[soumendra]

Hi, fellow head-fi-ers! I have a pair of 150OHM cans. The Sennheiser HD6 MIX, to be precise. They have a flat sound sig, look good and are well built. They are closed back headphones, so they do not leak much sound, making them ideal for the situation I am in : I have a room-mate in my college hostel. Recently, I got the FiiO E12 and they "amp the details" pretty well. But the story does not end here : the E12 has no dac. I have some more money left for a dac. The thing is, I live in India and there are only very few options when it comes to buying DACs or Amps here. Used / refurbished items are rare in amazon India or any other such Indian website for that matter, so getting used / refurb-ed units for experimenting is not an option. Please help me choose from these options based on SQ ( yes, these are the ONLY sub 220$ ones available here in India rn ) :
 
1. FiiO E18
2. FiiO E10K
3. FiiO E07K
4. FiiO E17K ( unlike the E17, this does NOT have optical toslink input but claims to support 96kHz/32bit and DSD decoding over USB )
5. Audioquest dragonfly v1.2 ( highly rated but does not support 192kHz/24bit )
6. Audioengine D3 ( rated very high but does not support 192kHz/24bit )
7. Stoner Acoustics UD120 **
8. a bunch of HifimeDIY dacs
9. some Muse dacs
10. Behringer UCA202
11. some ASUS dacs
12. some Creative dacs
 
** A note on the stoner acoustics UD120 : they claim that this supports a ****load of sampling rates and bit depths and though technically not available in India, it won't cost me much to get this imported from Malaysia. This sports TI's ( Burr Brown ) flagship DAC PCM5102A : the 1000$ Woo Audio W7 firefly uses the same DAC. Also, the UD120 is really small, costs less and is nicely built. But still, reviewers don't refrain from saying things like "it's the best dac WITHIN THAT PRICE LIMIT". So my question is, how does this compare to, say, the Audioquest dragonfly v1.2 when it comes to SQ? Where do such cheap units lag behind? The circuitry? But as far as I know, the UD120 just has the bare essentials when it comes to circuitry, so there is nothing it should go wrong at. Yes, I agree that maybe ( ?? ) it does not amp the sound but then I have my E12 for that. Finally, the output impedance of the UD120 is a whopping 470OHM, so that seems to be a drawback, doesn't it? I mean, I am going to use my E12 in a chain with it, but still... does anyone have any idea regarding this? And if you do, then please tell me how the Audioquest DF v1.2 compares to the UD120. Is it even safe to pair the UD120 with the E12, along with my 150OHM headphones in the chain? I mean, it won't damage any of the components, or even my ears for that matter, if I put them in a chain, will it?
 
Also, please tell me if 192kHz/24bit support matters a lot ( assume that I got loads of 192kHz/24bit files ).
 
Can anyone rank the 12 ( or some of the 12 ) options that I listed above? Is Audioengine D3 the best among them if I ignore 192kHz/24bit support? I somehow get the idea that it is, judging from all those reviews and comparisons that I read on the internet.
 
Thanks,
\m/

 

[cel4145]

[COLOR=333333]Also, please tell me if 192kHz/24bit support matters a lot ( assume that I got loads of 192kHz/24bit files ).[/COLOR]

If you listen to regular CDs, mp3s, or Apple store music files, you won't need that kind of support. Standard is 44.1 kHz/16 bit.

With your budget and since you already have a headphone amp, I'd see if an ODAC is available:

https://www.jdslabs.com/products/39/odac-objectivedac/
http://epiphany-acoustics.co.uk/products-page/dacs/e-dac-24bit-miniature-usb-dac/

The ODAC is considered by many head-fiers to be one of the best DACs for the money. It's an open source design that various vendors make and sell, so could be it is available in India to you or on Ebay for reasonable shipping. For instance, here JDS Lab's version being sold in Japan with worldwide shipping: http://www.ebay.com/itm/JDSLABS-JDS-LABS-ODAC-RCA-type-USB-digital-to-analog-converter-Black-/301669731590

 

[badmojo]

Soumendra, I'm kinda in the same boat now as you were, did you go with the UD120? or did you spring for the ODAC? if you did get the UD120, impressions?

 

[money4me247]

massdrop has a pretty sweet deal for the odac and/or o2 amp and/or o2-odac combo if you are shopping budget dacs & amps.
 
if you are looking for pure value (aka lowest price point with high performance), I personally think the stoner acoustic dacs are really nice. hifimediy also really similar price point, but shipping costs a bit high.
 
the creative e5 is pretty neat with some niffy extra features. if those features are interesting for you, it is a pretty cool option.
 
I would say don't worry about higher sampling rates & bit depth unless you already own an extensive collection in that format. it doesn't really improve sound quality. often the sonic differences are just due to using different masters of the recording.

 

[badmojo]

actually saw that, thanks tho. read somewhere that the ODAC+O2 combo altho designed to be reference/analytical can still be somewhat bright, which is one of the reasons I have not sprung for it yet. Since my current primary phones are the DUNU DN-1000 which are already somewhat bright, looking for a warmer DAC or DAC/AMP to pair with. Also considering the Schitt M&M... decisions decisions, guess I'll do more reading first.

 

[money4me247]

  actually saw that, thanks tho. read somewhere that the ODAC+O2 combo altho designed to be reference/analytical can still be somewhat bright, which is one of the reasons I have not sprung for it yet. Since my current primary phones are the DUNU DN-1000 which are already somewhat bright, looking for a warmer DAC or DAC/AMP to pair with. Also considering the Schitt M&M... decisions decisions, guess I'll do more reading first.

can look at a budget tube amp like the bravo v1/v2/v3/ocean.

 

[badmojo]

  can look at a budget tube amp like the bravo v1/v2/v3/ocean.

thats not a bad idea at all actually. never ventured into tube amps before, so far have only been a solid-state bloke. could be this is the time. was hoping to get away with a cheap DAC as a stop gap since I already have a custom made CMOY by that Latvian Ebayer. He did a really nice job too. 
are you an IEM user?

 

[money4me247]

  thats not a bad idea at all actually. never ventured into tube amps before, so far have only been a solid-state bloke. could be this is the time. was hoping to get away with a cheap DAC as a stop gap since I already have a custom made CMOY by that Latvian Ebayer. He did a really nice job too. 
are you an IEM user?

I have a few. really mostly for portable usage though, so paired with my ha-2.