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Recomendation on a small DAC & Headphone amp for office desk

Well I can’t listen to my Directstream / PrimaLuna with my Focal Clear headphones anymore… too far away. So I need a DAC/Headphone amp at my desk.

What do you recommend?

Use case:

  • Sub $500 total for DAC/amp
  • USB to computer
  • Plays all (most?) formats (I will be using foobar and playing my library… been buying some HI Res and DSD)… if I had to give up a format, I would give up DSD as 98% of everything I own is PCM.
  • Audiophile sound… yea, no cht… but you know what I mean… most inexpensive stuff sounds dead to me… good equipment has that… um… well you know.
  • I just need a volume control and unbalanced out… will not power a system, no other interfaces needed in or out.
  • Used stuff is fine
  • NO Bluetooth or any other gimmicks
  • No other inputs needed, no preamp capabilities

I am looking at the usual suspect iFi Zen DAC V2 (not with their amp), maybe a Schiit… I dunno? I hate this mail order-only crap… dang I want to plug in and try ’em out!!!

BTW, I posted this same question over at PS Audio... I love their Directstream DAC and frequent their forums.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

bruce_philly
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,544 posts
 

foobar means Windows. I rec the Schiit Modi Multibit. It plays whatever foobar dishes out.

It’s one push to cycle through USB, Toslink and coax.

Windows programs seemCurrently to find the output at random. Much faster than Sound<>Playback

And then.you can choose the best one on foobar if they sound different.  Currently fiber from the sound card is worst for me.

I just run it into a Vali 2 with a 6FQ7 in it.

This two stack takes up little real estate.

That leaves you $100 for a DH Labs or ViaBlue USB cable.

ghdprentice
6,851 posts
 

Ok, just a bit of warning… I did this. From what you said… well sounds like me. You can see where I ended up (click on my user ID to see my headphone system).

 

It starts this way… then, well it doesn’t have the bass… or the detail.. you have excellent headphones, to get what you want out of them, it is going to require a great tube head amp… think Woo…WA6 or WA6SE.at least. A good DAC… and, well PCs are not good at streaming. But you can probably get by with it. Power conditioning, interconnects.

 

Watch out… for me… well it cost a lot.

marco1's avatar
marco1
512 posts
 

Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M.  $499

Everything you asked for and a couple of things you didn't want.

Excellent reviews. 

Mine comes tomorrow :-)

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