Starter Dac for Headphones...

I came on here to post Centrance, as well. They are really good.

Another good option would be to get a Schiit stack. They just introduced a $99 DAC (Modi) and a $99 headphone amp (Magni) - both made in the USA. The Modi is an asynchronous USB DAC. With a $500 budget, you could upgrade either the DAC (Bifrost USB $449) or the HPA (Asgard $249 Class A or Valhalla $349 single ended tube) and do really well.

Thanks Mateored for the info on the Schiit Modi DAC.

To Freb03

My brother-in-law has the Beats Pro headphones and when powered by his Iphone it hurt my ears. If you are going to stick with those headphones try the NuForce UDac-2. When I tried the Beats Pro with it the music was not fatiguing.

If you are going to the AKG Q701s I would say try the Schiit Valhalla headphone amp. I have the previous generation AKG K-701 headphones and with the Schiit Valhalla to me it was a good pairing. Just enough bass and very sweet mids and highs.

Last DAC/headphone amp I enjoy is a Grant Fidelity DAC-09 with a upgraded Western Electric tube. This unit did great with all sorts of headphones. Sennheiser, BeyerDyanamic etc. The DAC-11 is out now from Grant Fidelity should be considered.

Good luck with the finals and the DAC/headphone amp search. There is lots of options with your budget.

I directed questions to the one that told me something but you can reply too :)

To Nonoise

If i find a used DACmini of Centrance i'll jump on it :p
But for the in-line dac i guess i'll need an amp? Do you know if this will be good with the Valhalla amp from Schiit? I heard that tube amp are really good (for warmness sound ;) )
How do you compare the inline DAC from Centrance to the one from Schiit?

To Mateored

I take note about a schiit stack :)

To Jedinite24

The problem is that it's hard to know the difference between the AKG Q701 and the Beats pro because in the end, i will have a different dac... so it change all the frequency balance. And i'm not sure if there's a store that woud let me try all the options :(

I use the Audioengine D1 USB DAC/headphone amp to listen to music on my computer. It sounds very good and it's not expensive. A nice item for the budding a'phile.

Freb03- email me msklein52atcomcastdotnet.