[jackskelly]

Quote:

Due to the noise floor, the DAC-100 does not mesh well with low impedance high sensitivity headphones. Any other combination of impedance/sensitivity is fine though. Due to the current limit of the DAC-100 though, low impedance headphones will tend to clip the amp at high volumes. 
 
I have an HE-6 and it sounds good with the DAC-100. It doesn't have a ton of headroom, but it's enough to hit 100dB. A while ago I had compared against a Lyr and an LCD2. I preferred the LCD2 with the Lyr, but sonically preferred the HE-6 with DAC-100 more, even though the Lyr had significantly more power and headroom. I would feed the DAC-100 into a speaker amp to drive the HE-6, or in my case into the HAP-100 preamp then into a speaker amp. 
 
Planar magnetics in general don't care too much about output impedance interaction since their own impedance curves are practically flat across the audible range. There may be slight differences in electrical damping, but most people will never be able to tell the difference unless you make a habit of listening to harsh test tones. The Fostex T50rp sound just dandy from the DAC-100.

 
Thanks Armaegis for the information.
 
I've thought about the LCD-3 and HE-6. I'm probably going to get an electrostatic amp for STAX headphones as my next major purchase, but that might change. I could use the DAC-100 as my DAC to feed into the electrostatic amp. Unfortunately, electrostatic amps seem to be rather expensive, the cheapest one I've seen recommended is from STAX and still a few thousand dollars, but, such is life. The DAC-100 is still an excellent pairing with the HD 800, which I don't plan on selling anytime soon.

 

[Armaegis]

I wish I could find a local HD800 to try out. I've heard many good things about the pairing. In my review I really liked it with the HD600. 

 

[HiFiGuy528]

Quote:

I wish I could find a local HD800 to try out. I've heard many good things about the pairing. In my review I really liked it with the HD600. 

 
I have those cans.  I'll try to test the combo this weekend.

 

[jackskelly]

For those with the DAC-100, what volume levels do you listen to your collection of headphones via the DAC-100? As well how that depnds on the different kinds of music you listen to?

 

[Armaegis]

I'm usually no higher than 12 o'clock on the pot for a variety of music. 

 

[project86]

Quote:

I'm usually no higher than 12 o'clock on the pot for a variety of music. 

 
 
Me too. Maybe a little higher for some quiet classical or jazz, but not usually past 2 o'clock or maybe 3 at the most. 
 
They sent me the new piece for the headphone jack. I assume that means my unit has the original in there already (I haven't opened it yet to confirm). 

 

[Armaegis]

For those curious, here the new jack (left) vs the old one (right). With the jumper set towards the front (left in the picture), the new jack behaves like the old one. Setting the jumper to the right will bypass the output series resistor, which is 15 ohms. 
 

 

 
The traces on the new jack are thicker than the old one.
 
In terms of sound, the changes are actually quite minimal. I might be imagining that the old jack sounds a little warmer and smoother to my ear, but this is well within the realm of expectation bias and placebo.
 
- Noise is reduced in the old config (with the resistor), which is a good thing. 
- The new config gets you more volume with low impedance headphones, but this is moot because you will hit the current limit of the amp either way. The DAC/HAP-100 are not designed for high current (although the HAP-100 clips less severely when overdriven)
- Volume differences with high impedance cans are negligible
- Headphones that swing wildly from low to high impedance (so pretty much the Senn HD5xx series) are affected by the old config and results in a midbass bloom. The new config will play better with that... but again, the amps aren't designed for low impedance loads.
- Headphones that swing from high to even higher impedance... not much difference. As I mentioned earlier, the old config might actually sound nicer, but I could be imagining it. 

 

[harrinj]

I have to say, the UDH-100's Analog out is superb. UDH-100 into the Schiit Valhalla and my DT990's have never sounded so real. it sounds much better than having the headphones plugged into the UDH-100. 

 

[kazsud]

Looks like I might be parting ways w/ the Dac-100. I am constantly hearing electronic noise and or loud air before I can even finish a few songs using usb and toshlink.
I have the latest usb driver as well.
 
Can anyone compare the Dac-100 to any of these headphone amps paired w/ a hd800?
 
DNA Stratus 2A3 
Bryson BHA-1
WA7

 

[harrinj]

the driver for the UDH-100 SUCKS, is it the same for the DAC-100? the driver will cause the blue screen in windows 7 64bit periodically, and when Kernel streaming with foobar2000 it will a lot of times make a god AWFUL static noise that will blow your ear drums and speakers out! I kernel streamed from the same comp and foobar2000 to the icon HDP and it NEVER made that horrible sound. especially if you pause foobar2000 and then come back and press play you forget about that horrible noise and SON OF A B**** you are almost deaf afterwards! I've told them on nuforce's facebook page and they commented back saying they've forwarded the info but im curious if this same stuff affects the DAC-100? 

 

[project86]

I personally haven't installed the USB drivers yet. I'm in the middle of auditioning a different DAC and I don't like to install multiple drivers at once. So when I use the DAC-100 I run it with my Auraliti server and a Audiophilleo AP1. But I'll get the drivers going soon enough and will report back any funky behavior I encounter. I would assume the DAC-100 should be the same as UDH-100 but who knows.

 

[Armaegis]

I dunno... I have never had a driver issue under normal operation and I run Win7 64bit on my laptop, playing music through JRiver Media Center.
 
The only time I have had blips is when:

1. I am constantly flipping through multiple songs that all have different sample rates (many of which are <44.1k and require software resampling) which eventually crashes JRiver, but I'm pretty certain this is a software issue not a driver one
2. I accidentally bump the usb cord while music is streaming and disrupt the connection; this usually requires me rebooting the computer to get the DAC-100 to recognize again

 

[kazsud]

Quote:

the driver for the UDH-100 SUCKS, is it the same for the DAC-100? the driver will cause the blue screen in windows 7 64bit periodically, and when Kernel streaming with foobar2000 it will a lot of times make a god AWFUL static noise that will blow your ear drums and speakers out! I kernel streamed from the same comp and foobar2000 to the icon HDP and it NEVER made that horrible sound. especially if you pause foobar2000 and then come back and press play you forget about that horrible noise and SON OF A B**** you are almost deaf afterwards! I've told them on nuforce's facebook page and they commented back saying they've forwarded the info but im curious if this same stuff affects the DAC-100? 

Yes I'm having the same exact problems although it seems a tad better kernel streaming then using itunes.....

 

[harrinj]

oh good it's not just me. I hope they fix it fast! 

 

[harrinj]

it also struggles with 88.2Khz. sometimes it will play with some static, or it will play normal and make the blue screen come up and shut down. it just happened not 20 seconds ago the blue screen.