Budget home studio DAC + AMP

[Dree]

Hi!

After reading pages and pages of posts I decided my doubts required a dedicated post so not to muddle other topics.

I am preparing a small home studio with no studio monitors (first because it would bother my family and second because I'm buying my new equipment during a short trip to the US and baggage space is super premium) so the initial buys are for the moment:

- pair of DT 770 80
- Interface (ADC) still undecided between Scarlett 2i2 or MOTU M2 or Audient id14
- Midi keyboard

Somehow I got into my head that using the interface for other things other to compose (actually inputting something through the interface) would not be nice because of sound quality issues and so I went down the rabbit hole of the Hi-Fi realm.

So the question is: do I even need to buy a DAC / AMP for my headphones? So far the ideas were the D10 / Khadas Board combined with a Magni 3+ / Heresy / Atom /
Liquid Spark or even a DAC/AMP combo like FiiO K5 / iFi Zen.

I apologize if it is a bit confusing but at the moment I am confused as well

Considering a DAC AMP setup would cost from USD 130 to 200 with those listed up there I have no idea how big a difference would it make.
I know this may be outside your area of expertise but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thank you in advance for the help.

Adriano

 

[thefsb]

Somehow I got into my head that using the interface for other things other to compose (actually inputting something through the interface) would not be nice because of sound quality issues and so I went down the rabbit hole of the Hi-Fi realm.

Simplify your life and climb back out of that rabbit hole. Get the Focusrite Scarlett. It will be very nice for listening purposes with good sound quality.

 

[Dree]

Thanks a lot!

Just to be sure:

Next steps for me seem to be a studio monitor (Presonus E3.5?) and a pair of open headphones for mixing (maybe a Fidelio X2HR or a hd650).

Scarlett should handle them well as well, right?

I'm now thinking of using the budget from DAC/AMP and get a second pair of headphones...

I sure am overwhelmed

 

[JohnYang1997]

Get a Scarlett and a pair of etymotic er2se. They will serve you much much better than any budget monitors with other expensive audio interfaces. And no other headphones for the price can come close to er2se. Interface tho, motu m4 should be better than Scarlett but it's a new product. Buy from local source where you can return if there's anything wrong with it.
You don't need any other amp or dac. The provided DAC and headphone amp is good enough.

 

[Dree]

Well I had not even considered IEMs. er2se do sound really tempting now. Thanks!

Would you buy a pair of ER2SE for $113.87 or ER3SE for $124.99?
11 $$$ don't seem like a big difference for a next tier

 

[JohnYang1997]

Well I had not even considered IEMs. er2se do sound really tempting now. Thanks!

Would you buy a pair of ER2SE for $113.87 or ER3SE for $124.99?
11 $$$ don't seem like a big difference for a next tier

Er2se is actually better. Or you can get er3se and get impedance adapter to get better high frequency response. Better still get the original er4s is also a good choice. But er2se is more forgiving in insertion depth, you will suffer a lot less with it.