Do you think a person really needs a DAC and an amplifier connected to headphones for the ultimate listening experience or is it just audiophiles' wet dreams?
Audio equipment thread
Chase Nguyen
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en.wikipedia.org
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Kayden Scott
the one you posted is the only one you'll ever need or the k5 pro if you decide to get harder to drive memephones
Austin Taylor
Diminishing returns is a thing. I can hear a difference between running a reasonably priced DAC between my media PC and stereo vs not. But I doubt I would be able to tell a significant difference between my $100 DAC and a $1000 DAC.
Also at the end of the day you should be investing the lions share of your budget (Whatever that may be) in your speakers/headphones.
Ryder Butler
>amplifier
You only truly need one if the impedance on your headphones requires it and you can get a good DAC+amp combo for a fair price anyway.
Michael Johnson
A quality dac will sound miles better than what is built into your computer.
You need an amplifier anyways for your speakers. Please tell me you aren't listening through headphones
Julian Brooks
Digital audio sounds so binary if you don't convert it to analog.
Aaron Perry
Nice
Jonathan Sanchez
i got a chord mojo and grado headphones i wont go beyond that.
Hunter Miller
if you use high impedance headphones, yes
Samuel Young
You would if you had robot ears
Charles Richardson
If you hear hissing you need a DAC. If it's not loud enough you need an amp. Simple as. I'm using qudelix 5k because it has built-in PEQ.
Ian Cook
You can still get a decent sound quality upgrade just from a basic low budget dac amp combo besides the fact that your internal dac is shit. It's a big enough difference to be easily audible to even the most basic consumer
Jason Mitchell
yes, it helps. diminishing returns apply but going from nothing to something mid-tier can lead to a huge difference. the top of the top-end audiophiles are kind of delusional, but audiophiles are generally on the right track, unironically
Adrian Watson
I think a graphic EQ with at least 31 bands is the greatest listening experience with headphones. Each band is like a high lighter to the colour of sound that you can be the Master of.
Charles Cooper
Depends.
listening on smartphone with high impedance headphones? Then yes.
Listening on a smartphone with low impedance "audiophile" headphones? audioquest.com
High end smartphone like Sony Xperia 1 III/IV or ASUS ROG phone 5 with low impedance headphones? No internal Dac on those phones are fantastic.
Jaxon Gonzalez
en.wikipedia.org
Totally impractical but an interesting idea.
Hunter Ortiz
All you need is the apple dongle for a dac, and a 100$~ amp if you have 250-300 ohm headphones and depending on how good your hearing is, anything more is 99% snake oil
Brandon Evans
Yes you need to upgrade your speakers and DAC / interface and headphones, and you also need to listen to lossless files, I don't even believe that you can stream any music at a good quality, no matter what people say. It's all for naught, if you just stream off of spotify or youtube.
Bentley Morris
Having a good speaker makes the most difference, sometimes you need a preamp for whatever you’re driving but most of the time you don’t. I’ve streamed songs off an iPhone with an aux to lightning adapter through an $800 guitar amp and it sounds amazing because of the speaker, and alternatively I’ve played studio grade audio through a preamped DAI into shitty earbuds and it sounds like ass
Christopher Ortiz
This. Also depends on what hardware you are rocking inside your computer
Easton Parker
Protip: if your pc has toslink you can buy a cheaper DAC and it sounds the same as a usb one.
Kayden Cooper
20 bands personally but you're right
these days i barely touch the eq and leave it near defaults
Isaac Wright
Yeah, there are some boards with great built-in DACS. Though i'm currently using an old laptop as a dedicated music box since bit-perfect can be a bit of a pain in the ass to set up on a machine you use daily.
Dylan Jones
>your internal dac is shit
In what way.
PEQ is superior.
Samuel Walker
I run everything through my focusrite and it works great lmao