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Ideal setup for sennheiser HD800 with PC
Mar 2, 2013 at 12:39 AM Post #2 of 34
That depends on your budget, and your material source (lossless? lossy?)
 
Mar 2, 2013 at 12:55 AM Post #3 of 34
hey thanks for the reply, i don't have a fixed budget and i also don't have an upper limit, i can spend whatever amount to get the best possible equipment. lossless audio (FLAC files mostly)
 
Mar 2, 2013 at 1:27 AM Post #4 of 34
IMO, the best course of action is to get an external DAC and a dedicated headphone AMP. I sort of went through the same process a few years back, and I been happy with my decision. BTW, what equipment(s) are you using at the moment?
 
Mar 3, 2013 at 1:35 PM Post #5 of 34
deejay214 said:
hey thanks for the reply, i don't have a fixed budget and i also don't have an upper limit, i can spend whatever amount to get the best possible equipment. lossless audio (FLAC files mostly)
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Hi there, the best possible equipment is always going to be contentious. So let's get contentious. Try a really nice headphone amp with a cheap minijack to rca cable. Connect the headphone out out and see what you think. Then blind test that against an external dac connecting up to the pc and plugged into the headphone amp. Then try just using the headphone out . If you don't get an appreciable difference you have saved yourself a wad of cash. As for what you might try, the choices out there are unbelievably vast if money is no object but there is a law of diminishing returns when you spend tons of cash in my opinion. Get an audio dealer to lend you the kit if you're intending to spend serious money.
 
Mar 3, 2013 at 1:51 PM Post #6 of 34
Quote:
deejay214 said:
Hi i have an HD800 which i want to connect with my PC, what should i install to hear the best possible sound and quality ?
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It's probably pointless going past an O2 + ODAC combination. Together they'll run your $300. There are more expensive ways of doing the same thing, but the ODAC is indistinguisable from a $2000 "reference" DAC and the O2 has similar performance. Google both of them and you'll find plenty of information. 
 
Mar 3, 2013 at 3:12 PM Post #7 of 34
Quote:
scuttle said:
 
It's probably pointless going past an O2 + ODAC combination. Together they'll run your $300. There are more expensive ways of doing the same thing, but the ODAC is indistinguisable from a $2000 "reference" DAC and the O2 has similar performance. Google both of them and you'll find plenty of information. 
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You might be right about ODAC, since I heard DAC doesn't affect the sound as much as amps do when you're past certain price. But I imagine the HD800 will benefit from better amps. The O2 is not bad, but IMHO my HD600 sounds much better with a Bottlehead Crack (which I own) than paired with the O2 (which I auditioned briefly). Granted I own HD600 and not the HD800, but I'd be really surprised if the HD800 doesn't benefit from better amps.
 
Incidentally, I am listening with my PC with the following setup: PC (Spotify/iTunes/Foobar) playing mp3/aac/alac/flac --> HRT Music Streamer II+ --> Bottlehead Crack OTL amp --> HD600
 
Mar 3, 2013 at 6:42 PM Post #8 of 34
Quote:
j123my said:
 
You might be right about ODAC, since I heard DAC doesn't affect the sound as much as amps do when you're past certain price. But I imagine the HD800 will benefit from better amps. The O2 is not bad, but IMHO my HD600 sounds much better with a Bottlehead Crack (which I own) than paired with the O2 (which I auditioned briefly). Granted I own HD600 and not the HD800, but I'd be really surprised if the HD800 doesn't benefit from better amps.
 
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Ok: you are surpised, but in fact this is beyond doubt: any reasonable modern amp will sound the same as any other modern amp, subject to a little EQing and having enough power for the target:
 
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/index.htm
 
..Anything else is placebo effect - and people who use this site are pretty much a self-selected group of the most vulnerable - and this has been proved literally thousands of times. (See the link.)
 
The one rider on the placebo effect is that 99% of people don't EQ their headphones to their hearing. (There is an article on sight telling people how to do so btw.)  Everyone has either one or two spikes in their ears' frequency response, and if an amp happens to have a dip that compensates then it may sound terrific to you compared to a technically better amp... but really EQing with pink noise and a sine wave is the way to go. 
 
Mar 10, 2013 at 8:46 AM Post #14 of 34
By "O2" they mean the Objective2, I think JDS Labs still makes an example:
http://www.jdslabs.com/item.php?fetchitem=O2Full (I've never used this product)

The Xonar STX has a decent TI chipamp built into it, along with being a competent soundcard in its own right. Guru3D reviewed it a while ago:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-xonar-essence-stx-soundcard-review,1.html (I wouldn't worry about the age - it's still relevant today)

I've used other amplifiers built around the same (or similar) TI chips, and in general they're very competent. However I have not tried the HD 800. I would assume it would be appropriately able to power them though though - although personally I find the whole "plug the headphones into the back of the computer" a bit obnoxious (my computer also lives under my desk); you might look into an extension cable. :)
 
Mar 10, 2013 at 8:51 AM Post #15 of 34
I am using the Asus Essense ....Flac files & my RS1i's.........I love it....pretty damn impressive.
 
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