Dac upgrade help

[VintageFlanker]

Your DAC, Headphones and cables are fine. Forget about upgrade that way. As I said in SP200 thread: your amp sucks.

If you can wait for its release (Planned for September): Topping L30. (Intended to cost 100 to 150USD)

If you cannot:

- JDS Lab Atom
- Schiit Magni Heresy

That's it.

 

[daftcombo]

Why don't you replace DAC+AMP by a Topping DX3 Pro?

 

[VintageFlanker]

Why don't you replace DAC+AMP by a Topping DX3 Pro?

Higher impedance (≈10ohms) of the DX3 rev2 could be an issue with either Meze 99C and V Moda M100.

 

[JediMa]

Your DAC, Headphones and cables are fine. Forget about upgrade that way. As I said in SP200 thread: your amp sucks.

If you can wait for its release (Planned for September): Topping L30. (Intended to cost 100 to 150USD)

If you cannot:

- JDS Lab Atom
- Schiit Magni Heresy

That's it.

I ordered an Atom yesterday

 

[VintageFlanker]

I ordered an Atom yesterday

Good. Your impressions will be welcomed!

 

[maverickronin]

Wow...

"You amp sucks"

"Upgrade your amp"

This place is turning into Head-Fi or something...

@JediMa
The Jazz is fine. It's not perfect, the other amps mentioned measure better, but unless you're running out of power/volume there's you won't actually hear a difference.

Also, IMO the Jazz's crossfeed is invaluable. It's a much larger contribution to headphone sound quality than something like 10 more inaudible dB of SINAD or 6dB more power.

 

[VintageFlanker]

This place place is turning into Head-Fi or something...

Nope, dude. We're just not turning emotional in front of an "amp" which is barely able reach only 31mW/300Ω...(Should be fine for the Meze or V-Moda, but leaves no room for HF improvements).

but unless you're running out of power/volume there's you won't actually hear a difference.

Perhaps. Or perhaps we should redefine audibility threshold of Distortion (Which I believe to start at 85dB/0.005% THD+N), that the Jazz can't achieve in THD+N Vs Power graphs? I don't know.

Also, IMO the Jazz's crossfeed is invaluable. It's a much larger contribution to headphone sound quality than something like 10 more inaudible dB of SINAD or 6dB more power.

Maybe. But we're not talking here about 10dB SINAD difference, but sometimes gaps up to 40dB (at 10mW/33Ω, for exemple). And so on.

 

[JediMa]

Somebody here also mentioned that I should reconsider my headphones set, I thought to have covered many possible features and combination but well i'm learning a lot in this forum so i'm ready to listen and opinion about them for future upgrades or replacements

 

[svenz]

Somebody here also mentioned that I should reconsider my headphones set, I thought to have covered many possible features and combination but well i'm learning a lot in this forum so i'm ready to listen and opinion about them for future upgrades or replacements

Headphones are very subjective since they are notoriously difficult to measure, and have many limitations compared to loudspeakers. So be careful what you read before blindly buying things.

With that disclaimer, I would personally just pick the most comfortable headphone first, with good acoustic performance second (especially imaging, imo), and then apply EQ to get it as close to speaker sound as possible (using https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wiki/index/list_of_presets or Sonarworks). I imagine your HE-560 or HD600 fit this bill pretty well. You don't really need a "selection" of headphones unless you just like to collect headphones. I found HD800s to be the best overall, and it's the only headphone I use nowadays after selling all the rest (apart from a pair of bose for working in noisy areas). Comfortable and the imaging is one of the best for headphones.

 

[JediMa]

Headphones are very subjective since they are notoriously difficult to measure, and have many limitations compared to loudspeakers. So be careful what you read before blindly buying things.

With that disclaimer, I would personally just pick the most comfortable headphone first, with good acoustic performance second (especially imaging, imo), and then apply EQ to get it as close to speaker sound as possible (using https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wiki/index/list_of_presets or Sonarworks). I imagine your HE-560 or HD600 fit this bill pretty well. You don't really need a "selection" of headphones unless you just like to collect headphones. I found HD800s to be the best overall, and it's the only headphone I use nowadays after selling all the rest (apart from a pair of bose for working in noisy areas). Comfortable and the imaging is one of the best for headphones.

Well You are right and so I just bought, tried, sent back few headphones till I got my little collection now. HD500 the reference ones and HE-560 to have a planar alternative (I personally love them...), the others are or a gift or for easy but good lisening (Meze) and AKG for Metal and Rock

I didn't know about the EQ so should I just get the pdf for my headphones and copy the eq values in my Foobar Eq?

 

[svenz]

Well You are right and so I just bought, tried, sent back few headphones till I got my little collection now. HD500 the reference ones and HE-560 to have a planar alternative (I personally love them...), the others are or a gift or for easy but good lisening (Meze) and AKG for Metal and Rock

I didn't know about the EQ so should I just get the pdf for my headphones and copy the eq values in my Foobar Eq?

Yeah you can copy the curve, or load the EQ APO file which is provided. I personally bought Sonarworks so I can use it on Linux as well, but I think the oratory profiles are very good (and probably more enjoyable than Sonarworks imo, since he tends to emphasize bass more). EQ should make the headphone frequency response more closely match what calibrated speakers in a treated room should sound like (within reason, given the issues with measuring headphones, and inherent limitations of headphones). Ofc some people like the natural headphone sound, and you can just stick with that if it's your preference - however accept that headphones simply can't create a linear response like speakers and will have to compromise a lot in certain areas, which is where EQ helps a bunch. I think headphones benefit even more from EQ than speakers, since you can do a lot more without having to worry about room acoustics.

Given my room is really hard to treat, my HD800 with EQ is probably the most neutral sounding thing I have despite having expensive Genelecs which cost much more than my entire headphone setup. They sound really great. As far as amp/dac goes that just needs to be audibly transparent and powerful enough, which is very affordable these days. Best to spend money and time on headphones and EQ to get the best sound.

 

[JediMa]

I got my JDS Labs ATOM today, I can tell that there's much more power than my Meier.

 

[JediMa]

Good. Your impressions will be welcomed!

OOOOOOOk.. .there's no compharison . I spent months to use HifiMan He560 on HI at 2:10 with Meier o.o From today I'm at 1:00 on LO with much more clear and full sound, they never sounded so well. You were just right

 

[JediMa]

And now wih the new amp, the dac sounds worse.. this is weird, it's like if the new amp is showing other hardware flaws

 

[M00ndancer]

the dac sounds worse..

I'm positive that it's not the DAC that's the problem.
Only way to be sure is a blind test. Could even be that you hear the flaws in the recordings now.