Well, how about we do a test. Listen to your Clear without the amp, or from your phone. Does it sound about the sameā¦? I will do this test myself later today. Surely HD660 sounds much more spacious than Clear, which the 660 did when I had it, as well as my Erupt and Sundara, HD600 & 650 when I had them.
Honestly, if you really think your phone is as good of a source as a dedicated headphone stack, why are you looking into 1000 dollar headphones in the first place?
I mean, some phones are fine for cheaper headphones. But once you get into the serious diminishing return part of the Cost/Quality graph, which lets be honest, every 1K headphone is, you should really try and look to get a clean source/dac/amp.
I think you would have a valid argument in a budget sub 100 dollar headphone thread, but common, we are talking extreme premium headphones here. Not even sure if you are trolling.
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Itās not an argument; itās a simple test. How do you know something is betterā¦? You test it, not take the word on the box. Does yours sound any differentā¦? Amp vs no amp
I have barely ever, ever heard any difference so far with amp vs DAC only, but of course I donāt have any expensive amps around. This tells me my DAC is pretty awesome, and my amp is transparent.
How would that even work? D50s has no headphone outputā¦
I donāt own a focal (yet), but I have heard it a year ago when a friend of mine bought one, when testing a lot of headphones, and source made a difference for sure. We deliberately tested it on phone, just to see how it would do, and it sounded okay, but not 1500 worth, not even close.
I think it is fair to say that (most) phones edge out far before your reach the 1K headphone budget.
Get an RCA split cable L+R male that terminates to 3.5 female. My DAC has a huge amount of volume, so I donāt even need an amp for anything I own yet(but the amp volume knob is nice to have).
I had a Jot, but didnāt like the sound enough to keep it. Maybe J2 is an improvement, though Iām not keen on Schiit sound.
I would strongly advise against doing that. If you are lucky, the DAC has a line driver or Op-Amp that can handle being āshorted outā (headphones are very low impedance compared to line-level inputs).
Worst case, you blow up your DAC.
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Hm. Therefore amps have higher impedance inputs. Interesting. Have you ever heard of that occurringā¦?
Yes this.
As far as I understand most DAC outputs are anything between 200 Ohms and 5000 Ohms output impedance, if they work at all, they will have real issues controlling a driver.
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Not in a device, only in a setting where I had individual components set up on a bread-board during prototyping. Forgot to put one resistor in lineā¦ 
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As someone who owned a clear for foreverā¦no they definitely donāt.
Theoretically yes. The 660 should have a larger stage than the clear iirc. However, the clear will beat it handily in imaging, separation, and pretty much every other part about positional audio cues by miles.
If all you care about is size of soundstage, you bought the wrong headphones. Get a pair of HD800s.
Probably because you are using a cheap amplifier with a high end piece of kit that is super picky about source gear. Itās like putting shitty tires on and a shitty engine in a Ferrari and then asking why it sucks. Good headphones require good source gear. Some cans will do better than others on shittier gear (my Beyer T1.2s are a prime example), the clear is definitely not one of them.
This I can agree on. Not a huge fan. Probably wonāt synergize too well with the clear imo. I did happen to like the pairing with Lake People / Vio gear a lot though.
Long story short. Donāt pair good gear with shitty source. Same thing with shitty gear and good source. The fact that you canāt tell the difference between your phone and amp with the clears is a huge problem and indicates that you need a source upgrade.
My minimum suggestion for headphone amps is the $500 level (see RNHP, Liquid Plat, RS-08 etcā¦). DACs are up to you, but I would personally get either a Geshelli Enog / Jnog or go for the Schiit Bifrost 2 / Denafrips Ares II (I recommend the Ares and Geshelli stuff highly).
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Yeah, definitely. And if you canāt tell the difference between your phone and your DAC RCA out 
ā¦ it just means they both suck real bad. Lol.
DAC vs DAC+amp, not phone. I can tell a difference how my phone sounds(I hear some background hiss).
Good to know. Iām not willing to change my good, affordable source gear for overly demanding phones that donāt even sound too good with what I already have, so will have to try something else, or stick with IEMs.
No? It wonāt sound the same. Amps and dacs have different sounds and different qualities. You canāt just go grab some $1k+ headphone and expect it to run properly off likeā¦ a $100 amplifier. While it will play sound it most likely will not play sound to its fullest outside of more special exceptions like off the top of my head T1 3rd generation plays fine off practically anything. Clears are known to be very picky, they do not sound the same whatsoever from a low end stack, motherboard, to a high end stack.
noā¦ it definitely doesnātā¦ 600 series sennheisers sound more narrow and intimate to my ear from my setup.
You put racing tires on a Fiat 500 and it did not perform much better, big surprise there.
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You wonāt get a much better experience for the same money. The Clears are absolutely phenomenal cans, even for the price. I suggest selling the cans and getting a source upgrade instead if youāre feeling dissatisfied. Trying new expensive cans or IEMs off of the stuff you have will not help. You currently only get a fraction of the performance of any higher tier can/IEM. If you donāt want to listen, fine, but prepare to be immensely dissappointed with whatever you buy with the Clearās money.
Maybe you are thinking of amp input impedance that high? I feel like DACs are around 1-100.
No, those are the output impedanceās on the line level out of a DAC.
The Borderpatrol DAC for example is actually >> 5000 Ohms. Which is one of the reasons itās so picky about amp matching.
The output buffers are designed to drive amps with input impedances in the 20K Ohm to 100K Ohm range. Not Headphones in the 16-300 Ohm Range.
If the DAC has an amp built in, the headphone out will obviously be more reasonable.
Of course it wonāt sound best. Itās how much of a difference there actually is. I thought reviewers said Clear sounds great right off a phone, and are easy to drive.
If Clear sounds huge and more spacious than HD660 on your gear, I donāt know what to say. Everyone says they sound intimate, which is what I hear, too. (660 sounds nothing like 600 or 650, if thatās what you were referring to)
compared to 660 its a bit of a toss of a coinā¦ they are bit more similar in staging though in terms of depth I will give that to clearā¦ more so to Clear MG as its a bit better in that particular regard. Least thats how I hear itā¦ people do hear things differently
Not sure what reviewer said that, but thats some serious amount of false information if so. Like, the Celestee can technically run off lower power units and be okay but thats because its a portable unit and kinda designed that way. Elex and Elegia arenāt that picky eitherā¦ clear however, is extremely picky
The Clear and for that matter the Utopia are very picky about the quality of amplification.
itās not just about easy to drive or gets loud enough. The quality of the power matters.
You might as well buy an Elex if you want that sound signature and youāre not willing to spend on the amplifier TBH.
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