Hello everyone, I am writing here to get some help in understanding some concepts and also deciding what to buy for my setup. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.
At the moment I own a pair of Shure SH840 headphones and a pair of Edifier R1280t speakers, connected to an Asus Xonar DX sound card. My use is mostly games and listening to music, so 2.0 is the best for me(I don't even have space for anything above 2.0 in my room). I sometimes connect my phone to the speakers to listen to it when my pc is turned off but that is a very rare occurrence.
My sound card has been having a problem lately(at least, I think that it is the sound card): the audio on the left is lower and also different than the one in the right ear, even balancing the levels through the software, it still aound different than it does on the rught one. I think this is a card problem since when plugging my headphones into my pc directly the problem seems to go away. All that said, I mostly use my speakers and the problem does not seem to be present with them, so that's all right.
With this in mind, after enjoying my speakers for a bit(I had to turn down the bass and up the treble, since some voices in certain old games sounded muffled) I decided to buy an external DAC + AMP(keep in mind it will be connected to my speakers most of the time) for my desk to replace my sound card, which is quite old at this point. Here come the problems, I had my eyes on the SMSL M6 or M3, which have RCA output to connect to my speakers, but they have an impedance of 10 ohms, while my speakers and headphones have an output of respectively 6 and 44 ohms. Will they be ok for me or should I consider other options? In the second case, do you have any suggestions(possibly with jack/RCA, since my speaker don't have speaker wire input)? My budget is a bit under 200€ and be aware that not all the brands are available here in Italy.
A few more questions:
1- Should I consider buying separate DAC and amps or are they not worth for mostly using with stereo speakers?
2- I was looking at a review of the SMSL M6 on youtube and saw the reviewer plug its speaker output into another further amp, why is that? Do speakers benefit from using a second amp after the one included in the M6?
3- I own a Galaxy Note 8, would it be a problem if I used an RCA splitter to plug it into the AMP+DAC together with my pcor should I just plug it into the speakers without passing through the AMP?
4- Will an RCA splitter inputting into the DAC+AMP degrade sound quality? Also, if both sources play at the same time(using a mixer connected to the DAC), will my speakers get damaged(I read this somewhere online)?
Thanks to everyone that spent their time reading this and tooke their time to answer
At the moment I own a pair of Shure SH840 headphones and a pair of Edifier R1280t speakers, connected to an Asus Xonar DX sound card. My use is mostly games and listening to music, so 2.0 is the best for me(I don't even have space for anything above 2.0 in my room). I sometimes connect my phone to the speakers to listen to it when my pc is turned off but that is a very rare occurrence.
My sound card has been having a problem lately(at least, I think that it is the sound card): the audio on the left is lower and also different than the one in the right ear, even balancing the levels through the software, it still aound different than it does on the rught one. I think this is a card problem since when plugging my headphones into my pc directly the problem seems to go away. All that said, I mostly use my speakers and the problem does not seem to be present with them, so that's all right.
With this in mind, after enjoying my speakers for a bit(I had to turn down the bass and up the treble, since some voices in certain old games sounded muffled) I decided to buy an external DAC + AMP(keep in mind it will be connected to my speakers most of the time) for my desk to replace my sound card, which is quite old at this point. Here come the problems, I had my eyes on the SMSL M6 or M3, which have RCA output to connect to my speakers, but they have an impedance of 10 ohms, while my speakers and headphones have an output of respectively 6 and 44 ohms. Will they be ok for me or should I consider other options? In the second case, do you have any suggestions(possibly with jack/RCA, since my speaker don't have speaker wire input)? My budget is a bit under 200€ and be aware that not all the brands are available here in Italy.
A few more questions:
1- Should I consider buying separate DAC and amps or are they not worth for mostly using with stereo speakers?
2- I was looking at a review of the SMSL M6 on youtube and saw the reviewer plug its speaker output into another further amp, why is that? Do speakers benefit from using a second amp after the one included in the M6?
3- I own a Galaxy Note 8, would it be a problem if I used an RCA splitter to plug it into the AMP+DAC together with my pcor should I just plug it into the speakers without passing through the AMP?
4- Will an RCA splitter inputting into the DAC+AMP degrade sound quality? Also, if both sources play at the same time(using a mixer connected to the DAC), will my speakers get damaged(I read this somewhere online)?
Thanks to everyone that spent their time reading this and tooke their time to answer