[Fusco]

How would you spend $1200 or so to get a decent sound setup (phones, speakers, dac/amp) started for a laptop? Room is a small home office and speakers will be near field, likely on the desktop or just beside it. Music is all I care about here--I listen to mostly classic rock/alternative, lots of live recordings, from FLACs and 256+ mp3s.

I’d like to get a nice set of phones (e.g. Senn HD650, Grado SR225, AKG k702), spend another $600 or so on a dac/amp that I can use with both headphones and speakers. Obviously, that doesn’t leave me much to work with for speakers, but I’m leaning towards something like the Audioenginge A2 and then upgrading later on.

Is it worth it to spend $600 on a dac/amp to use just with phones and A2s for now? Would I be better off just dropping $150 on a BitHead or something similar and saving the money for later on (assume that in a year or so, I could spend $2000 on speakers and full size amp/dac).

Other dac/amps that I'm considering are HeadRoom Micro or going slightly over budget and finding a used Benchmark DAC1 USB. If you can't tell, dac/amp is where I most clueless.

Thanks all. Great site here with tons of helpful info.

 

[paaj]

I'm very much impressed with the CI Audio VDA2/VAC1 combo (DAC+PSU). Very natural spacious sound. At about $750 for the set you get a great source. Certainly good with the HD650 level of headphones (and beyond

) but probably overkill for the A2's.

One thing I've learned the past 1.5 years is that it is often better to spend just that bit more now to do it right than having to upgrade to that level anyway in a few months. Not that the journey is not fun, but skipping steps is more cost efficient in the end.

If I where to spend ~$1200 right now on a starter set, I'd buy the VDA2 and a used Stax setup (SRM-T1+Lambda Signature?).

 

[AmanGeorge]

Any thoughts you can share on what type of music you listen to or what sort of sound signature you tend to prefer? It is often helpful to work backwards from headphones to amp and spend the rest on a good source.

Essentially, you've got $1000 for DAC/amp/headphones (if you take out the $200 for the speakers). If it were me, based on the equipment I've been exposed to, I'd probably do something like this:
HRT Music Streamer+ -> Head-Direct EF-5 -> AKG K701

With the caveats that I really like the K701, you may not, and that I haven't listened critically to many DACs (just the PS Audio DLIII, HRT Music Streamer+, Audio-GD Compass, and Monica3 USB), but I think the Music Streamer is a strong contender at its price point.

 

[uraflit]

buy the good stuff now. dont settle for "midway" stuff.

i havent kept up with a lot of the new DACs and whatnot, but i'd reserve ~$300 for the headphones, ~$600 for the DAC and amp (that means no bithead!), and the rest on the speakers.

you do not need an expensive set of speakers to fill that small room with great sound! the ~$300 you have left for speakers is much more than enough.

 

[unl3a5h3d]

Can I consider doing either headphones or speakers and not both? If I were you I would spend that on one or the other to have a really good setup of one instead of a just okay setup of the other. And you can always upgrade to both. I guess I just don't see that point as you can only listen to one at a time lol.

 

[Necrolic]

Amp/DAC: Audio-GD Compass ($330 or $380, I forget and their site is down right now, but it performs like an amp/dac combo 3 times it's price). There are other, better options in your price range, but they aren't so much better that it's worth making sacrifices in other parts of your rig, the Compass is simply fantastic.

Speakers: KRK Rokit 5 ($150 per speaker, $300 total), or Mackie MR5 ($200 each, $400 total). A cheaper option would be Audioengine A2, but unless you get one of the first 2 options you are never going to want to use the speakers as the headphones will be so much better.

Headphones: Depends, there's so many options here, considering at the least you will have roughly $450 to spend on them and at most $550 (if you get A2s you have even more), it's going to come down to your final decision on the type of headphone you want, here's some different types of headphone options in your range.

K701/2, HD650, D5000 (you can bargain the price down at J&R and other dealers), RS2, DT880, or a used HF-2. Those are probably your best options in your price range. They are all quite different so you'll have to decide whether you want "fun" headphones, or analytical ones (I recommend fun for your type of music).

For your type of music, D5000, RS2 or a used HF-2 are definitely your best choice. The others suit more detailed types of music such as metal, classical, etc. The HF-2 are the best headphones of those 3, but are also hard to find as you can't get them new. D5000 and RS2 are both excellent, I prefer D5000 (obviously, check sig).

Hope that helps. Like I said, for the amp/DAC, the $380 Compass will do EXCELLENT for a starting rig, and really is fantastic. The only downside is the Compass doesn't act as a pre-amp, so you'd have to use the speakers' volume controls.

Oh, cables, don't worry too much about cables starting off, but if you've got some extra money after everything else, just get a decent quality digital interconnect and RCA.

 

[Fusco]

"Any thoughts you can share on what type of music you listen to or what sort of sound signature you tend to prefer?"

I listen to rock and alternative, almost exclusively. A good deal of them live recordings too, if that matters. Generally, I like a warm, round sound, not airy/thin (my sound vocab is limited so I hope that makes sense).


"Can I consider doing either headphones or speakers and not both? If I were you I would spend that on one or the other to have a really good setup of one instead of a just okay setup of the other. And you can always upgrade to both. I guess I just don't see that point as you can only listen to one at a time lol."

Yes, by all means. This is a headphones project first and foremost, but when I realized how much I'd likely be spending on a headphone dac/amp, I thought it'd be great if I could get something that I could also use for speakers too since I hope to upgrade those somewhere in the not too distant future; however, I realize that I'm never going to get true audiophile speakers with the limited space/budget that I have. Essentially, I want to end up with great sounding headphones and good sounding speakers.

 

[Fusco]

"The only downside is the Compass doesn't act as a pre-amp, so you'd have to use the speakers' volume controls."

This will still work as a dac if connect speakers like the Rokits or MR5s to the out, right? You just mean that the Compass' volume control won't control the speakers.

 

[Necrolic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fusco /img/forum/go_quote.gif "The only downside is the Compass doesn't act as a pre-amp, so you'd have to use the speakers' volume controls." This will still work as a dac if connect speakers like the Rokits or MR5s to the out, right? You just mean that the Compass' volume control won't control the speakers.

Yeah it'll work as a DAC, there's a button on the front that enables "Super Mode", which separates the amp and DAC into two separate entities so you can use the analog in to plug a CD player or something similar in and use that as your source rather than the DAC and just use the Compass' amp, or use the DAC out to hook it up to powered speakers or a different amp/pre-amp.

My amp, HeadRoom Desktop, is designed to work as a pre-amp and has a volume controlled RCA out in the back, and as such has a switch to enable the rear outputs at the same time as the headphone outs, allowing you to use it's volume control for speakers. Sadly, the Compass cannot do this. But since you'll be getting active speakers anyways, it doesn't matter as they have their own volume control. If you change your volume a lot it could get annoying to stand up and reach behind the speakers to adjust it (most monitors' volume controls, including the two I mentioned, are on the back of the speakers).

 

[Fusco]

Thanks Necrolic -- I like what I'm learning about the Compas so far. A few questions for the rest...

1. Obviously I'm gonna test out several sets of phones, but it seems that Grado RS2 is a good pick based on the fact that (a) I listen to mostly rock and (b) the smaller dac/amps that are in my price range (e.g. Audio GD-Compass) are sufficient for the RS2s whereas they may not be for some of the more demanding phones out there (e.g. k702, HD650). Is this right?

2. What would be a good dac/amp to pair with the RS2s? In the $300-$500 price range is the Compass the best that I can do?

 

[owenhan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necrolic /img/forum/go_quote.gif K701/2, HD650, D5000 (you can bargain the price down at J&R and other dealers), RS2, DT880, or a used HF-2. Those are probably your best options in your price range.

The K701 is like $250 isn't it? Seems like that'd save him a fair bit of money.

 

[Fusco]

UPDATE: Let's take the speakers out of the equation for now. I think I'll probably end up getting a set of monitors like the Rokit 5s or MR5s later on down the line, but for right now let's work with the fact that I want to spend ~$1000 on phones + dac/amp.

What other dac/amp combos should I look into in the $300-$600 range? I want to be able to use it as a dac for the speakers when I add them later on. Compass seems to allow this. What else should I look at?

 

[AmanGeorge]

Every DAC can be used for speakers later on - all it does is convert a digital signal to analog and output that analog signal, which then can be plugged into any amplifier.

Unless you're space-constrained, I wouldn't limit yourself to DAC/amp combos - there aren't a lot of choices in the range that you're talking about, and most combos seem to have either a good DAC or a good amp section, but very rarely both (in fact the only one I've read about where people seem to be very happy with both DAC and amp is the Isabellina). With a $600 budget, you can definitely afford to get two standalone units, which gives you a lot more options.

Here's what I think you should do:
1) Figure out what headphones sound like they're the best match for your musical tastes (I think Sennheiser Hd600 or 650 may be a good bet for you, or a pair of Grados, although the higher-end ones that have been suggested are a little on the pricey side and won't leave you much to spend on the upstream components)
2) Take what's left, split it in half, and buy the best DAC you can buy for half that money, and the best amp that is known to synergize with your 'phones for the other half.

Some potential options for you:
Sennheiser HD600 ($210) + Elekit TU-882 tube amp ($445) + Musical Fidelity V-DAC ($270) = $925

Grado RS2i ($489) + Musical Fidelity X-Can v3 ($250) + My HRT Music Streamer+ ($250) = $989

Grado RS1i headphones ($689) + HiFiMan EF-2 DAC/amp ($169) = $858


You can mix and match among these, and if you look around may even find better prices on some of the components, but all will produce strong rigs that will sound great with your music

 

[Fusco]

"Every DAC can be used for speakers later on - all it does is convert a digital signal to analog and output that analog signal, which then can be plugged into any amplifier."

Right, I'm concerned about logistics though. On the Compass, it seems that I can have both phones and monitor speakers connected at the same time and use the "Super" button to separate the amp from the dac when I want to use the dac with monitors. How would I do this with something like the V-DAC + TU-882. I'd have to go through the step of unplugging the amp from the dac and connecting the monitors every time I switched between phones and speakers, right?

Thanks for all the help by the way. This stuff can get pretty overwhelming.

 

[AmanGeorge]

I'm less familiar with the speaker thing, so I'll take a crack at it and someone else can correct me if I'm wrong.

The Elekit (and many other headphone amps) has a preamp out, which can be plugged straight into a set of powered speakers like the AudioEngine A2 (I also think you could feed them straight from the Elekit headphone jack). In this case, you would still be using whatever DAC you buy and feeding the speakers by using the Elekit as a pre-amp instead of headphone amp. If you wanted bigger speakers, you could plug the Elekit's preamp out into an integrated amp that then fed those speakers, but again, without having to do anything particularly complicated in terms of switching the setup.

If you have a decent amount of budget to work with, I would really suggest not getting hung up on a DAC/amp combo. If you find one that seems to fit your needs really well and is high-performing in both the DAC and amp sections, fine, but there is no real advantage to them besides being slightly more convenient, whereas they have the major disadvantage of limiting your choices significantly. You should compare them apples to apples to DAC/amp separates. Plus, the Compass will be much larger than something like a V-DAC / Elekit combo.