[Nielo TM]

Decided to overhaul my audio setup. Upgraded from Philips X2HR to Sennheiser HD 560s. Love it. Miles better all round.

Currently using Fiio K3 (V1) with gain set to high. Wondering if it's worth upgrading?

Volume wise, K3 is fine for music, but for films, sometimes I have to max it out.

Also, now that dongles have become unber good, am I better off getting a dongle like the Fiio K13 or KA11? Or desktop amp still the way to go?

Cheers

PS: If I've posted this in the wrong section, could the mods please move it.

 

[Hypops]

If you need more power, it's cheaper and easier to come by with a desktop amp. If you need portability, you'll pay a premium for the additional power.

 

[Nielo TM]

If you need more power, it's cheaper and easier to come by with a desktop amp. If you need portability, you'll pay a premium for the additional power.

All the desktop amps I've looked (sub 150 USD) seems to be less powerful than Fiio K11 & K13. Inc my K3.

 

[Hypops]

I assume you don't need something super powerful, just more powerful than what you currently have. Glancing at the specs, the original K3 is rated up to ~150 Ohms, but the specs don't include a power rating at that impedance. The new K3 lists power at 300 Ohms (26mW), but the original only lists power output up to 32 Ohms (200mW balanced). Since you're driving a relatively high impedance headphone (130 Ohms), knowing a higher output impedance power rating would help. Tough to compare to other amps if you can't figure the power output at your headphone's impedance. I'd start there. If you trust ASR (I don't), Amir measures the 300 Ohm load output of the original K3 at 13mW on high gain.

EDIT: Looking at the specs for the KA11 and KA13, something as cheap as the Schiit Magni desktop amp ($120) trounces both of them for output power at high impedances (~400mW vs ~20mW at 300 Ohms). There are many other similarly powerful desktop amps in that price range.

 

[BS5711]

The Schiit Magni Unity with built in DAC would make a very effective, simple and relatively affordable set up with plenty of power on tap and three gain settings including a low of -10db for IEM if needed.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-magni-unity-impressions-thread.970645/

 

[Nielo TM]

Cheers for the replies

I did look into Schiit Magn, but sadly it is a pure amp. No DAC.

I move around a lot with work so ideally want a DAC-AMP.

It just needs to be little more powerful than K3.

 

[BS5711]

Cheers for the replies

I did look into Schiit Magn, but sadly it is a pure amp. No DAC.

I move around a lot with work so ideally want a DAC-AMP.

It just needs to be little more powerful than K3.

Please look at the thread I linked, the Magni Unity model has a built in DAC as I stated above.

It is a lot more powerful than the K3 but a bit of surplus power isn't a bad thing so long as the amplifier has a low noise floor which will never be a problem with the three gain settings on the Magni Unity.

See link below, select DAC card or no DAC - $189 with the DAC.

https://www.schiit.com/products/magni-unity

 

[Nielo TM]

*** I'm so stupid! Totally missed that

Cheers

 

[lightflower]

I'll suggest you try one of this two dac-amp, the FiiO K3s or Topping DX3 Pro+.