Brand new to the HiFi world, purchased myself the Sennheiser (Drop) HD6XX awhile back but haven’t purchased any AMP/DAC to power them just yet.
Budget: $450 USD / $600 CAD
Note: It’ll be sitting on the desktop, so portability isn’t required.
Looking for a combo amp/dac OR separately. I’ve looked at tons of possibles, there’s so many options and being new to HiFi I have no clue what to go with. Looked at:
Monolith THX 788
JDS Atom Stack
JDS Element II
Monolith THX 789/887
So many options, not sure what to go with, looking for some guidance. It’s a bit harder to buy certain bands as I’m located in Canada.
Haven’t been able to use the 6XX’s as I don’t have anything yet powerful enough to power them. Listen to pretty much everything, EDM/Rock/Rap/Jazz/etc…
Ah gotcha. From my experience they can run off a phone or PC, it’s just not the most pleasant sound lol.
Well at this budget, I think if you wanted to tilt the 6xx thicker, warmer, more spacious, I would look at a nice tube amp, in this price range something like a musical paradise mp-301 mk3 is a pretty solid pairing imo, and a dac like a topping e30 or earman Donald dac would be very nice. Generally this would be my preference for the 6xx as I think it can use some extra thickness and body, as well as a more spacious sound
If you wanted a warmer thicker sound but not a tube amp, something else I like with the 6xx is the drop zen can 6xx when I heard it briefly at canjam, was very nice and of course worked well with the 6xx. You could grab the matching dac or go for some of the aforementioned dacs above.
If you were to go with an all in one, the element ii is pretty nice, and is very clean and clear sounding, without being boring if you were after something neutral
Personally I can’t say I like the thx amps with the 6xx, and generally imo I don’t find them to offer a good value for money, so I don’t think they would be the best choice imo
Thank you. There’s so much info out there (as someone new to HiFi), it’s quite overwhelming. I’m learning towards the Element II as a start, I can always upgrade (as I likely will) once I get a better feel for the HD6XX and the Element and as time goes on.
Any thoughts on the Aquila II (ESS9038PRO) DAC/AMP combo?
It’s a solid all in one, well balanced sound and performance. Generally I would say it’s slightly higher preforming than the element ii but only when balanced, if you don’t have plans to get a balanced cable for the 6xx I would say stick with the element. Just wondering how much is the aquila ll in cad?
Looking like $852.38 CAD roughly give or take taxes. I was going on the fence of using Pro (Balanced) XLR or 3.5 with the 6xx via periaptcables, suggestion on what would be better to use? Is it worth it to use balanced and get the Aquila II?
That’s quite expensive. I actually might suggest this instead if you don’t mind buying used (if you are looking at it as an option), as imo this is an improvement over the daart with a similar signature (although the questyle is a bit smoother)
If you get a balanced amp, then def pick up a balanced cable (so pro xlr)
On the amp side you need about 40 mw into 300 ohms and a good sustained 4 volts to pretty much get to driving them at dangerously loud levels.
So pretty much everything that plugs into an outlet is going to power it well. Avoid combos that run off USB power.
The DAC is more complicated because you can get into various things it will decodes. If you want just a simple clean sounding DAC with 44.1 files, I’d get an )2 combo for $150 and be done with it. - https://drop.com/buy/drop-o2-sdac-dac-amp
If you are concerned about DSD and MQA decoding you will want to look elsewhere.
Now this will be unpopular with some folks, but I’ll say it anyhow… Unless you have some reason to believe that you have dirty power or live in an environment with an extreme amount of EMI (Think someplace like a reviewers apartment with a gagillion gadgets plugged in) , I see very little value in paying extra for balanced amps / dacs and cables. See, balanced is specifically for noisy studio environments with tons of EMI and where they literally can’t afford to have even the tinniest bit enter the signal chain. People that say they can notice the difference at home have either not done a fair blind test, or have really dirty power, or just have a ton of EMI for other reasons. Most normal folks that just have a PC and monitor plugged into a quality surge protector are going to be just fine using a quarter inch headphone jack with a decent quality headphone cable.
To me, inside your budget I don’t see a reason to spend a ton on an amp and exotic cables. I think things don’t really get interesting higher up until you get to something like the Rebel Amp which runs pure class A which may be a justification on blowing $500 on a headphone amp (I’m thinking about it)…
While I think the o2 and sdac are nice, personally I don’t think I would say they are still as compeditive compared to other amps and dacs imo, and it would be worthwhile to spend 50 more for something like the atom or topping stack
I would agree, but if an amp is balanced you want to use it balanced. Balanced is a design choice, and single ended can easily sound just as good or better. But if an amp designer chooses balanced then I would suggest buying a balanced cable to take advantage of the design. Again not saying that balanced is better in general, but most of the time if you buy a balanced amp, you want to actually use it balanced as the single ended output on most balanced amps are typically more of an afterthought
I would agree on the cables part, but I do think you can easily appreciate higher tier amps with the 6xx
True, the rebelamp is good, but I can’t say that it being class a has anything to do with it, it’s just a solid amp (as with others in the price range)
If you want an amp that would outperform the 789 sonically, you might as well go with a jds atom imo
Class A matters. It’s the only amplifier technology that faithfully reproduces the entire waveform without adding distortion. People often mix up distortion and full on clipping and think they are not hearing any until something really bad happens when things get too loud, but it’s there and it fatigues you as you endure it for long listening sessions. Some headphone op amps do operate in pure class A without advertising it, but those are often really low powered units. Otherwise they do some push / pull switching to reduce power consumption at idle and basically make it run so they don’t have to slap a heatsink on it and that’s adding distortion no matter how low they can get it. So to me, an Op Amp is basically an Op Amp, they are all flawed, as long at you have enough juice and it’s reasonably linear they are all pretty much the same, tubes are a different game entirely because they distort the hell out of things and are completely non linear in a way that some folks think is pleasing, so tubes are basically, let’s screw up my sound on purpose for fun, now, for my money, the God of all amplification tech, the purest and most beautiful thing you can listen to is Class A solid state, assuming it’s built well, but that’s money, and space, and heat, and sometimes exchanging some volume of power for quality.
I’ve heard so many amps, and generally imo it’s really not super dependent on topology, in theory it def makes sense, but in practice it really comes down to the skill of the designer and everything else. Topology does matter, but I have heard excellent op amp designs, excellent class d designs, excellent class a/b, and class a. Same goes for the opposite as well, something might look good on paper but sound piss poor in person. Generally I find myself liking alot of class a designs myself, but there are other class d designs that I do enjoy, it largely comes down to preference and system synergy in the end. It really is something that imo isn’t too critical in practice since it can vary too much, so imo I don’t think it’s really worthwhile to only go for one specific amplifier type as you will miss out on so many other good options. And regarding tubes, they can be the most linear way to amplify audio without negative feedback, some of the most clean and accurate amps I have heard have been tubes, and some solid state as well, again I wouldn’t suggest limiting yourself to one specific technology
I’m not really going to get into a technical perspective since I’m no mechanical engineer or amp designer, I’m just going off what I’ve heard myself and experienced. So many things that can be argued in theory and then end up not mattering too much in practice lol
Welcome @eXodus! You chose a great headphone to start off with. I agree with @M0N that a tube amp really brings out the best in the 6xx. And don’t stress over a dac with your budget. Any of the common reccomended dacs under 200 are great to start with. Good luck, looking forward to what ya get.