[TheGame21x]

Monoprice is having a sale this weekend, 12% off with coupon code MP12.

One of you guys that have been toying with getting it should buy it so you can tell me what it's like

Yeah! Someone should definitely do that!

 

[thesmileman]

  here's a good review:
 
http://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/28pae7/monoprice_desktop_amp_review/
 
One thing to note that is especially nice about this amp is the line out AND pre-amp out. Line out if you want it to be a DAC/pre-amp switch between digital and line in, and pre-amp out if you want to connect it to powered speakers and use the volume control on the monoprice amp. Up until now you had to spend quite a bit more to get that feature.  

On mine both line out and preout are both adjustable and they seem to provide the same amount of amplification.
 
I put my impressions on the reddit link above in the comments. 

 

[PurpleAngel]

Any detailed reviews on the insides of the Monoprice 11567 DAC/Amp?

 

[harryz]

Just registered to show some pictures of my item. Bought it directly on monoprice web site.
 
One channel did not work at all. Sent it back for refund.
 
I can't post images here so here is a link to 3 photos on imgur.
 
http://imgur.com/a/cPL3S

 

[Pheckphul]

Hello all. Partially based upon this thread I bought the Monoprice headphone amp and just received it today. I hooked it up, fired up foobar2000....and am underwhelmed.
 
I don't consider myself a true audiophile. I don't spend thousands of dollars on tube-fired amps or headphones, and when CDs became popular enough that portable players were readily available (not being able to afford a home and car unit) I stopped buying records, and have never looked back. But I do care enough about sound quality that as a teenager in the late '70s and early '80's I bought records and recorded them myself (onto Maxell XLIISs) as commercial cassettes were crap and I hadn't run across an in-dash record player. I've bought a couple of pairs of UE's IEMs, SuperFi 5 Pro and TripleFi 10, and decided they were OK for portable listening but prefer my ancient MDR-V6s.
 
Anyway, back to the Monoprice headphone amp. I've got it driving my MDR-V6s and have tried a couple of different pieces of music, both pre- and post-Loudness War, and swapped back and forth between my Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe's on-board Realtek ALC898 and the amp, and I can't really hear a whole lot of difference, if any.
 
So, were my expectations too high given the equipment I've got? Am I tone-deaf? Or is this amp not really any better than my on-board sound?

 

[Allanmarcus]

  Hello all. Partially based upon this thread I bought the Monoprice headphone amp and just received it today. I hooked it up, fired up foobar2000....and am underwhelmed.
 
I don't consider myself a true audiophile. I don't spend thousands of dollars on tube-fired amps or headphones, and when CDs became popular enough that portable players were readily available (not being able to afford a home and car unit) I stopped buying records, and have never looked back. But I do care enough about sound quality that as a teenager in the late '70s and early '80's I bought records and recorded them myself (onto Maxell XLIISs) as commercial cassettes were crap and I hadn't run across an in-dash record player. I've bought a couple of pairs of UE's IEMs, SuperFi 5 Pro and TripleFi 10, and decided they were OK for portable listening but prefer my ancient MDR-V6s.
 
Anyway, back to the Monoprice headphone amp. I've got it driving my MDR-V6s and have tried a couple of different pieces of music, both pre- and post-Loudness War, and swapped back and forth between my Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe's on-board Realtek ALC898 and the amp, and I can't really hear a whole lot of difference, if any.
 
So, were my expectations too high given the equipment I've got? Am I tone-deaf? Or is this amp not really any better than my on-board sound?
 
 

 
I happen to have the MDR-V6s as well. While I like them, they aren't very high quality so you might not be able to hear the subtle differences between amps. Also, unless you have trained your ears to hear the subtlety so many here are able to describe, you just might be missing something.
 
The DAC is probably the same quality. What about the amp part? Does the MP unit play louder?
 
Also, you might not be able to tell unless you have a 600 ohm or 300 ohm set of cans. 

 

[Stillhart]

  Hello all. Partially based upon this thread I bought the Monoprice headphone amp and just received it today. I hooked it up, fired up foobar2000....and am underwhelmed.
 
I don't consider myself a true audiophile. I don't spend thousands of dollars on tube-fired amps or headphones, and when CDs became popular enough that portable players were readily available (not being able to afford a home and car unit) I stopped buying records, and have never looked back. But I do care enough about sound quality that as a teenager in the late '70s and early '80's I bought records and recorded them myself (onto Maxell XLIISs) as commercial cassettes were crap and I hadn't run across an in-dash record player. I've bought a couple of pairs of UE's IEMs, SuperFi 5 Pro and TripleFi 10, and decided they were OK for portable listening but prefer my ancient MDR-V6s.
 
Anyway, back to the Monoprice headphone amp. I've got it driving my MDR-V6s and have tried a couple of different pieces of music, both pre- and post-Loudness War, and swapped back and forth between my Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe's on-board Realtek ALC898 and the amp, and I can't really hear a whole lot of difference, if any.
 
So, were my expectations too high given the equipment I've got? Am I tone-deaf? Or is this amp not really any better than my on-board sound?

 
Keep in mind that amps will improve SQ of headphones that are hard to drive.  If your oboard sound is already good enough drive your headphones, amping it further isn't going to do particularly much.  And as Allanmarcus noted, your headphones might not be good enough to really show off any subtle differences in sound.
 
As an example, I have a pair of AKG Q701's that are notoriously hard to drive.  They sound just fine off onboard sound, volume levels are plentiful.  But amping it with a nice amp will make them sound much better.  It's hard to explain, but it's more detailed and controlled sounding and really lets the headphones shine.  Compare that to something like my SoundMAGIC HP100.  The HP100 is designed to be easy to drive right off a phone or whatever.  Amping it gives it maybe a little more body, but overall doesn't do much at all to the sound.
 
I don't know enough about your Sonys to say if they're hard to drive or not, sorry.  But from your description, it sounds like they're not.
 
Oh one more thing, make sure you're using high quality sources.  A 192k MP3 sound the same with good headphones or bad.  But you NOTICE how bad they sound with good headphones.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Hello all. Partially based upon this thread I bought the Monoprice headphone amp and just received it today. I hooked it up, fired up foobar2000....and am underwhelmed.
I don't consider myself a true audiophile. I don't spend thousands of dollars on tube-fired amps or headphones, and when CDs became popular enough that portable players were readily available (not being able to afford a home and car unit) I stopped buying records, and have never looked back. But I do care enough about sound quality that as a teenager in the late '70s and early '80's I bought records and recorded them myself (onto Maxell XLIISs) as commercial cassettes were crap and I hadn't run across an in-dash record player. I've bought a couple of pairs of UE's IEMs, SuperFi 5 Pro and TripleFi 10, and decided they were OK for portable listening but prefer my ancient MDR-V6s.
Anyway, back to the Monoprice headphone amp. I've got it driving my MDR-V6s and have tried a couple of different pieces of music, both pre- and post-Loudness War, and swapped back and forth between my Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe's on-board Realtek ALC898 and the amp, and I can't really hear a whole lot of difference, if any.
So, were my expectations too high given the equipment I've got? Am I tone-deaf? Or is this amp not really any better than my on-board sound?

 
You have fairly decent on-board audio and the 62-Ohm MDR-V6's are not very demanding when it comes to power needs.
Maybe if you had 250-Ohm or 300-Ohm headphones there would be a more noticeable improvement, using the Monoprice.
 
You might be better off returning the Monoprice DAC/amp and selling off the MDR-V6s and buying new headphones, for whatever you can budget for.
Audio Technica (40-Ohm) ATH-A900X headphones?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Audio-Technica-ATH-A900X-Black-Headsets-/141417161761?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item20ed1ea421
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Audio-Technica-ATH-A900X-Black-Headsets-/301322094137?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item4628324639

 

[cel4145]

Edit: Scratch what I said (ignore me).

 

[Pheckphul]

   
I happen to have the MDR-V6s as well. While I like them, they aren't very high quality so you might not be able to hear the subtle differences between amps. Also, unless you have trained your ears to hear the subtlety so many here are able to describe, you just might be missing something.
 
The DAC is probably the same quality. What about the amp part? Does the MP unit play louder?
 
Also, you might not be able to tell unless you have a 600 ohm or 300 ohm set of cans. 

 
The quality may not compare to some of the niche audiophile cans, but they can't be bad. The V6s and their newer siblings are some of the most common studio monitors used professionally.
 
As for the volume, on the low-gain setting the volume is about 25% higher than the on-board is capable of, and on high-gain it's easily twice as loud. So, yeah, there is that. Though I never listen to the Sonys at more than 75% of the on-board's volume for hearing's sake, though at 100% the on-board doesn't display the distortion of an amp being pushed hard.

 

[Pheckphul]

   
Keep in mind that amps will improve SQ of headphones that are hard to drive.  If your oboard sound is already good enough drive your headphones, amping it further isn't going to do particularly much.  And as Allanmarcus noted, your headphones might not be good enough to really show off any subtle differences in sound.
 
As an example, I have a pair of AKG Q701's that are notoriously hard to drive.  They sound just fine off onboard sound, volume levels are plentiful.  But amping it with a nice amp will make them sound much better.  It's hard to explain, but it's more detailed and controlled sounding and really lets the headphones shine.  Compare that to something like my SoundMAGIC HP100.  The HP100 is designed to be easy to drive right off a phone or whatever.  Amping it gives it maybe a little more body, but overall doesn't do much at all to the sound.
 
I don't know enough about your Sonys to say if they're hard to drive or not, sorry.  But from your description, it sounds like they're not.
 
Oh one more thing, make sure you're using high quality sources.  A 192k MP3 sound the same with good headphones or bad.  But you NOTICE how bad they sound with good headphones.

 
The Sony MDR-V6s are designed to be driven by studio equipment, but I get your point and it is quite valid. These aren't driven well by any cell phone or portable audio player I've in recent history. I think back in the day when I bought these (~1989) the portable disc players had more powerful amps than today's phones and audio players as I definitely didn't have an issue driving them.
 
As for the source I'm using to test, they are all FLAC files. I've been FLAC-only since the availability of side-loaded players for the iPhone 2g. I understand their necessity at one time, but I'm with Neil Young when it comes to MP3s and their ruining the expectations of most audio consumers today. But hey, since I lived through the cassette era, I used to consider MP3s to be awesome.

 

[Pheckphul]

   
You have fairly decent on-board audio and the 62-Ohm MDR-V6's are not very demanding when it comes to power needs.
Maybe if you had 250-Ohm or 300-Ohm headphones there would be a more noticeable improvement, using the Monoprice.
 
You might be better off returning the Monoprice DAC/amp and selling off the MDR-V6s and buying new headphones, for whatever you can budget for.
Audio Technica (40-Ohm) ATH-A900X headphones?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Audio-Technica-ATH-A900X-Black-Headsets-/141417161761?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item20ed1ea421
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Audio-Technica-ATH-A900X-Black-Headsets-/301322094137?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item4628324639

 
In all truthiness, getting a headphone amp was really an impulse buy. Yes, I've thought about getting new cans for home use, but honestly, most of my headphone listening is done with my phone. I gave up a couple of years ago trying to find decent in-ear headphones at a price range I'd feel comfortable carrying around in my pocket. Anything more that the UE 10 Triple.Fis and I'd be really annoyed if they were to get broken or lost. Perhaps now that I've found this forum I should avail myself of the advice and experience of you guys to help guide me in finding better buds. Something that doesn't require a portable amp, as IMHO "portable amp" is an oxymoron. At least for how I use my phone.

 

[Pheckphul]

  Any detailed reviews on the insides of the Monoprice 11567 DAC/Amp?

 
I just noticed that you live in the Bay Area. I'm in  Castro Valley; I could loan you my amp if you are still interested in knowing its capabilities. PM me if you are interested.
 
BTW, I responded to your earlier response to me, but I quoted you and it contained links which put my message into the moderator's approval queue. If I'd known that would happen I'd have edited them out, and now it is apparently too late as the message doesn't show up in my control panel.

 

[PurpleAngel]

   
I just noticed that you live in the Bay Area. I'm in  Castro Valley; I could loan you my amp if you are still interested in knowing its capabilities. PM me if you are interested.
 
BTW, I responded to your earlier response to me, but I quoted you and it contained links which put my message into the moderator's approval queue. If I'd known that would happen I'd have edited them out, and now it is apparently too late as the message doesn't show up in my control panel.

 
I really have no serious need for using or testing the Monoprice DAC/amp, just want to see the inside to know what chips are being used.
Found pictures of the inside of the Monoprice DAC/amp earlier today anyway.

 

[eyal1983]

I see it now for 89.99
Is it really a serious competitor to Schiit's M&M and JDS-Labs's O&O ?