williaty
Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 19, 2011
- Posts
- 61
- Likes
- 14
I have been semi-serious about listening to music for about a decade. I have a stereo system with which I am (mostly) content consisting of a variety of sources, a Bottlehead Foreplay (original with all the hop ups) preamp, and a Cambridge Audio P500 amp driving Axiom Audio M22Ti speakers. Like I said, I'm basically happy with it.
The problem is that I never get to listen to it anymore. The economy forced us into different housing and the only place to set the stereo up is too close to the bedroom. I can't listen to music at night anymore because it keeps my wife awake. From way back, I have a pair of Sennhiser HD497 headphones. At the time, they were sold as the best phones you could get that didn't require an amp yet they'd benefit from having one. I've been pretty happy with them as well, though obviously they're not excellent at anything. For the last couple of years, I'd been plugging them straight into my laptop. However, the laptop's audio out SUCKS. Literally bad enough that I turn the music off after 5-10 minutes because I just don't want to listen to it anymore. I hadn't realized this was the laptop's fault until I plugged the headphones into something else and lost a couple of hours listening to music. I'd forgotten it was that good.
So I want to replace the audio out from my laptop with a a DAC and headphone amp (and sometime down the road get better headphones). I'd been looking at something like the Fiio E9+E7 or the iBasso D12 (which is frankly a little out of my budget). However, I really like the hybrid tube pre+chip output combos in general, as evidenced by the main stereo setup I've got. I've come across the Fournier amps and DACs from Linear Designs. The HTA-1 headphone amp got decent reviews, but I'm wondering about getting their DAC-2 amp+DAC. There's no real reviews of it.
So my choices at the moment are:
1) Fournier DAC-2 and done. Pretty well maxes my budget.
2) Fournier HTA-2 and some random stand-alone DAC. By the time I buy the HTA-2, there's going to be very little money left for the DAC, not sure if this is even viable.
3) Something clever you all come up with
Thoughts?
The problem is that I never get to listen to it anymore. The economy forced us into different housing and the only place to set the stereo up is too close to the bedroom. I can't listen to music at night anymore because it keeps my wife awake. From way back, I have a pair of Sennhiser HD497 headphones. At the time, they were sold as the best phones you could get that didn't require an amp yet they'd benefit from having one. I've been pretty happy with them as well, though obviously they're not excellent at anything. For the last couple of years, I'd been plugging them straight into my laptop. However, the laptop's audio out SUCKS. Literally bad enough that I turn the music off after 5-10 minutes because I just don't want to listen to it anymore. I hadn't realized this was the laptop's fault until I plugged the headphones into something else and lost a couple of hours listening to music. I'd forgotten it was that good.
So I want to replace the audio out from my laptop with a a DAC and headphone amp (and sometime down the road get better headphones). I'd been looking at something like the Fiio E9+E7 or the iBasso D12 (which is frankly a little out of my budget). However, I really like the hybrid tube pre+chip output combos in general, as evidenced by the main stereo setup I've got. I've come across the Fournier amps and DACs from Linear Designs. The HTA-1 headphone amp got decent reviews, but I'm wondering about getting their DAC-2 amp+DAC. There's no real reviews of it.
So my choices at the moment are:
1) Fournier DAC-2 and done. Pretty well maxes my budget.
2) Fournier HTA-2 and some random stand-alone DAC. By the time I buy the HTA-2, there's going to be very little money left for the DAC, not sure if this is even viable.
3) Something clever you all come up with
Thoughts?
