DAC, amp & headphones 1k

Benchmark DAC-1 - really superb headphone amp with two outputs.The headphone capability of this product is not a afterthought .This replaced my long time EAD DSP-9000 Pro in my main system.
The nice thing with these is that there are a fair number floating around used and reasonable demand for them as used pieces - so if it wasn't what you wanted - reselling would not be much of a challenge.No small thing - Benchmark (the company) are a pleasure to deal with -even on small stuff like EBU to S/PDIF adaptors.
If looking at used - make sure you get a stock unit - the modded units may sound better ? - but are harder to resell.

Shadorne ; good info...I had not considered either aspect !
Have you ever compared the HD-25's to the 650's ?

Why offer headphones that allow the sounds to travel into and out of the units for audiophile listening ?

Thank you .

Why offer headphones that allow the sounds to travel into and out of the units for audiophile listening ?

Because open earphones generally sound best (Although, I believe Denon make an extremely good pair of cupped headphones). The only reason to use cupped earphones is if you don't want to disturb others or if you are in a noisy environment like a car, bus or airplane. You will find that you listen at much lower volumes if you can cut out background noise - this is why pros use HD 25's everywhere - from soundmen at clubs/concerts to sports casters reporting at a noisy sports event.

I use HD-25's on the electronic drum set. I use AKG 240's for critical listening to music. The AKG's, however, are 600 ohm and they don't sound their best unless you use a really good headphone amp like the DAC1 while the HD-25 pros are awesome with the crap amp in my drum kit or the analog out of a Mac computer. I'd still place open headphones (AKG) ahead of the HD-25's for overall sound quality though (provided you got the right headphone amp)

I had a Musical Fidelity X-Can and a pair of Grado 325's that I thought was absolutely spectacular. I let the pair go for $400. You could probably get the combination of DAC and amp from Musical Fidelity and the Grado RS-1's for <$1000.

Space efficient, attractive and great sounding in my opinion.

Saki70,

I don't know what is "U.P.". I live in Russia.

AKG sound is very airy and no bass, that's what many people say in head-fi.org. If you are in doubt which phones to choose, I recommend you to go to this website's forum, there are thousands of head-fiers from all over the world discussing every tiny nuance of headphones, headphone amps, etc. It's not daunting, you just need to use "search" function smartly. For example, type there "HD650 AKG" and choose "titles only" and specify that you want to search through forum "big headphones" only and you will find many discussions comparing HD650 sound to AKG models, etc.

Yes, senior Senn models do require a lot of hi-quality expensive amplification, otherwise they sound mediocre.

Always pay attention to the impedance match of headphones and headphone amps! For instance, cans with 25 ohm impedance and cans with 300 ohm impedance have absolutely different requirements in terms of amplification. That's one of the reasons I chose April Music Stello HP100 preamp/headphone amp, because it has low gain/hi gain switch, so I can use it for almost any phone out there. By the way, it has two inputs, just like you want, but it's SS.

By the way, Jack Woo from WooAudio can modify his amps to suit his clients' requests, if they want more inputs/outputs in their models.

If your wife likes deep bass, take a closer look at Denon D2000 or higher models. It's really like having a subwoofer in your headphones. I even performed the so called "Markl mod" to tame its bass little bit...