Hi man, you have a very interesting passion that I understand fully, its such a joy to have different sound source for our ears! Can you share your favorite DAC-AMP and did any of them are findable on Aliexpress???
I'm very poor so my last buy depress me alot....but my goal is to test DIY DAC-AMP that are easy to use, I mean, plug and play (with or without driver), we do not need case for them to work, its more about protection here...DAC chips are very important, whats your favorite and more affordable one???
Thanks to share here, your some kind of wizard here now
Thanks! It's hard to pick a favourite and, honestly, most of the time I'm listening to an Aune X1S which is a great little common desktop unit, nothing special I guess. But I'm using it mostly because it's pretty good sound, looks good under my monitor and is quite neutral, so it's been good for getting into my new headphones.
Of what IO have tried there's a G&W T2.2A amplifier that I really love (mostly because it's huge, industrial, looks like someone bolted half a tree onto the front of it and when you turn it on it hums like a nuclear reactor). I have only listened to it a few times (bare in mind I've only been collecting for 3-4 months!) but it's nice and warm.
https://www.hifi-amplifiers.com/en/...d-class-a-tube-headphone-amplifier-p-891.html
I also have this amp which I don't think has an English name but uses 6N2 and fu32 tubes, it's also huge, weighs about 8kg, I don't think the link below is the exact version - mine is similar but has slightly different units on the back. Anyway it's ... different. Really clear though. I think I need some higher impedance cans for this one though.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Bla...amplifier-86-50-power-supply/32688253172.html
I've also got a Litehifi h1 (apparently, I just had to look it up). It's a 'portable' balanced headphone amp which looks like a roughly machines star trek prop. Planning on having a listen to it tonight.Then there's a TCG T1 which came in export style boxing (with english words and everything) which was fun. And there's literally another 6 smaller tube amps in a variety of weird shapes and sizes that I haven't got to playing with yet.
From the DAC/Amp side of things I've made quite a lot of use of an FX-Audio dac-x6 - it's great but, like the Aune, kind of common. Plus a small SMSL unit which does DSD too (forget the name, it's packed right now). Both are great value for money I think, although I'm hardly an expert. I'm doing a lot of listening to try to understand the differences in sound so let me have some more time and I can comment on them.
I've also got a few DAC/Amp combos I haven't used yet: a Rhyme Voice 6J1 (which is gold coloured so must be awesome), a HIFI7011 tube dac/amp (I think it's from ZhiLai?) and ... some others? I think there's 2-3 more but they're packed right now.
I'm going on holiday for 3 weeks, then I come back and in mid-Jan move to a new house where I have my own study. Going to set everything up, take some photos and get listening heavily!