Any Audiophiles here?

[MonsieuRoberts]

Hi!

I play tons of games and listen to a range of music that sits somewhere in the middle of Protest the Hero (Metal), City and Colour (Acoustic) and Carpenter Brut (EDM). I'm into the heavy feeling of closed back headphones, I love the rumble of bass, and I've found that my Hyper X Cloud IIs are very comfortable, not pressing up against my ears at all. I've owned a pair of V-Moda Crossfade LPs for 4 years now and they're great for everything I listen to...except for metal and rock. If the focus isn't bass, they're not great. They're also not reasonable to wear for more than an hour tops, even with the extra big pads I bought a few years ago, because your ear is still right up against the driver.

I want to step into some HiFi audio, and as far as I understand, to drive some of the more impressive models you need a DAC or an AMP; A dedicated one, not just what's built into my MoBo.

So give me some recommendations! I see a lot of headphones & DAC/AMP combos on Massdrop's Audiophile Community but I really don't know what to look for. I've heard Schitt's good for the price, but again, no clue, and I have no idea where to go for reviews on this sort of thing. Do you pair a certain type of DAC or AMP with a certain sound you're going for? *shrug*

Budget total for both is somewhere around $300 CAD. If that's unreasonably low don't hesitate to educate me.

I'd love to hear your recommendations!

[mrgreenthump]

Modern MB sound chips are rather good and they tend to drive low impedance headphones just fine. But there is certainly a benefit from having a dedicated DAC/AMP, though you need a good pair of headphones to gain anything from going that route. You certainly do need to go there if you want to take the next step. The initial cost of a dedicated setup might sound expensive, but when you consider, that some manufacturers give you 5+ year guarantees, you are set for quite a while.

But it's all subjective, so what you want your combo to achieve is clean conversion and boost with as little distortion as possible. If you want a certain sound characteristic, it is far better to achieve it with your headphone choice, than getting an amplifier that "colours" the signal. Some people do like tube amps, because they tend to warm up the sound, but tube amps are almost never perfect and you are going to spend endless nights "tube rolling" to find just the right tubes for you.

Schiit does indeed make good units, but aren't the cheapest, because they are made in the states. All their low end barring tube amps, tend to be pretty neutral which is a really good thing. And I haven't heard about them supplying bad stuff, but then again I haven't looked for DAC/AMP stuff since I bought my set few years back.

As for more info, I'm sort of out of the game as I said. Long story short though, get a good DAC and amp with low output impedance and as little distortion as possible. Power output may also be a concern if you have or plan to get high impedance/hard to drive headphones, but with your general 30-50 ohm headphones anything goes really, when it comes to output power.

As to what headphones to get, they just are way too subjective thing to recommend. Test listenings are a must if you want a guarantee not to be disappointed.

[Flaim]

get a beyerdynamic dt770pro (or a custom one pro, which is said to have minorly worse mids/highs than the 770) with a yamaha ag03

[SoulForge]

get a beyerdynamic dt770pro (or a custom one pro, which is said to have minorly worse mids/highs than the 770) with a yamaha ag03

I use the DT770 Pro's (250 Ohm version) paired with just my Sound Blaster Z card with a max 600 Ohm Amp built in.

Very good strong clear sound.

Though I understand Creative has released a newer card not too long ago.

https://www.amazon.com/Blaster-Perfo.../dp/B009ISU33E

[Cyrops]

-snip-

I'm not sure if I would label myself as audiophile, but I do love listening to music with clear sound. When I was shopping around for new headphones over two years ago, I settled on Audio Technica ATH-M20X, the 50 one is supposedly better, but I picked the 20 one due to it having metal frame, went through a lot of headphones with plastic frames and they just kept breaking, so never again. As for soundcard I got the Asus Xonar DX/XD as it had (at the time) this feature:

Dolby Headphone:
Delivers a realistic and spacious 2-to-5.1 surround or 3D positional soundfield over any set of stereo headphones

and going from generic sound blaster card (dedicated) it blew my mind, might be a feature in all soundcards, but only Asus has it listed in specifications (as far as I know).

[Afrospinach]

I have both the dt770 (80ohm) and a pair of sennheiser hd 380s. I have to say while I have nothing bad to say about the 770s(they are also very comfy with their velour ear pads) I have an outright preference in sound with the sennheisers. I would almost give the fidelity edge to the 770s for clarity but the sennheisers sound deeper and more "there". I think given what you are after OP you may appreciate these more than the DT770s.