[karljs]

I do a lot of listening at work via my desktop machine, and would like to get a nice USB DAC/amp to go with it. A while back I bought an ibasso D4 mamba (discontinued?) and while it made an improvement over the garbage soundcard, I'm not terribly thrilled by it. It drives IEMs well enough, but higher impedence full-size headphones have a real problem at anything approaching a loud volume. The amp seems to be working too hard to provide any real dynamics.
 
Can anybody recommend a nice amp/dac (combined unit preferred) that can do USB input but has a real power jack instead of USB/battery power, please? I assume that's at least part of the problem. I'd like to keep things around $400 or less. I've seen the Nuforce line, but haven't had much look finding reviews and information about them. The headroom stuff seems to be outside my price range from what I can tell, unless there are cheaper places to buy them than headphone.com
 
For what it's worth, I listen to mostly classical with a spattering of blues/rock/pop/folk stuff thrown in.

 

[skamp]

Can anybody recommend a nice amp/dac (combined unit preferred) that can do USB input but has a real power jack instead of USB/battery power, please?

O2/ODAC ($295). You can't go wrong with that (I love mine). See the RMAA measurements of it in my sig.

I've seen the Nuforce line, but haven't had much look finding reviews and information about them.

Google for "NuForce drama"

 

[karljs]

Thanks for the recommendation. That looks like a great match.
 
I'll save the "NuForce drama" for a rainy day