If you have easy to drive headphones or IEMs then a smartphone output or dongle is fine. With hard to drive headphones a smartphone DAC will still be fine but you may well benefit from a dedicated amplifier. However unless you have a real outlier it's unlikely that you will need 100's of mW, well not if you want to retain hearing. I wish I had a pound for every person who has told me that they bought a DAC/amp based on reviews (including objective ones using measurement) and found it made no difference
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Are a dac and an headphone amplifier really worth it vs my phone ?
- Thread starter Vincetot
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posvibes
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Because we are in a long lock down my wife is working from home so the opportunity to listen to music via my speakers in the front room are few and far between. So I have been listening primarily on headphones via my computer and my Topping stack and Peace eq.
But lately my laziness has grown and I have been using headphones with my Sim less Redmi Android Phone and my Apple Mini-12 listening to Spotify directly via my headphones. The headphones I use are recommended by Amir and IIRC he made small recommendations to changes in their EQ for best results, but I have even foregone this and listen to them straight.
From a subjective point of view I think the Apple phone sounds better but I am limited to using that device with the Bose QC35ii's in Bluetooth mode.
The other HP's I use are the HiFiMan HE400i, the AKG371 and Sennheiser 650's from Drop. All perform brilliantly and I'd be happy with any of them if I had to be limited to one set, although I think the AKG371's really do shine in my preference. I am surprised that both phones over WiFi offer real quality sound that in such small packages.
But I do miss my speakers in the front room and playing music in an open space.
But lately my laziness has grown and I have been using headphones with my Sim less Redmi Android Phone and my Apple Mini-12 listening to Spotify directly via my headphones. The headphones I use are recommended by Amir and IIRC he made small recommendations to changes in their EQ for best results, but I have even foregone this and listen to them straight.
From a subjective point of view I think the Apple phone sounds better but I am limited to using that device with the Bose QC35ii's in Bluetooth mode.
The other HP's I use are the HiFiMan HE400i, the AKG371 and Sennheiser 650's from Drop. All perform brilliantly and I'd be happy with any of them if I had to be limited to one set, although I think the AKG371's really do shine in my preference. I am surprised that both phones over WiFi offer real quality sound that in such small packages.
But I do miss my speakers in the front room and playing music in an open space.
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