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Amp+DAC for HD800s? Are they really that differnet?

f1shb0n3

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Guys, I wanted fro thank you all for guiding me through my purchase decision. My RME arrived last Friday and I’m very happy with my purchase. Even though I initially bought it for my HD800s (and it was way above my budget as a headphone amp) but now I have been also using it for my stereo system (with KEF LS50). The power of having a good EQ cannot just be explained just by words. For many years, I thought EQing is a bad thing and would ruin the music by making it “fake” or “unrealistic”, but after reading a few articles lately and joining this forum, I realized that contrary to the conventional wisdom EQing is a good thing to do. Now the difference (and improvement) that I hear after EQing, is something that I previously thought I could obtain only through upgrading my amp to a very expensive pre-amp+amp (that could have cost me above 10k), not by simply adding an EQ. The next step for me is to soon, purchase a “good enough” and “natural” power amp to replace my Yamaha NR-602 and use my RME as a pre-amp.
Your post should go in a "feedback from satisfied customers hall of fame" section of the forum, this is the eureka moment after accepting that the objective measurements are more credible than the forest of anecdotal subjective opinions floating around.
Very happy for you! I know from experience now your audio journey will go on a steep upwards hill of actual improvements in fidelity and experience with audio.

As for amplifier - yours might be somewhat sufficient, but here are ASR's "standard recommendations":
  • TPA3255-based amplifier, AIYIMA A07 being one measured by Amir - this one does not do many watts, but it's clean and cheap.
  • HypeX NCore, Buckeye has the most affordable propositions, also measured.
  • Purifi 1ET400A, many manufacturers, measurements.
Note that the amplifiers listed above won't sound much different if you compare them properly - I'm playing around with that right now at my thread. I'm not hearing any appreciable differences (other than significant difference in noise) between Onkyo AVR Class AB and a top-measuring Class D Purifi 1ET400A after properly volume matching. That makes the HypeX a great option btw - clean power is essentially what you want from an amp and NC502MP delivers a ton of it. With that you can consider the amplifier problem solved for any speakers that you might ever upgrade to, with inaudible distortion and noise, with cool and efficient operation, for even the "largest towers" or "most insensitive bookshelfs".
 
OP
Mehdiem

Mehdiem

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Your post should go in a "feedback from satisfied customers hall of fame" section of the forum, this is the eureka moment after accepting that the objective measurements are more credible than the forest of anecdotal subjective opinions floating around.
Very happy for you! I know from experience now your audio journey will go on a steep upwards hill of actual improvements in fidelity and experience with audio.

As for amplifier - yours might be somewhat sufficient, but here are ASR's "standard recommendations":
  • TPA3255-based amplifier, AIYIMA A07 being one measured by Amir - this one does not do many watts, but it's clean and cheap.
  • HypeX NCore, Buckeye has the most affordable propositions, also measured.
  • Purifi 1ET400A, many manufacturers, measurements.
Note that the amplifiers listed above won't sound much different if you compare them properly - I'm playing around with that right now at my thread. I'm not hearing any appreciable differences (other than significant difference in noise) between Onkyo AVR Class AB and a top-measuring Class D Purifi 1ET400A after properly volume matching. That makes the HypeX a great option btw - clean power is essentially what you want from an amp and NC502MP delivers a ton of it. With that you can consider the amplifier problem solved for any speakers that you might ever upgrade to, with inaudible distortion and noise, with cool and efficient operation, for even the "largest towers" or "most insensitive bookshelfs".

Thanks for your reply. Purifi seems an interesting choice. As you mentioned, I actually want something that can handle my future speaker upgrades, which most likely will be floor standing. I am contemplating (BW 702 S2 or KEF R7 in the near future, and after a few years 803 D4 or KEF Reference 3). I was wondering if I don't pursue the DIY path at this time (to avoid some hassle and other personal reasons), what would be a commercially made "brand" amps that I can get to be equally as good as the above options? For example, Benchmark, NAD, PS-Audio or any other brand that I don't know? I understand that I need to pay a premium for this and the quality is not supposed to be any better than DIY. Having said that I believe, even if pay a premium for a "respected" commercial brand I will get good residual value, so I can sell it a few years down the road when I want to switch my path to DIY. Let me know your thoughts?
 

f1shb0n3

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what would be a commercially made "brand" amps that I can get to be equally as good as the above options? For example, Benchmark, NAD, PS-Audio or any other brand that I don't know?
Most commercially available “brand name” amps are fine and as I mentioned probably indistinguishable in comparison. I myself have a “bias” towards good engineering and excellent measurements, even if inaudible so I prefer Purifi-based amps for my best listening setups.

NAD C298 is good Purifi based power amp that has variable gain (useful) and also is one of the few Purifi amps that can be bridged to get 4x power (!) so you can turn it to a mono bridged amp and buy another if you ever (unlikely) need more power.

NAD M33 is an amazing integrated all in on amp, streamer which does Dirac Live room correction and can also integrate your subs, a great (and expensive) system-in-box.

There are many other “smaller” manufacturers that have good Purifi offerings like March Audio, Apollon, boXem Audio, Audiophonics, etc. so you have plenty of choice.

As for residual value, I think any of the above mentioned would have a good “residual value”, even here at the forum such amps are being often offered and sold at 20% off or so from purchase price. You won’t need to ever sell it though, as you won’t need to upgrade from it :)
 
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Mehdiem

Mehdiem

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Most commercially available “brand name” amps are fine and as I mentioned probably indistinguishable in comparison. I myself have a “bias” towards good engineering and excellent measurements, even if inaudible so I prefer Purifi-based amps for my best listening setups.

NAD C298 is good Purifi based power amp that has variable gain (useful) and also is one of the few Purifi amps that can be bridged to get 4x power (!) so you can turn it to a mono bridged amp and buy another if you ever (unlikely) need more power.

NAD M33 is an amazing integrated all in on amp, streamer which does Dirac Live room correction and can also integrate your subs, a great (and expensive) system-in-box.

There are many other “smaller” manufacturers that have good Purifi offerings like March Audio, Apollon, boXem Audio, Audiophonics, etc. so you have plenty of choice.

As for residual value, I think any of the above mentioned would have a good “residual value”, even here at the forum such amps are being often offered and sold at 20% off or so from purchase price. You won’t need to ever sell it though, as you won’t need to upgrade from it :)

Awesome! NAD C298 sounds really good to me, as I can add the 2nd one as a monoblock a few years down the road when I upgraded to a bigger floor-standing speaker. I am planning to do the room correction using REW, as recommended by fellows here. And I have my RME as a preamp/EQ and Node as a streamer. This way I can always upgrade any of these individual components, as opposed to sticking to an integrated choice.
Also, I'm from Canada, and "supporting" "Canadian brand".
This forum is amazing! What I really appreciate is that this new perspective (scientific as opposed to guru-based) offloading some pressure of my mind (as I'm a perfectionist and usually experience anxiety at the time of purchase).
 

Sequitur

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Bumping this because I have a similar question. Like the original poster, I have the Sen HD800. I'm using a USB Dragonfly Red and a Mac desktop for streaming and digital audio. The HD800 sound great. But do I need, or would it really help if I had, a more powerful amp for the HD800, over and above the Dragonfly USB DAC (which apparently outputs at 2.1 volt and 135 mW)?

After doing some research here, it appears many people like moderately priced headphone DAC/Amp combos, such as the Topping DX3 Pro+. Would an entry-level Topping DAC/Amp be a noticeable, major improvement over the USB DAC, or would the improvement be minimal? Also note, don't use any physical media (no vinyl, no CDs, no tapes, no turntable, nothing but digital and streams), just a desktop Mac. Not sure if that matters, but including it because it may simplify the answer.
 

datle171095

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Bumping this because I have a similar question. Like the original poster, I have the Sen HD800. I'm using a USB Dragonfly Red and a Mac desktop for streaming and digital audio. The HD800 sound great. But do I need, or would it really help if I had, a more powerful amp for the HD800, over and above the Dragonfly USB DAC (which apparently outputs at 2.1 volt and 135 mW)?

After doing some research here, it appears many people like moderately priced headphone DAC/Amp combos, such as the Topping DX3 Pro+. Would an entry-level Topping DAC/Amp be a noticeable, major improvement over the USB DAC, or would the improvement be minimal? Also note, don't use any physical media (no vinyl, no CDs, no tapes, no turntable, nothing but digital and streams), just a desktop Mac. Not sure if that matters, but including it because it may simplify the answer.
If you are doing EQ, you will need much more power (With the 800s, right now I am pumping it with 10dB bass boost) the Dragon just simply can not provide enough power.
But the answer is NO if you do not use EQ and the volume is enough for you.
 

solderdude

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Dragonfly USB DAC (which apparently outputs at 2.1 volt and 135 mW)?

The Dragonfly can only supply 15mW into the HD800 (max 110dB peak = comfortable loud)

When you never play near full volume and don't feel the need to play louder there is no reason to upgrade.
Or when you want a bit more low bass you may also need more power.
When it leaves you wanting to play louder you should buy something that is considerable more powerful
 

Sequitur

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Thanks for both answers. Hearing is good; right now the HD800 are plenty loud with just the Dragonfly. No desire for EQ, simply want to plug and play.
 

paudio

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Does the blue sound node support bluetooth/LDAC? One could use a Qudelix 5K which has a great EQ and decent power. It seems the node supports some usb dacs too? Not sure if the 5K would work plugged into USB or not on there. But different than a desktop stack but you'd have the freedom to move around with your HD800S. Desktop I would say RME as others already have.
 

Svperstar

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There are many people simply using the HD800S without any EQ and are happy. There are also people that hate the HD800.

I recently picked up a used HD800 running off an RME ADI-2, the previous owner installed the SDR mod, I removed it. I am not using RMEs built in EQ I use Equalizer APO for that. I do have the B/T feature set to toggle a +6 db bass - 2 db treble just for fun if I want it to be bassier.

I prefer the HD800 without the SDR mod. It sounds great to me, voices sounded much clearer when I removed the mod. There is a group of people who say the HD800s "ruined" the HD800. I won't go that far as I haven't heard the HD800s but the HD800 sounds great to me out of the box with a little software EQ
 

IXOYE

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I use RME ADI-2 DAC with my HD800s and it's headphone Nirvana.
 

Pendel

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I have a low serial number HD800S Made in Germany, which I run with RME ADI-2 DAC FS. Took a while to get the EQ right, but once I did there was no going back. Here is what I use:
BB 10 at 87 with 0.7
B1 12 at 68 with 1.4
B2 2 at 900 with 0.5
B3 8 at 3200 with 0.5
B4 -7.5 at 4600 with 0.8
B5 -2 at 6100 with 1.4
BT -0.5 at 10000 with 1.5
This is just perfect for my ears, with clean and engaging, dynamic sound.
I listen to a fairly eclectic mix, from US3, Black Keys, Alman Brothers and Bonamassa to Radiohead, Cowboy Junkies, Shins, Jayhawks, Tiger Lilies and Wilco to Marc Knoffler, Natalie Merchant, Macy Gray and Nora Jones to Alexis FFrench, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Chet Baker to Shostakovich, Ravel, and Satie. As long as the recording is good, the HD800S with this tuning are wonderful, beating out my Arya’s v2 to be most listened to. For lesser quality recordings Arya’s are more forgiving.
 
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