Best €150-250 USB DAC/AMP (combo/seperate) for 250 ohm headphones and line/pre-out for Stereo AMP

Hi All,

Looking for the Best ±100$ USB DAC/AMP for 250 ohm headphones and line/pre-out for Stereo AMP.
Have an old SMSL 793 ii but it is missing the USB input.

In:
USB (required)
SPDIF/Toslink (if possible)

Out:
Headphone 3.5mm or 6.3mm
Line-out or Pre-out

Went through a lot of Z Reviews and written down these DAC/AMPS.
Any that I missed?
$100±
Fiio K3
Schiit Fulla 3
Topping MX3

$200+ (A bit too expensive but is it worth the extra $$$?)
Schiit Modi 3 & Magni 3+
Schiit Hel
Topping DX3 Pro

Greetings from Belgium

How much can you get a fiio k5 pro for? I wouldn’t recommend buying the k3, fulla, or mx3 imo, and would suggest you save some money for something like the fiio k5 pro. The ifi Zen dac is also a decent choice, but it won’t have as much oomph driving the Beyer’s as the k5 pro does

Hi M0N,

FIIO K5 PRO DAC - €149
https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-with-volume/fiio-k5-pro-dac-headphone-amplifier-ak4493-xmos-xuf208-32bit-768khz-dsd512-p-14181.html

Hmm that’s not bad, I would just suggest saving up a bit more, and getting a higher quality product imo. The k3 is pretty underpowered and unremarkable in sound, the fulla is peaky, compressed sounding, and unrefined imo, and the mx3 is more a speaker amp and the headphone amp is an afterthought. It’s just hard to recommend a dac/amp setup under 100 USD because many of them are only small improvements over using a PC out

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Good info once again,
What would you advise like the K5 Pro.

There’s not a whole ton of options here, the k5 pro, ifi Zen dac, if you wanted a portable but still great the xduoo xd05

@M0N or do like i’ll be doing. Getting a schiit heresy, and then down the line will be getting a DAC. Recommended by the man M0N himself. Lol is M0N even a man? haha

Yes lol

I was thinking about recommending this, but I paused because @dResign said he wanted usb in, so I assumed he didn’t have a line out or his out on a pc or phone was incredibly noisy, but if he was able to do so, that would be my pick, you would get a really high quality amp for the price and add a topping d10 or smsl m100 down the line

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@M0N
What is better than the K5 Pro for around €250
Is the Aune X1S Pro 7th generation worth the extra money?

€133
FIIO K5 PRO DAC Headphone Amplifier AK4493 XMOS XUF208 32bit 768kHz DSD512

€183
TOPPING DX3 PRO V2 DAC 2x AK4493EQ Headphone Amplifier TPA6120A2 Bluetooth LDAC XMOS XU208 32bit 768kHz Black

€230
Schiit Modi 3 DAC
+
Schiit MAGNI 3+ HEADPHONE AMP AND PREAMP

€250
AUNE X1S PRO DAC ES9038Q2M Headphone Amplifier 32bit 768kHz DSD512 Black

€283
JDS Labs Atom Headphone Amplifier - EU Plug
+
JDS Labs OL DAC USB and Optical Edition

€417
JDS Labs The Element II Headphone Amplifier & USB DAC - Copper Ring - EU Plug

So personally out of what you listed I would actually pick the magni heresy/3+ and a dac, but not the modi, something like the smsl m100 or topping d10

I would actually say no, because at that price you can get the magni heresy/3+ and a dac which imo edges it out

For DAC you should use AUNE X8, and pair it with either Schiit Magni Heresy or Geshelli Archel 2.5 Pro

Can you actually get Geshelli in Europe? Also I think thats a bit overkill for the dac but it would depend on the price

Yes, they ship to Europe!

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Oh wow that’s pretty nice then, you could just get a full on Geshelli stack then with an enog and a archel