DAC and headphone amp with volume control for my desk

[IdahoJim]

Hi everyone. I think I am looking for a combination DAC and headphone amp. I'm starting to geek out on my sound systems at my desks at home and at work. At work I primarily listen on a pair of Sony WH-1000XM4s. The noise reduction does a great job on the constant air handler rumble at my desk. I listen to a lot of Radio Paradise, using their FLAC stream. I also listen to some Pandora and my own FLAC rips. Many years ago I was a live sound and recording engineer, so I can get kind of picky.

I used to listen a lot over Bluetooth using LDAC. The constant barrage of spam calls made me try just plugging them into my computer. There is a definite improvement. I get a bit frustrated with making minor volume adjustments. Volume adjustments on the PC are too course. I have a cheesy inline volume control, but the little wheel isn't conducive to minor volume adjustments. I started looking for a volume control/attenuator like the Behringer Monitor 1, but then started thinking, I could put that money towards a DAC/headphone amp.

So, with a budget of about $200, what would be a good solution for me? Will a DAC/headphone amp give me a noticeable improvement over the headphone output of my Dell tower PC? I want a nice volume knob for tweaking volume as I listen. Also, since this is for work, I probably can't install any drivers. The actual amp section probably isn't that important since my Sony headphones are active, although I switch things up every once in a while.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JIW]

Hi everyone. I think I am looking for a combination DAC and headphone amp. I'm starting to geek out on my sound systems at my desks at home and at work. At work I primarily listen on a pair of Sony WH-1000XM4s. The noise reduction does a great job on the constant air handler rumble at my desk. I listen to a lot of Radio Paradise, using their FLAC stream. I also listen to some Pandora and my own FLAC rips. Many years ago I was a live sound and recording engineer, so I can get kind of picky.

I used to listen a lot over Bluetooth using LDAC. The constant barrage of spam calls made me try just plugging them into my computer. There is a definite improvement. I get a bit frustrated with making minor volume adjustments. Volume adjustments on the PC are too course. I have a cheesy inline volume control, but the little wheel isn't conducive to minor volume adjustments. I started looking for a volume control/attenuator like the Behringer Monitor 1, but then started thinking, I could put that money towards a DAC/headphone amp.

So, with a budget of about $200, what would be a good solution for me? Will a DAC/headphone amp give me a noticeable improvement over the headphone output of my Dell tower PC? I want a nice volume knob for tweaking volume as I listen. Also, since this is for work, I probably can't install any drivers. The actual amp section probably isn't that important since my Sony headphones are active, although I switch things up every once in a while.

Thanks in advance.

Can you not connect to the computer via bluetooth? A good basic DAC with volume control is the Topping DX1. The SMSL DS100 is another candidate as well as the SMSL M300SE. No idea about improvements but the listed devices are well engineered. Maybe the PC output is as well maybe not.

 

[Somafunk]

A Topping DX3 dac/amp seems like to be what you’re after, available at $200 or less. You could perhaps buy something cheaper from the likes of Fosi audio or suchlike

 

[IdahoJim]

Can you not connect to the computer via bluetooth? A good basic DAC with volume control is the Topping DX1. The SMSL DS100 is another candidate as well as the SMSL M300SE. No idea about improvements but the listed devices are well engineered. Maybe the PC output is as well maybe not.

I can connect to the PC with Bluetooth, but I'm pretty sure that just uses the SBC codec instead of the LDAC I get using my Samsung phone. The sound quality is noticeably worse using Bluetooth with the computer vs the phone. However, hard-wired to either sounds better than Bluetooth using LDAC on my phone. Now I'm just trying to figure out if there will be a noticeable sound quality difference getting an inexpensive external DAC. If not, I'll save the money and buy the $35 passive volume controller/attenuator.

 

[DrSpan]

Hi everyone. I think I am looking for a combination DAC and headphone amp. I'm starting to geek out on my sound systems at my desks at home and at work. At work I primarily listen on a pair of Sony WH-1000XM4s. The noise reduction does a great job on the constant air handler rumble at my desk. I listen to a lot of Radio Paradise, using their FLAC stream. I also listen to some Pandora and my own FLAC rips. Many years ago I was a live sound and recording engineer, so I can get kind of picky.

I used to listen a lot over Bluetooth using LDAC. The constant barrage of spam calls made me try just plugging them into my computer. There is a definite improvement. I get a bit frustrated with making minor volume adjustments. Volume adjustments on the PC are too course. I have a cheesy inline volume control, but the little wheel isn't conducive to minor volume adjustments. I started looking for a volume control/attenuator like the Behringer Monitor 1, but then started thinking, I could put that money towards a DAC/headphone amp.

So, with a budget of about $200, what would be a good solution for me? Will a DAC/headphone amp give me a noticeable improvement over the headphone output of my Dell tower PC? I want a nice volume knob for tweaking volume as I listen. Also, since this is for work, I probably can't install any drivers. The actual amp section probably isn't that important since my Sony headphones are active, although I switch things up every once in a while.

Thanks in advance.

Your solution is simple as you just need a decent audio interface with a good headphone amp. Any decent interface of the present era has more than good enough D/A conversion. 1 example would be Rode Ai-1. Its much cheaper than your budget and has a powerful fantastic headphone amp regardless of price imho.
Or an Audient ID 14. Both of these i can recommend from the bottom of my heart