[ssbird]

I've been reading about getting quality sound out of pc/media players and have some basic questions.

I would like to listen on headphones at work, and speakers/headphones at home. The source is flac files, although I do have the original cds. I will soon have sennheiser hd380's. I am not really interested in high quality speaker systems (cost, room layout hassles, neighbours and family noise complaints etc), but I do like good quality headphone listening. I'm not an audiophile.

I have read about the different external dacs and amps for headphones, and how they compare to each other. However I don't understand how they compare to normal hifi gear.

In particular, how would a laptop with $200 external dac and amp perform against a full size CD player and fullsized amp? Ie what sort of money would you need to spend on the CD and amp to get the same quality as the low-mid range dac and amp. Just using headphones.

The curiosity is due to seeing for example Yamaha home theatre system receivers for $1000 and they have a lot more functions than a dac and amp. Some even have digital iPod input, and of course all have headphone out. Plus I can play the original cds if needed. So I don't see the benefit of dac and amp at home (if I use iPod and digital inputs).

Any thoughts?


Steve

 

[PurpleAngel]

This should take care of you audio needs
 
Audio Technica ATH-A900X (closed) headphones or AKG K550 (closed) headphones
Fiio X3 DAP (digital audio player)

 

[blueangel2323]

lol how is it not normal hi fi gear? A DAC is a DAC whether you hook it up to a speaker amp or a headphone amp. For a hi fi speaker set up you can have a dedicated DAC, or just use the DAC in your CD player.
 
I can't answer your questions directly, but here's some food for thought:
 
- DAC technology is always improving, so a $500 dedicated DAC made today would probably sound better than the built-in DAC in a $5000 CD player that you bought 15 years ago.
 
- Dedicated headphone amps tend to sound better than the headphone jack on speaker amps (though not always) because the focus of a speaker amp is on powering speakers, and the headphone jack is connected to the speaker amp circuitry, which may not be well suited to certain headphones.
 
- If you only want to listen to music then a DAC+amp will give you better sound quality for the same price than a home theatre receiver, because with a receiver you're paying for all the other functionality.
 
- However if you already own a receiver with digital input then of course it would make more sense to hook your iPod up to that instead of buying a separate DAC+amp.