Upgrading DAC and amp, need suggestions...
Feb 3, 2019 at 8:03 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 13

EYEdROP

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I hear DAC technology has come a long way in the past few years and I'm looking to upgrade since I just sold my old one.

Most of my headphones and speakers are reference monitor style sound. ER4, HE4xx, DT48, K701, etc..

After spending some time away from hi-fi, I grew an appreciation for a more organic and musical sound signature. Settled in with Denon AH-D series, Bose QuietComfort for portable use, etc... Great stuff for casual listening.

But now that Im listening critically again, I find my various reference monitors to sound thin and lifeless for the first 10 minutes until my brain gets used to the sound. Then they sound fantastic, as long as the room is dead quiet and your focusing hard.

I'm looking for a DAC and amp that will give my reference monitors life, but not necessarily warmth. Im actually NOT looking for more bass.

I just feel like they are missing a certain visceral pitch definition in the details. Everything in the track is there in spades, but you have to work hard with a scalpel for the magic to happen. Most laymen find their quick 10 second demo a snoozefest on my system.

I want a setup that will just pour effortless emotion out of the track (and not the fake kind of emotion like super tubey sounding tubes). An ever so slight smoothing effect and a gradual high frequency rolloff is what I think I need.

I want smoothing to take off some of the leading edge. And more important, add some real authority and visceral impact that makes details still pop despite the smoothing.

I guess I might want DSD right? I use Tidal and a collection of flac, sacd, etc...

Budget is wherever the law of diminishing returns starts to get dumb. Whether thats $100 or $1000, I have no idea nor care. I just dont wanna be a dumb audiophile.

And the amp. My friend is raving about this THX 789 amp I should get??

Please help me.
 
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Feb 4, 2019 at 6:23 AM Post #2 of 13
I'm looking for a DAC and amp that will give my reference monitors life, but not necessarily warmth. Im actually NOT looking for more bass.

I just feel like they are missing a certain visceral pitch definition in the details. Everything in the track is there in spades, but you have to work hard with a scalpel for the magic to happen. Most laymen find their quick 10 second demo a snoozefest on my system.

I want a setup that will just pour effortless emotion out of the track (and not the fake kind of emotion like super tubey sounding tubes). An ever so slight smoothing effect and a gradual high frequency rolloff is what I think I need.

I want smoothing to take off some of the leading edge. And more important, add some real authority and visceral impact that makes details still pop despite the smoothing.

What exactly are you using now? And just to be clear, by "reference monitors," do you mean active monitors or headphones?

Because what you're looking for has a lot more to do with whether the amplifier is supplying enough power so that you can listen at elevated volume levels where dynamics are more obvious but you still need more power for dynamic headroom (ie why you can get one weak amp to the same level as a powerful one on a 1000hz tone, but run actual music on it, or measure distortion and noise on the sinewave test, and you get to see where the weaker amp trailing behind the other amp).


Budget is wherever the law of diminishing returns starts to get dumb. Whether thats $100 or $1000, I have no idea nor care. I just dont wanna be a dumb audiophile.

And the amp. My friend is raving about this THX 789 amp I should get??

If you have a headphone and not active speakers, that's a candidate. But depending on what headphone that is maybe look into something like a Meier Corda Rock FF or a Jazz FF given what you're looking for, and just use something like a JDS Labs DAC with it.


I guess I might want DSD right? I use Tidal and a collection of flac, sacd, etc...

The recording and mastering will matter more than whether you're using anything more than 16/44.1 lossless.
 
Feb 4, 2019 at 6:32 AM Post #3 of 13
I hear DAC technology has come a long way in the past few years and I'm looking to upgrade since I just sold my old one.

Most of my headphones and speakers are reference monitor style sound. ER4, HE4xx, DT48, K701, etc..

After spending some time away from hi-fi, I grew an appreciation for a more organic and musical sound signature. Settled in with Denon AH-D series, Bose QuietComfort for portable use, etc... Great stuff for casual listening.

But now that Im listening critically again, I find my various reference monitors to sound thin and lifeless for the first 10 minutes until my brain gets used to the sound. Then they sound fantastic, as long as the room is dead quiet and your focusing hard.

I'm looking for a DAC and amp that will give my reference monitors life, but not necessarily warmth. Im actually NOT looking for more bass.

I just feel like they are missing a certain visceral pitch definition in the details. Everything in the track is there in spades, but you have to work hard with a scalpel for the magic to happen. Most laymen find their quick 10 second demo a snoozefest on my system.

I want a setup that will just pour effortless emotion out of the track (and not the fake kind of emotion like super tubey sounding tubes). An ever so slight smoothing effect and a gradual high frequency rolloff is what I think I need.

I want smoothing to take off some of the leading edge. And more important, add some real authority and visceral impact that makes details still pop despite the smoothing.

I guess I might want DSD right? I use Tidal and a collection of flac, sacd, etc...

Budget is wherever the law of diminishing returns starts to get dumb. Whether thats $100 or $1000, I have no idea nor care. I just dont wanna be a dumb audiophile.

And the amp. My friend is raving about this THX 789 amp I should get??

Please help me.
There is no such thing as dumb audiophile, there are just richer phil’s than others and don’t let that effect you. The number one component is the source or server for quality. This is where the money gets silly but the utility become emmense. Course you need a dac that will benefit from this source an amp to bloom this signal, cables and phones to let you enjoy this. So up the budget, blowyour brains out, avoid churn, good luck. When you realize your feet are in the fire, unsubscribe. Cheers
 
Feb 4, 2019 at 8:34 AM Post #4 of 13
When I say reference monitors, I mean it in a sort of generic way (although I did have some active monitors at one point and intending to use the DAC in my future listening room).

I listen primarily to headphones, usually the ER4-SR (despite being a portable). It seems to be the most timbre accurate and doesn't follow a typical heavy DF response.

Just came from an old JDS labs ODAC amp combo. I liked the performance but felt like the setup was missing an organic "live" quality.

Looking around more, maybe the topping D10 plus that THX amp might be a good combo?
 
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Feb 4, 2019 at 8:47 AM Post #5 of 13
When I say reference monitors, I mean it in a sort of generic way (although I did have some active monitors at one point).

Reason why I asked is because if it happens to be an active monitor then it's even less likely that a DAC will help; if it's a headphone, it can be due to the amp. You could use more power, if not also a lower output impedance depending on the headphone's nominal impedance, because depending on what you're plugging it into you could make an already somewhat flat response headphone sound boring or seemingly exciting but if you listened carefully it has some distortion, like bloated bass for example with too long trailing edges on the notes.


I listen primarily to headphones, usually the ER4-SR (despite being a portable). It seems to be the most timbre accurate and doesn't follow a typical heavy DF response.

It's practically as flat as it can get from 2000hz down, then trails off above that.

If you've been plugging it into a smartphone then yeah, you could probably benefit from more clean power. 98dB/1mW even with the aid of noise isolation can get loud but still not exactly something effortless to drive for a smartphone audio chip.


Just came from an old JDS labs ODAC amp combo. I liked the performance but felt like the setup was missing an organic "live" quality.

Looking around more, maybe the topping D10 plus that THX amp might be a good combo?

That sound you're looking for is probably more likely in the Meier Rock FF or Jazz FF.
 
Feb 4, 2019 at 9:09 AM Post #6 of 13
RME ADI-2 DAC
this is all you need
 
Feb 4, 2019 at 9:59 AM Post #7 of 13
Wow guys, some real solid recommendations coming in. I just love head-fi. Its good to be back in the game!

I'm tapping my toes to some Steely Dan master's on Tidal with my QC35 right now, soaking up that warm inviting energy and loving it. But there is a hard limit in how much detail they can extract, and tilted a bit too dark. Just a big mess. But remain convincing in some ways. Like an in-person experience covered by a thick blanket. My Denon were very similar in that regard.

I think you guys are right that getting a very powerful amplifier may just be the ticket to better dynamics. I also own a pair of orthodynamic HE400 (i think 4xx?) that sounded lifeless unless it was plugged into the ODAC amp. So I guess I should go beefy!

That RME interface looks amazing. The fact that it has an ADC as well is useful to me (im a musician). I kind of question its headphone amplifier output vs the Meier products?

Checking out reviews now...
 
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Feb 4, 2019 at 10:24 AM Post #8 of 13
That RME interface looks amazing. The fact that it has an ADC as well is useful to me (im a musician). I kind of question its headphone amplifier output vs the Meier products?

Checking out reviews now...

0.1ohm output impedance. It has 1.5W output on the 6.3mm output, 40mW on the 3.5mm output.

If anything, it doesn't state what impedance those are. Safe to assume probably 32ohm...but that sitll leaves you with how much power output is at 300ohm. Just for an example, the RHead does 1300mW at 32ohms, but drops to 130mW at 300ohms; the Asgard does 1000mW and 250mW. If you don't have any high impedance headphones or anything that needs more than 1500mW though that's not really a problem.

That said...for that price you have other options. Like Violectric. Or Meier.
 
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Feb 4, 2019 at 10:24 AM Post #9 of 13
My suggestion would be: Massdrop x Alex Cavalli Liquid Carbon X amp, built by the founder of Cavalli Audio—a legend in the world of headphone amps. For the DAC section, it uses the Massdrop x Grace Design Standard DAC (or SDAC), a collaboration with a company long known for its incredibly accurate, transparent studio gear.

Liquid Carbon X + SDAC DAC/Amp
 
Feb 5, 2019 at 9:36 AM Post #10 of 13
Since I use Tidal alot, should I buy a DAC that does MQA? After some research, it seems like DSD might be a dying format because it's not streamable. And streaming seems like the new default, most popular format to me. Last time I was at head-fi meet, 90% was streaming Tidal or Spotify. Zero vinyl.

I hope Tidal sticks around...
 
Feb 5, 2019 at 10:29 AM Post #11 of 13
Buy a used Starting Point Systems battery NOS dac TDA 1543 at low price like me and upgrading will be thing of the past...Rightly implemented no defects to my ears and for my system...My advice is dont pay too much,look for the low cost better product....For my dac the minimalistic design with internal battery that I drive with an external battery is the key...The other advice is : any product at any price will be sounding at his optimal or bad relatively to the level of noise in your audio system and in the house electrical grid, then it is more important to clean all that than buying a 10,000 dollars dac for example...Audio is illusion if you read advertising without thinking first... I apologize for my rant,but that is my experience...I wish you the best ...
 
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May 4, 2019 at 10:42 AM Post #12 of 13
OP Update: New setup is Etymotic ER4SR, SMSL SU-8 DAC, Loxjie P20, some Russian PAHNO 6H3NE tubes, a $50 balanced cable and adapter. Full balanced and plenty of watts.

Sure as hell, there is a massive leap in performance in every area of performance, especially low level detail, dynamics, and pitch intelligibility.

Even though the Ety's are little IEM's, they still appreciate a strong amp and good synergy. I'm getting that really nice, expensive hi-fi sound out of this setup. Reminds me of the multi-thousand dollar stuff at the meets...
 
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May 4, 2019 at 12:20 PM Post #13 of 13
Now try your setup with upper mid-fi IEMs like the IE PP8 and you'll definitely reach an insane level of performance that you've never thought possible with an IEM. That 8 BA IEM is like Ety's on steroids
 

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