[googan]

I'm in the market for a desktop amp that can be bought off eBay. This will be my first amp!

Looking for something that will significantly improve on my low impedance mid-fi headphones (recabled Denon d1001, and HD555 but don't care as much for the HD555), as well as become a sort of base amp for future higher end, high impedance headphone purchases.

I need suggestions! Max budget around $350. Bang for the buck recommendations also welcome.

I hear the MKV hisses with low impedance phones. Anyone with specific experience with the MKV + recabled/stock d1001?

Oh and source is an X-Fi music for now.

 

[googan]

Also open to DAC/AMP combos under the same budget if the DAC is quite noticeably superior to the X-Fi. Help!

 

[JamesL]

Of the headphones I've heard, the dt880 and hd650 to me, running from a ipod or my pc onboard still sounds better than my d1001 from any dac/amp combination.

While the headphone amp and dac are both very important, I think the tendency here is to blow it out of proportion.
The headphones are most important, and once you found one you really like, you can squeeze out the rest of it's potential through a good headphone amp and source.

I'm not implying that the d1001 are bad sounding; I still use mines and don't intend to sell it anytime soon, but there's a real difference between good $100 headphones, and $300 reference class headphones that no amplifier/source can make up for.

 

[googan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesL /img/forum/go_quote.gif Of the headphones I've heard, the dt880 and hd650 to me, running from a ipod or my pc onboard still sounds better than my d1001 from any dac/amp combination. While the headphone amp and dac are both very important, I think the tendency here is to blow it out of proportion. The headphones are most important, and once you found one you really like, you can squeeze out the rest of it's potential through a good headphone amp and source. I'm not implying that the d1001 are bad sounding; I still use mines and don't intend to sell it anytime soon, but there's a real difference between good $100 headphones, and $300 reference class headphones that no amplifier/source can make up for.

That's why I mentioned that I wanted an amp that would work with future higher end phone purchases as well. I'm trying to make an investment here

I'm surprised the hd650 sounds good to you straight out of an ipod/digital out. Granted the only time I've heard them were at an audio store and they sounded pretty bad unamped to me.. was very apparent that it needed more power to sound right.

 

[googan]

Would a Darkvoice 336i/se do anything for the recabled d1001?

 

[Currawong]

What's your source? My first mistake was buying an amp thinking it would improve things, when it was a good DAC I needed. A good amp will provide, in my experience, a better soundstage and separation.

My latest piece of kit is the Audio-gd C2C, which for around the same price as my MKV, it's considerably better. They seem to have cheaper offerings though, from about $180 for a basic HP amp.

By the way, the MKV doesn't have hiss with low impedance headphones, unless there's hiss or a grounding problem with the source.

 

[googan]

Source = X-Fi music, soon to be op-amp + cap modded. I should probably research DACs soon though.

After much frantic research, I've settled on the LD I+. Figure since all I've got are low impedance phones right now, it makes sense. Plus it's cheap. Trigger pulling time.