed to achieve listening levels. with an amp, you will find mainly improved volume along with subtle improvements in SQ. polaris is a great SS-amp choice! I'm sure you'll really like it. looks amazzingg as well.
in my personal experience, I have found that a dac is definitely not required for the he-400. yes, I can notice slight changes in the sound signature, but it is not a very obvious change. honestly, most on-board sound cards nowadays are good enough. (if you have a really nice gaming rig, some dacs might even be a downgrade than your onboard sound card). if your friend has a dac, it is good to test it yourself and see what kind of audio improvements you hear. I have personally found maybe 5-10% change in SQ which is nice, but a bit crazy for budget-conscious considering most dac are priced at least $150+ (which is greater than 50% of your headphones). the easiest and biggest improvement you can do for SQ is upgrading your source files, which is usually a free process. makes a much bigger difference than a dac.
These headphones sure do make tons seem like that! I just can't get over the sound of these!
Actually most of my music is usually 320 kbps! I have a few albums on my PC running at 1536 Kbps and the sound from them... it just can't be beat! Even straight from my laptop the clarity of the music compared to the rest I have just can't be touched!
Now I will say on my laptop, max volume is what I need for gaming but for music it actually can get much louder than I anticipated. I still definitely need the amp for gaming and movies but for music, it actually seems to do great (can't match the reciever I used earlier). From what I've read, the realtek sound card/chip built in is a great one! This laptop was made to run a good pair of headphones through, it seems. Could also be because I'm totally new to high quality headphones and everything tends to sound great!
And the Polaris... too good looking! I'll be sure to post a bunch of pictures because their aren't enough floating around on the web.
I'll definitely look into upgrading my files though! Thanks again for all the great tips! I'll see what happens with my buddies DAC and if I notice a remarkable change, I'll snag one then
Although in the case of the HE-400s, a new dac/amp can have some good improvement over a laptop *if* you are running the laptop volume near full volume. The HE-400s are fairly inefficient, and so can benefit from more power. Running your laptop near full volume may be squashing some of the dynamics. Laptops can also be somewhat noisy in terms of EMI, and an external dac/amp can give sometimes give the sound a bit more depth.
Also, because the planar magnetics are very resolving, moving toward a more transparent/accurate dac and solid state amp will allow you to hear more detail resolution with good source files.
With my laptop on high volume, though still sounding great, it clearly takes away from the sound. The receiver I used earlier really brought out every bit of the sound!
With EMI, do you feel that if I have any, will the amp be sufficient enough in negating it, or will it merely transfer it on to the headphones? I'm still very new to amps so my ignorance is astoundingly large!
Now the amp I'm getting definitely will have plenty of power for these. Judging by the power output graph of the Polaris, they will be putting out somewhere between 1.4-1.6W for the He400.
