Please help me find a DAC/AMP for Hifiman Edition XS? Topping DX3 Pro+ distorts and nearly blew up!

[rieku123]

Hello everyone,

I am struggling to find a suitable AMP/DAC for my Hifiman Edition XS. I recently purchased a Topping DX3 Pro+ and encountered a weird issue. When testing out the headphone's bass capabilities at loud volume, the headphone started making this loud clicking noise which made me lower the volume immediately. After testing the headphones out at a very loud volume (unrealistic volume, but still listenable) with a bass-heavy song, I heard loud distortion and then the Topping straight-up turned off and displayed a "Headphone Error" message. After pulling the plug out and in, the Topping is back to normal but I am not trying that out again. My firmware and drivers are the latest. Are my cans damaged by this experience?

Do you guys have any recommendations around the £200 GBP mark for an AMP DAC combo, I am open to anything, AIOs, stacks, mix and match, the whole lot. Just the most bang-for-buck that are suitable for these headphones.

Thanks!

Rieku

 

[inscythe]

You can try Fiio K5 Pro ESS at that price. You'll lose some functions like BT, but I think it'll perform better in your scenario.

 

[antcollinet]

Is it possible you pushed the drivers in the cans to limits - hitting the end stops. I had that on a sub once, the noise was horrific.

 

[muslhead]

Is it possible you pushed the drivers in the cans to limits - hitting the end stops. I had that on a sub once, the noise was horrific.

Very likely this.

 

[Yxzj]

You can try Fiio K5 Pro ESS at that price.

I'm a bit late but:
I have this exact setup and I get some distortion too with heavy bass, but it's mainly only on the left side and only after some minutes playing music. And I don't even use that much volume. When asking Hifiman they told me to not use a heavy bass load with this headphone. That's a shame, I really got in love with the bass precision of planars.

@Rieku May I ask if your XS' now sound broken? Or just about the same as before?

And does anyone know an alternative to the XS with better bass handling capacity but same sound quality and flat frequency response?

 

[inscythe]

And does anyone know an alternative to the XS with better bass handling capacity but same sound quality and flat frequency response?

Probably Ananda (or Ananda Stealth now). I've read a few reports of XS pushing the limits too hard with some amps on bass-heavy tracks due to the low impedance.