I agree.
I bought a GSX 1000 then eventually an Atom amp. Are they significantly better than my gaming motherboard with a realtek ACL1220?.. Not really… actually.
So I brought the atom amp to work and have a fancy $100 plastic volume adjuster for an IEM.
My point is, you may not need the amp, or DAC. Get the headphones you want. If they sound great on your phone or if your laptop outputs clean music, then you can manuever for and Amp/DAC at a later time, birthday, Christmas, etc.
would the 6xx benefit more from an amp than the 58x?
because if in the end the 6xx could sound better then wouldn’t the investment be worth it
I’m just trying to delay you from going down a rabbit hole. I’m only recommending you get an amp if only your onboard sound still sucks after you optimize your settings, regardless of headphones. Especially if there is an approval process on future spending on items allocated in your budget.
I have to talk myself down from the hype train a lot, a lot. I’ll say it again, a lot.
would you consider the 58x to be “audiophile” headphones
Audiophile just means “I like my music to sound good, and I want to hear everything in it”.
So, definitely. They’re probably the flattest, most neutral-sounding headphones (which does not mean they sound dull, it means you hear everything), with the most detail retrieval at this price. You will not find better at this price.
You don’t pay for the brand, like Beats. You don’t pay for features, like Bose. You don’t pay for ruggedness (for headphones you can wear everywhere, while running, etc). You don’t pay for wireless technology, or a microphone, or cat ears with LEDs. You pay 200$-ish for sound and sound only. If that’s not being an audiophile, I don’t know what it is.
Also, if you only listen to mp3s (even 320kbps mp3s), these may be your “endgame” headphones. I don’t know if someone can confirm or deny, but I’d be scared my mp3 collection, or, well, absolutely every youtube video, would sound like shit with HD6XXs.
Someone who bought Fostex T50RPs (150$ planars) already said “prepare to throw away your entire mp3 collection because it is now useless”. Why? Too much detail retrieval for mp3s. Apparently you can hear the damages of the mp3 compression. I’ll buy T50RPs soon for music recording in my little home studio (no mp3s there). But I may laugh out loud when I’ll bring these here and play mp3s and/or youtube videos with planars.
Now that’s “audiophile problems” !
At least, with my HD58Xs, I think I’ll be able to still enjoy my mp3 collection (I don’t have many 128kbps files, by the way) and enjoy “hi-res” audio… files.
the only thing I use is Spotify at the “very high” setting because I don’t want to pay for FLAC files or anything like that
I am greatly enjoying my HD58x as well, and I am very curios to hear your thoughts on T50Rps once you get them, how do they compare to Jubilees.
I am very slowly building my flac collection, but I use youtube to find new things to listen all the time.
I am planning to get a pair of planar headphones in the future, but I have no idea which ones and my budget is rather limited, I have many expensive hobbies as it is.
320kbps Spotify still scales with more expensive headphones. For example I can clearly hear more detail listening with Hifiman Ananda compared to HD58x or He-400i on Spotify streaming with a clean dac/amp. And I don’t mean I have to look for it either, it is immediately obvious.
Of course I agree with your point around there being diminishing returns for your investment as you go up but I wouldn’t say 58x is end game for streaming. Well, it wasn’t mine…for me is probably Ananda.
oh yeah definitely I agree with that
I wouldn’t say these are end game, but I’d say these are end game for right now, and until either my 58x breaks, or I’m just tired of listening to them will I upgrade, but it seems like it won’t be the case for some time
I hope these live up to the hype, because I wanna listen to some nice music
IMO endgame depends on each individual’s willingless to spend money on headphones in pursuit of a unicorn 
Also, diminishing returns for every extra 100$ is harder and harder to justify, when I was studying engineering, one of my profs said, to get every additional place after the decimal costs exponentially more.
I aggree with this sentiment the biggest peak is going from no headphones to getting headphones and with what massdrop has dont bry bringing the likes of the hd 58x, he 4xx, k 7xx and even beyerdynamic with the dt 990,880, 770 and custom line it’s getting really hard to justify the extra money to get the other pair of headphones I really want. even with the improvemnt with dac amps over the years most people can be really happy with just a $60-$100 dac amp ro a $200 stack
Lucky we are at ~200$ range (in this topic) so the unicorn must be near here. Cannot be far! 
Can confirm the Micca OriGen G2 will power the 6xx with ease and sounds great.
Others have already mentioned the 58x, if you do any PC gaming I recommend that.
I will say the 58x lowend benifits bigtime from an Amp and fits a wider range of genres than the 6xx. I was actually surprised by the amount of Bass the 58x kicked out. Can’t go wrong with the SMSL M3 Dac/Amp paired with the 58x, it only puts you over your budget by $40 if you can’t find it on sale.
nice! I’m not necessarily looking for “a lot” of bass, just some nice, clean bass.
and I’ll check out that DAC/amp combo
Yup, you won’t have “bass boost” with 58Xs… they’re neutral with a bit of “warmth”.
I want to second the Meze 99 Noir. I received mine about two weeks ago and they’re great. My ONLY complaint is the pads get warm. Tried a few pad swaps and I stuck with the larger stock pair.
If you don’t the neutral, mid focused sound of the 58x, these are a great alternate sound signature. No amp required at all.
I own different headphones and amplifiers for listening to different genres of music. The different combinations all have strengths and weaknesses and you should apply them to the music. I do the same for my 2.0 and 2.1 set-ups. The answer to all the above is yes, buy them, as everyone has been kind enough to point out.
In many cases, yes- unless you are amplifying shit. Then, you’re just increasing the amount of shit that hits your ears. You need a clean source. Assuming all things being equal, and we are talking solely about the frequency spectrum that is audible, there is no way to correct distortion with an amp alone.
Also, 3.5 from phone to RCA into amp has the benefit of avoiding hum and grounding issues, if your amp is AC powered and your phone is not charging from AC at the time.
Then, there are some phones with outstanding DACs, considering their portable form factor, and are completely sufficient.
Then, there are some who will argue, “fuck it, it sounds good to me.” To those people- more power to ya.
