[theun]

Hi,
 
I'm new here and I'm not an audiophile but I enjoy a good sound. Currently I have an old Sennheiser HD580 headphone but looking to get the HD650. As I understand I'll need a headphone amp as well to get a proper sound out of it. 
 
I have the following set-up right now:
E-mu 1212m soundcard
Soundcraft Compact 4 mixer
Sennheiser HD580 headphones
KRK Rokit RP8 monitors
 
I can imagine the Compact 4 has to go, but I like to be able to control the volume of the monitors and headphone separately. Right now that's done through the Compact 4 mixer, I looked at the Schiit Magni but it doesn't have a pass-through. The Asgard 2 does have an output but there's only one volume knob to control both headphone and monitors, which makes it impossible for me to mute the monitors and just listen through the headphones. Do you have an idea to solve this with both quality and price in mind?
 
Any advice is appreciated!

 

[PurpleAngel]

I would guess once you get a good headphone amplifier to drive the HD580, you really will not have to replace them with the HD650s.
I believe they use the same 300-Ohm drivers.

 

[Tablix]

Whats your budget?  Focusrite 6i6 may suit your needs, pretty new product but I cannot find any information on how powerful the headphone output is, maybe worth dropping a question through their tech support.   

 

[theun]

Awesome! Thanks guys. I will repair my HD580, just ordered some parts from Sennheiser.
 
The Focusrite looks good, but as I currently have the e-mu 1212m with a pretty great DAC I kinda would like to still use that one instead of replacing it completely with the Focusrite. I don't have the exact specs but I wonder what the quality of the headphone amp in my Soundcraft is, since it got A-grade mic pre-amps.. I guess nobody could help me out with this, right..?

 

[cel4145]

The Asgard 2 does have an output but there's only one volume knob to control both headphone and monitors, which makes it impossible for me to mute the monitors and just listen through the headphones.

The pre-amp output to the monitors is automatically muted when you plug a headphone into the headphone jack on the Asgard 2. The Asgard 2 has excellent sound fidelity as both a headphone amp and a pre-amp for speakers.

 

[Chairman]

Just as a heads up, I bought the Focusrite 8i6 (I imagine it's similar to the 6i6) for use as an audio interface primarily but also as a headphone amp/DAC. I don't know if it's the headphone amp or the converters that are responsible, but the sound coming out of it is NOT good by any measure. I'll also add that the headphone amp is very underpowered. I have to crank it to get any volume out of my 250ohm DT880s (and I wouldn't say I like my music very loud). Not sure if this is the case with other USB recording interfaces or just the Focusrite, but I had significantly better results just plugging directly into the front panel of my PC (Xonar DX soundcard).  
 
As a recording interface, it's great though. The mic preamps are fantastic and everything.