[Grothmog]

Hello, I have decided to go with HIFIman he-400i Headphones, Looking around forums i found that shiit lyr2 amp should work good with them but this leaves me with very tight budget for dac - around 200$ any recommendations?
 
I'm gonna use headphones most of the time connected to my laptop for music production and listening to music.

 

[fjrabon]

  Hello, I have decided to go with HIFIman he-400i Headphones, Looking around forums i found that shiit lyr2 amp should work good with them but this leaves me with very tight budget for dac - around 200$ any recommendations?
 
I'm gonna use headphones most of the time connected to my laptop for music production and listening to music.

have you already bought the Lyr?  The Lyr is overkill for the HE400i.  It's a GREAT amp, but the HE400i doesn't need it.  I'd get the Magni Uber if I were building a system for the HE400i.  Just for the HE400i, I think the Bitfrost + Magni Uber is a better system than the Modi + Lyr.  There's simply no reason the HE400i needs all the power the Lyr has on tap and if anything the lower output impedance plays better with the low impedance HE400i (though both are really fine in that regard, since the Lyr is 0.3 ohms in low gain mode compared to the Magni's 0.2).  If you also have like a HD650 or 600 Ohm DT990, then yeah, maybe get the Lyr, but it seems like this is a system solely for the HE400i.
 
Put it this way, when the Lyr is in low gain mode, it sounds almost exactly like the Magni Uber.  With the HE400i, you probably should never take it out of low gain mode.  For all intents and purposes, the Lyr's low gain mode *is* the Magni Uber.
 
edit: and obviously my favorite for the HE400i is the Grace M9XX, but it's not available to buy right this second, although it should re-drop soon.

 

[12many]

Following : )

 

[Mr Rick]

  Hello, I have decided to go with HIFIman he-400i Headphones, Looking around forums i found that shiit lyr2 amp should work good with them but this leaves me with very tight budget for dac - around 200$ any recommendations?
 
I'm gonna use headphones most of the time connected to my laptop for music production and listening to music.

 
I use the following site as a guide to determine headphone specifications and possible compatible amps and amp/DACs.
 
http://www.audiobot9000.com/hifiman/h/he-400i

 

[fjrabon]

   
I use the following site as a guide to determine headphone specifications and possible compatible amps and amp/DACs.
 
http://www.audiobot9000.com/hifiman/h/he-400i

nice, never seen that.  Good summation there. Wish it had more amps, but it's very good for the ones it does have.

 

[Mr Rick]

 
nice, never seen that.  Good summation there. Wish it had more amps, but it's very good for the ones it does have.

 
Notice that at the top you can plug in any HP/amp combination to see the specs on the pairing.  But, it is true that not all manufactures/ models, are represented.

 

[fjrabon]

   
Notice that at the top you can plug in any HP/amp combination to see the specs on the pairing.  But, it is true that not all manufactures/ models, are represented.

right, yeah, I noticed that.  It seems to gel with my beliefs about what is the minimum acceptable damping factor and the correct power headroom needed.  

 

[Mr Rick]

 
right, yeah, I noticed that.  It seems to gel with my beliefs about what is the minimum acceptable damping factor and the correct power headroom needed.  

 
I wouldn't take the sites information as gospel, but it is an excellent tool to get one started.

 

[fjrabon]

   
I wouldn't take the sites information as gospel, but it is an excellent tool to get one started.

yeah, though I think a lot of people treat amp pairing like it's voodoo.  99.999999% of amp pairing is simply correct damping and adequate power.  Reminds me of the early 2000s when almost nobody understood damping and people talked about the K701 being hard to amp.  It was because everybody was pairing it with crazy high impedance tube amps for the "warmth" when the K701 needed a low impedance medium power amp.

 

[Grothmog]

Thanks for all replies. I hadn't purchased amp/dac yet as schiit is hardly avalible in my country and probably would have to order from their european site. So I'm better off with higher quality dac then amp? Then I probably would go with Schiit Bifrost + magini 2 uber combo.

 

[Lorspeaker]

http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB1532/NFB15.32EN.htm

 

[fjrabon]

Thanks for all replies. I hadn't purchased amp/dac yet as schiit is hardly avalible in my country and probably would have to order from their european site. So I'm better off with higher quality dac then amp? Then I probably would go with Schiit Bifrost + magini 2 uber combo.

Generally you want a higher quality amp than DAC. However, the HE400i mainly just requires a moderately powered amp with low output impedance. If this was a HD650, for example, Id suggest the reverse, a $500 ish amp and then whatever you have left in the budget on a DAC.

 

[Grothmog]

Ok i get it so i can quite save on amp, I would have on emore question on dac what about Modi 2 Uber is there huge difference between modi 2 uber and bifrost?

 

[fjrabon]

Ok i get it so i can quite save on amp, I would have on emore question on dac what about Modi 2 Uber is there huge difference between modi 2 uber and bifrost?

The tricky part is "big difference" there's not a big difference. But there isn't really a big difference in any headphone gear so long as your headphones are sufficiently powered to give your headphones enough voltage (provides loudness and headroom for lack of distortion) and current (provides faster transient response) and don't have an amp whose output resistance is too high for your headphone (this is called dampening and lack of it leads to distortion). After that, everything is a very subtle difference. It comes down to how much the last 10,5,3,2,1,.0005 percent of performance matters.

The bit frost is better. Whether it's enough better to justify the price difference is a question only you can answer.

 

[fjrabon]

Double post