[mike_p]

I managed to get this pretty slick headphone bedroom setup with minimal cost to me. As follows:

Denon DCP-150 - I bought it when I was in high school, held on to it, had not idea it had such a killer digital out

Bel Canto DAC2 - a gift, sounds awesome with the Denon DCP

HeadRoom Supreme - last generation, without the front LED, but has the DIN connector, I could upgrade the PS (currently using the wall wart), someone gave it to me after they upgraded

Sennheiser HD-580 - on the cheap on ebay, only recent purchase for this setup

So.. I'm asking you experts on whether I should pump a little more money into the system on the amp end. Would it be worth the sonic imporvements? I'm a big time 2-channel guy, so the headphone stuff is secondary. I could see spending $200-400 if the sound improvement would be significantly better than the Supreme. Size is of importance, I want keep things on the night-stand.. don't want the GF freakin' out with my bizzare collection of black boxes in the bedroom (there are enough issues with the main rig).

Any feedback appreciated!! thanks!
mike

 

[daycart1]

That is a nice, balanced setup! My guess is that the weak link is the Denon transport, nice as it is for a portable. How about a nice DVDP...or is that too big?

 

[mike_p]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daycart1 That is a nice, balanced setup! My guess is that the weak link is the Denon transport, nice as it is for a portable. How about a nice DVDP...or is that too big?

I've got a Toshiba 3950 sitting around collecting dust, I'll give it a shot. I replaced the 3950+Bel Canto DAC2 (for music) and a Samsung HD-931 (for DVD) in my main rig with a Denon DVD-2200... which blew away both players in video and audio (with or without the DAC). Then I did a comparison of the DVD-2200 to the DCP-150+Bel Canto and was completely shocked how good the 150 sounded, I thought better than the Toshiba.. could be because the toshiba was applying some kinda DSP to the coax output. You would think the DAC would sound pretty much the same with all transports, but it always sounded different with the 3950, it might have something to do with the upsampling it does.. who knows, but my ears were telling me that the 150+DAC2 is a great combination.

I'm starting to lean towards just getting the better PS for the Supreme, and not getting sucked into the evil vortex of headphone audiophileness.. but those tasty tube amps look so tempting.

mike