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1) What are your thoughts on the K702s? Are they a noticeable improvement over the senn hd 595s? Are there any other strong competitors in that price-point? And as silly as this may sound, are they comfortable?(as reference, I consider the senn 595s quite comfy)
2) What is the difference between a headphone amp and a DAC? For that matter, what is the difference between a stereo receiver and an amp/DAC? Furthermore, one of the nice things about the stereo receiver was that I was able to connect my xbox to it and then seemingly switch between my PC audio and xbox audio at the touch of a button. Would this at all be possible with an amp/DAC? Finally, given a budget of around $200 or so, what are your thoughts on an amp/DAC that could compliment my headphones well, sound great, and provide a sort of steeping stone to learning more about audio and achieving the best music-listening experience possible within my current budget.
That's all that comes to mind at the moment but I'll update/tidy-up this post in the morning should anything else come up. Once again, I sincerely appreciate your time in reading all this and any feedback you have to offer. Cheers
1) K702 are technically better headphones than the HD595,
when amped properly they will give you slightly better resolution, detail, better extension in both directions, better build quality,a bigger soundstage and they will simply sound like the more expensive headphone. However, their sound signatures are complete opposite. Whereas the HD595 is pretty warm with great full sounding mids and overall "thick" sound, K702 are somewhat bright and cold, very fast, analytical and light on bass. That is good for studio monitoring, BUT, for someone like you who is used to the Sennheiser sound, they might sound too thin and people often consider such analytical headphones to be boring. I agree, AKG's never made me feel the music, Sennheisers always did. Not to mention K702's chew and spit out any music recording that is not absolutely perfect. Forget about low quality mp3's, they will sounds like crap on K702's. Not that HD595's is totally veiled, but its not as transparent as the 702. You'd have to try one on your own too see if you like it. If I were you I'd go for HD598 or HD600's instead depending on your headphone budget. They will both be a natural upgrade to the sound you're used to. Both will offer better resolution, detail, soundstage, imaging than HD595's. But of course I understand you probably have the urge to try everything, its normal, maybe you should buy something totally different like the K702 just to try it and see if you like it. Some people love bright thin sound with little weight to it.
For pure music enjoyment, I personally can't recommend the K702 and would consider it a downgrade compared to HD595. I don't know how to describe it, but to me its like an analogy between a raw photo and a painting or enchanced photo. A raw photograph will give you better clarity, but it will never be as beautiful as a painting or a nicely blurred or modified photo. You know on your own that in order to make pictures, or even movies more beautiful, they're usually artistically modified, they will look less natural, less clear, etc., but be more beautiful.
AKG is a photo, Sennheiser is a painting. Its not as dramatic when it comes to headphones, but you get the point, clearer and more detailed is not always more enjoyable and more beautiful.
2) A headphone amp just amplifies the signal that goes from the source. The better the amp, the less it will change the signal and better power the headphones allowing them to sounds as good as they possibly can. DAC is a digital to analog converter, basically a source of signals that travel towards the amp. You can find them in many forms, in hi-fi terms most significant are the standalone DAC's (portable or desktop), soundcards, but they come integrated into other devices (usually lower quality) that produce sound such as PC motherboards, laptops, smartphones, media players, bluray, dvd players, TV's, monitor controllers, gaming consoles, etc. All stereo receivers,AV receivers, CD or SACD players, as well as some integrated speaker amps have DAC's built in, although usually not of the same quality (but still very good, we're talking about dedicated audio gear after all) as standalone DAC's that you can get for the price of those receivers or amp. These integrated ones are good enough for headphones of HD595 / K702 caliber. However, they will not be quite on the same level as the standalone DAC's, which cost more money, but offer slightly better sound. On the other hand receivers and speaker amps with DAC's give you significantly better value for money. For 300-400$ you can get a decent receiver that will not sound considerably worse than a standalone DAC. Usually when people have receivers or cd players, they dont really need a separate DAC, as the improvement in sound quality will not be significant. However if your source is a PC, laptop, or any device with a low quality DAC, you'd need a separate one so you don't bottleneck your setup and limit other components you're using.
In your case if your budget is 200$ for amp and DAC, then I'd advise to stay away from K702 as you will not power them to their full potential for that money. Rather get a HD598, it will be more familiar to you, yet improved over the 595 in every way, most people prefer it for music listening over the AKG's anyway. And for the 200$ you can get a decent DAC/amp combo, together with HD598's it will sound better than K702's would with the same components. For 250$ (if you save some money by not buying the more expensive 702's) you can get something like O2 amp and DAC, and that will sound absolutely wonderful with HD598's.
