Amp for Focal Clear MG+ and active monitors (pre-amp or passthrough?)

[sakujou]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for a headphone amp to use with my Focal Clear MG Pro headphones and JBL LSR305P MKII active monitors.
So far I have been using this setup:

SMSL M8A DAC
Schiit Magni (not sure which version, got it in 2018) for headphones.

I'm manually switching cables out of the DAC depending on what I wanna use - headphones or speakers.
You ask why - I believe the Magni pre-out when connected to the JBLs is colouring the sound in an unpleasant way, compared to when I connect the JBLs directly to the DAC and use the volume control on the back of the speakers. It could be placebo, because I had tested the Magni in the past as a pre-amp in my other stereo setup and it sounded worse than all other pre-amps I had back then. But yeah, in general I don't think I'm satisfied with the Magni as a pre-amp.
But another big reason to look for a new amp is that the Magni will go in my 2nd headphone setup, so I need a main headphone for my Focal Clears.
I also got a Gustard H10 which sounded great, but is now sent for repair because of cracking noises (1st technician I sent it to wasn't able to repair it).

So now I'm looking for (preferably a budget) headphone amp and I still wonder if I should go with one that has passthrough so that I can continue using the volume control on the speakers. But that is not super convenient tbh and in the future if I decide to switch to other active monitors that don't have volume control it obviously wouldn't work. (unless I got for a DAC with a pre-function, but I don't want to consider this option right now)

So ideally the headphone amp would have some/most of these features:

- measure well
- be powerful enough so that I'm future proof for potential hungry planars
- have balanced input now (in case I switch to a DAC with balanced output)
- has balanced headphone output
- has transparent pre-amp functionality that doesn't colour the sound when used with active speakers
- has balanced pre-map output
- remote control
- stepped relay volume control
- separate/flexible volume control for headphone out vs pre-amp out

There are so many options out there that I'm a bit lost at this point.
My main worry is the pre-amp functionality and if it would be really transparent. What are your thoughts on this matter?

I'm willing to compromise, since I still wonder how much should I spend and obviously I can't meet all of the requirements from my list in a lower budget.

So I'm considering Topping L50, A30 Pro, Monoprice THX 887, Drop THX 789 as passthrough no pre-amp options and Topping L30, A50, L70, A90, Sabaj A10h, JDS Labs Atom+ and Schiit Magnius as pre-amp ready options. I'm sure there are some good options from SMSL as well, so I would probably investigate them as well.

Advice would be most appreciated.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I would not recommend using JBL 305s with anything other than balanced input, unless you are a fan of all kinds of additional noise. They're quite notorious for that. Really, the complete analog audio path between a PC and them (or any other monitors of their ilk, for that matter) should be balanced, or else ground loop issues are virtually a given. This may be accounting for the issues that you encountered.

I would suggest looking at DAC/HPAs like Topping EX5 and DX5, or SMSL M500 MKII perhaps. Those look like pretty much exactly what you need - balanced output for monitors plus a good headphone amp section with volume control and a remote, and good measurements of course. And if 1.6-1.8 W into 32 ohms still isn't powerful enough, you can run their outputs into an external amp as required (even an L30 II is not a slouch @ 2.7 W into 32 ohms, the upgrade to an A30Pro would even get you 5.5 W into 32 ohms though you'd need a funky adapter cable coming from balanced headphone output to 2x TRS to avoid ground loops, and the THX 789 can do 6 W on the balanced output). This way, your budget only needs to be stretched as far as needed.

 

[sakujou]

Thank you for the response and recommendations.
I don't have any ground loop issues with the JBLs. I connect them with RCA to balanced cable, so basically unbalanced.

A ground loops is easily identifiable and it's for sure different to how the sound changes when I use the Schiit Magni as a pre-amp (it just limits the dynamics, mostly the bass and the sound overall becomes noticeably more grainy, compared to when just using the DAC, without the Magni as preamp).

The noise floor on the JBLs is definitely not great, but that doesn't bother me that much and again, it's different than a ground loop.

In any case, I have ordered 2 Sabaj amps - A10h and A20h. They were super cheap on hifiexpress so I thought I try them out. The A10h should fit the bill and work in my Focal Clear and JBL monitors setup. Hopefully it's pre-amp will be better than the Schiit's. The Focals are pretty easy to drive, so any amp should be fine with them, though to be honest, I quite liked how they sounded with my now dead Gustard H10. Unfortunately, I couldn't find another class A headphone amp for a modest price that has all the features I need.

The A20h doesn't have any pre-amp or passthrough capabilities, but I just wanna try it out. I doubt I would hear any difference, especially with the Focals but I wanna try a balanced amp (not expecting a difference really). And it might work well in my 2nd setup if I decide to keep my LCD-2's where the extra juice from the A20h might work well cause of the EQ the LCD-2s need to sound any good.

I will report here when I receive the amps and try them out. Or I might write in their official threads.

Thanks for the info and help!

 

[JeremyFife]

miniDSP Flex into Class D amp i.e. DAC + DSP (to correct for room and speaker issues). I could use the DSP to add colour, but I don't want to