The soekris probably isnāt what you are looking for actually, itās a brighter more analytical dac, and while good, I donāt think it goes well with the Feliks imo. Generally in that price range, I like the bifrost 2 or ares ii, the bifrost 2 for neutral warm, with a bit of smoothness and extra width, very nice timbre, imo would work well with the Feliks. The ares ii would make the Feliks a bit more energetic and punchy while remaining a bit warmer, a bit less width but more depth to the stage. Imo both are equally detailed but present in different ways (although the ares ii is a bit faster). If you want something very smooth, something like a mhdt orchid is a pretty easy-going dac, warmer, thick, smooth, generally pleasant imo. And going a bit higher the Holo cyan is real nice for something resolving without fatigue, a bit of a step up from the aforementioned options (but also in price lol). If you look used you can probably find some good deals on older more totl dacs, but it would depend on whatās out there
fantastic. Thanks a lot. I think youāve nailed more or less what Iām looking for. Also thanks for the note about the Soekris. I had it down as a no brainer and Iāve never heard any opinion to the contrary.
It is a good dac, but itās sensitive to amp pairing, and not everyone is after a more neutral analytical ish dac
Could you roll out a list of a few of these when you have the time? (unless you refer to the ones youāve already mentioned)
@MON never mind, I just found this post, I assume these are the oneās you would have been referring toā¦
Ok so thatās an old post, and personally my thoughts regarding dacs have drastically changed since then lol, this was before I really went into the deep end of dacs in my own setups for headphones
The adi 2 is nice if you will actually use all the features it has to offer, but otherwise imo I might prefer other dacs in the range for the price, neutral and capable but nothing really mind blowing or anything
The gumby is still a solid dac, but personally only something I would recommend if you can get a nice used one under 600ish, as I think the bifrost 2 offers more for the money (and an actually good single ended output as well thatās better than the gumby), warmer smoother neutral, slightly relaxed but capable
The ifi pro idsd is a nice dac, although at new price, I really canāt recommend it as I think there are other dacs in that range that outperform it, but used around the 1.3k range it would make sense if you wanted a warmer more thick and forward sound thatās pretty energetic
The chord is indeed a solid dac but itās kinda not got much going for it at MSRP, but if you find a good deal on one used, itās a pretty neutral and revealing dac thatās pretty refined
The spring 2 level 2 or kte is still something I really like for the price, very solid
The thing I said about the higher end dacs is actually pretty false from my experience now lol, itās easily worthwhile but you have to make sure you get synergy right. Iāve always been around higher end dacs and demoed many of them, but never really decided to use them in headphone setups, I was too obsessed with the headphones/speakers themselves for the longest time, but clearly that isnāt the case now lol
I would disagree today now lol
This one is still something I would agree with
This is a yes and no for me, in the end there are analytical, neutral, and colored r2r, as is there for sigma delta, so it depends
I donāt know if itās super unique tbh but they do have a house sound lol
Thanks!
Reminds me of St. Augustineās Retractiones at the end of his life, when he revised errors of judgment in his youthful writings.
this is the one thatās been attracting my attention a lot - out of my range new, but if I can find it used I might go for it after selling off other stuff to fund it.
I like what I hear of the Bifrost 2 gen 5 too (difficult to find here though)
Lol - how would you rate the order of importance in upgrading? Would it still be Headphones then Amps then Dacs then Source?
The closest thing you can get to that would be a Holo cyan
So this one really depends. Letās assume you have a flagship or near flagship headphone you really like and donāt want to change from. Generally with a budget of 2k for your source gear, I would be spending about 50-65% on your amp and the rest on the dac. But with a budget of 5k, I might actually say spending more on the dac (like a 2k amp and 3k DAC is very reasonable), and the higher you go generally I would spend more on the dac. I think in the real high end the dac starts to matter more than the amp, were in the lower end the amp is going to make a bigger difference.
With more mid-range or entry high end headphones this would change and things would depend. I mean things depend anyways lol, synergy is extremely important the higher you go up, and yada yada
Ok I get your reasoning. Very interesting. Cables and source donāt even come into the picture?
Oh they so for sure. If you have shitty music then I donāt know what to say besides rip lol. You need good quality music and if you donāt have that then nothing is really good to fix that. Regarding cables, thatās a touchy subject but generally I would say if you have good high quality cables you are well off for the most part
and would you recommend any of the streaming services in particular? Qobuz, Tidal, Primephonic?
I mean so far the best all rounder I have tried has been quobuz but I really donāt stream so Iām probably not the best person to ask on this lol
ok, thankyou. Maybe Iāll create a streaming services thread
There are a ton of threads on that here, just search for streaming service and they should pop up
ok, will do. thanks for all your time today.
have these on the way. Second beyer (had the 1990 briefly), so should be interesting.
Iāve tried them all.
I had Tidal the longest. I like Qobuz the mostā¦HiRes sounds a bitā¦(I suck at describing these things)ā¦cleaner.
I feel Qobuzās library isnāt ever changing like Tidal. Iād constantly have albums in my library unavailable in Tidal then return. Also felt the interface for Tidal - leaning more toward the ownership and friends + hip hop wasnāt for me. While Qobuz isnāt quite as intuitive and deep as Spotifyās interface, I find its at least more sterile in a good way, especially for new releases. Qobuz is also cheaper.
With that said, I did enjoy my time with Tidal, was a very early adopterā¦paired it with Roon for years and it was great, but Qobuz was just better for me and also compatible with Roon.
OH ā and if you like buying your music ā Qobuzās ever-rolling sales and FREE offerings are an extra bonus. If you sign up at the highest level (forget the sales point) you get a pretty significant sale price on HiRes purchases, too.
Hey thanks a lot. Qobuz is I think the one Iām leaning towards now, especially after your comment. Tidal want right for me either, I cancelled it. Primephonic is the other one in my sights, but itās only for classical.
So I just jumped ship from iems to Headphones and bought a Beyerdynamic T1 2nd, which I bought a Zen DAC to power it with.
Apparently according to the store owner I bought the Zen from, the Zen wonāt really (and will only barely) fulfil the whole potential of the T1, so I wanted to ask 1) do you think itās true 2) does anyone have any amp/dac recommendations for this headphone?
Many thanks in advance!
I think thatās probably true. A balanced 4.4 cable will help but I still think itāll come up short of its potential. This is based on listening to it on the hip dac (balanced) which if I remember correctly is slightly more powerful than the zen dac.
Whatās your budget?