Hello, aloha and good day!
As the title already spoilers, with the extra time at home I got because of the coronavirus making it's global debut, I really started looking into Audio-"stuff" (again). Back in December 19' I went to visit some relatives and on the way there i was listening to music on my DT 990 Pro. At my relatives house he saw my headphones and asked me if I wanted to plug them into his HiFi combination sitting on his work desk. I nearly started to cry, listening to some music in FLAC quality (Never had anything like that equipment and used only simple Logitech speakers at home).
With the time at hand and at least some money to spend I went and checked for new speakers, read a lot of "superficial" reviews to a point where every piece of audio equipment seemed to be the best. By chance and in god's favor I found this forum.
I checked a lot of Amir's DAC reviews, read the thread where he described what the measuring and benchmarks and fancy graphs tell us and got pretty exited about digging deeper. From the fairy tale with the happy end to the dirty part now:
My Budget is limited. 200-300€, maybe up to 400 if it's a DAC that really is worth the extra buck.
From my point of view, the Topping DX3 Pro, D50s, Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, SMSL M500 and Aune X1s Pro are viable options. Regarding this post about using USB Interfaces as casual DACs, there may even be more options.
Q 1:Since the Presonus E5 (and the Presonus T10 Sub I'll consider for buying somewhat later) have XLR connectors. Is it usefull, even mandatory to go with a DAC that has balanced XLR outputs? Does it already benefit having those at this pricepoint? Googling about it said it was not pretty much necessary but didn't give me any convincing arguments, just "not necessary". If I can skip that XLR connector out, would be Cinch to XLR cable the preferred one or just directly going for the Cinch to Cinch connection?
Q 2:Regarding the reviews about SINAD-Score and for example the "ESS IMD hump", my question is if there is a "ranking" of some kind for those values. Having every test result in top notch performance is obviously the goal, but with budget constraints this is not possible in my case. My point beeing, do I go rather for a better SINAD score and accept for example the "ESS IMD hump" the Aune X1s Pro has? Do I go for the Topping DX3 Pro without the hump and a nice all around result but a lower SINAD score? It seems for each value there is an acceptable range but i couldn't it figure out on my own until now, where the left and right border for such a range might be.
Q 3: The headphoneamp would be the cherry on the cake. It does not have to be the state of the art, just enough to drive the Dt 990 headphones I own. Given this standard, should I rather go for a DAC only and headphone amp as two different devices or would be a combo unit just be enough for the task?
First of all, thanks for taking your time reading this text wall! All kinds of advice are appreciated. If you find absent information in my text, you feel you need to give any proper advice, feel free to ask.
Best wishes
As the title already spoilers, with the extra time at home I got because of the coronavirus making it's global debut, I really started looking into Audio-"stuff" (again). Back in December 19' I went to visit some relatives and on the way there i was listening to music on my DT 990 Pro. At my relatives house he saw my headphones and asked me if I wanted to plug them into his HiFi combination sitting on his work desk. I nearly started to cry, listening to some music in FLAC quality (Never had anything like that equipment and used only simple Logitech speakers at home).
With the time at hand and at least some money to spend I went and checked for new speakers, read a lot of "superficial" reviews to a point where every piece of audio equipment seemed to be the best. By chance and in god's favor I found this forum.
I checked a lot of Amir's DAC reviews, read the thread where he described what the measuring and benchmarks and fancy graphs tell us and got pretty exited about digging deeper. From the fairy tale with the happy end to the dirty part now:
My Budget is limited. 200-300€, maybe up to 400 if it's a DAC that really is worth the extra buck.
From my point of view, the Topping DX3 Pro, D50s, Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, SMSL M500 and Aune X1s Pro are viable options. Regarding this post about using USB Interfaces as casual DACs, there may even be more options.
Q 1:Since the Presonus E5 (and the Presonus T10 Sub I'll consider for buying somewhat later) have XLR connectors. Is it usefull, even mandatory to go with a DAC that has balanced XLR outputs? Does it already benefit having those at this pricepoint? Googling about it said it was not pretty much necessary but didn't give me any convincing arguments, just "not necessary". If I can skip that XLR connector out, would be Cinch to XLR cable the preferred one or just directly going for the Cinch to Cinch connection?
Q 2:Regarding the reviews about SINAD-Score and for example the "ESS IMD hump", my question is if there is a "ranking" of some kind for those values. Having every test result in top notch performance is obviously the goal, but with budget constraints this is not possible in my case. My point beeing, do I go rather for a better SINAD score and accept for example the "ESS IMD hump" the Aune X1s Pro has? Do I go for the Topping DX3 Pro without the hump and a nice all around result but a lower SINAD score? It seems for each value there is an acceptable range but i couldn't it figure out on my own until now, where the left and right border for such a range might be.
Q 3: The headphoneamp would be the cherry on the cake. It does not have to be the state of the art, just enough to drive the Dt 990 headphones I own. Given this standard, should I rather go for a DAC only and headphone amp as two different devices or would be a combo unit just be enough for the task?
First of all, thanks for taking your time reading this text wall! All kinds of advice are appreciated. If you find absent information in my text, you feel you need to give any proper advice, feel free to ask.
Best wishes
