Recommendation for Headphone Monitoring of 24 BIT/ 96 KHZ PCM Audio on Laptop

[jwdjwd67]

My wife and I are Birders and just recently for Christmas I purchased her an Olympus LS-10s Digital Recorder. She has been making recordings of bird vocaliztion (singing, calling, begging, etc) and transfering the files via usb to a laptop. She records 24bit/96kHz PCM Wavs and processes them with Audigy on this laptop that is a couple years old. I bought her a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-m50's for her monitors. Well yesterday she heard her recordings played on my rig (which is a far from exceptional, I know): 24bit/96kHz Wavs from my desktop computer s/pdif'd to an Outaw Audio 1050 Receiver and then played on my AKG Q701's. She noticed a marked improvement. I was thinking that an external DAC might be the best way to spruce up her laptop sound. Would this be the best place to start? Anything in the $150 neighborhood that will do 24bit/96kHz and will level the playing field a little.
TIA.
regards
jeff

 

[ab initio]

Quote:

My wife and I are Birders and just recently for Christmas I purchased her an Olympus LS-10s Digital Recorder. She has been making recordings of bird vocaliztion (singing, calling, begging, etc) and transfering the files via usb to a laptop. She records 24bit/96kHz PCM Wavs and processes them with Audigy on this laptop that is a couple years old. I bought her a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-m50's for her monitors. Well yesterday she heard her recordings played on my rig (which is a far from exceptional, I know): 24bit/96kHz Wavs from my desktop computer s/pdif'd to an Outaw Audio 1050 Receiver and then played on my AKG Q701's. She noticed a marked improvement. I was thinking that an external DAC might be the best way to spruce up her laptop sound. Would this be the best place to start? Anything in the $150 neighborhood that will do 24bit/96kHz and will level the playing field a little.
TIA.
regards
jeff

$100 DAC --- Schiit Modi - it does 24/96.
 
Of course if you get a DAC, you need a headphone amplifier as well, so you could throw in a $100 Schiit Magni and you'll have yourself a really excellent system for $200. I use this combination with my Senn HD280s (which are professional monitoring headphones like the M50s).
My laptop's headphone out was noisy enough that it really bugged me, and this DAC and amp work amazingly well for me.
 
You can ask other folks around here about portable DAC/amp combos like the Fiio E17; however, I think you'll find that most everybody agrees that the Schiit Modi+Magni is the best sound quality you can find for $200 or less.
 
Cheers

 

[jwdjwd67]

Thanks very much!
regards
jeff

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

I doubt very much if the dramatic difference you heard was due to using a a different converter or amplifier.
 
It is much more likely that what makes the most difference is the headphones. The AKG (red line below) cost several times more than the ATs (green line)  but that's not all the story. Have a squint at the freq response comparison below. Note how the response of the M50s takes a steep dive off the flat of up to 10dB between 5 kHz and 8 kHz.
 
Unlike your wife I'm no expert on recording birds but I'd suspect that's where there is a lot of relevant information.
 
 
 

 
The blue line are Sennheisser HD25 1. That's what I have so I used them for comparison.
 
I'm just guessing, I'll admit it, but I'd still put money on not being able to turn a $100 pair of cans into a $400 pair by spending $150 on a DAC or amp.
 
Try looking for a pair of headphones with very neutral or even emphasised treble. They will probably be described as 'fatiguing' or harsh sounding.
 
You don't mention what your Mrs. uses to record on. Depending on circumstances she might find something like this useful.
 
http://uk.focusrite.com/usb-audio-interfaces/scarlett-2i2/specifications
 
It's within your budget, has excellent converters, decent headphone output, USB powered and crucially a pair of vg microphone preamps. 

 

[jwdjwd67]

Wow. Thanks that is very eye opening indeed. Well anyone looking for a nearly brand new pair of m50's. J/k
She uses the Olympus LS-10s for recording in the field.
regards
jeff