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And another thing. What kind if benefit do you get from going from a shitty low end amp/dac to something proper? Is it night and day, like going to a new set of cans or just a slight difference? How can I explain. Will you benefit more staying with a good hp and upgrading your amp, or keeping the shitty amp and upgrading the headphones? If that makes any sence lol

What amp? most cheaper SS amps have output impedences <0.1 Ohm
Valve amps and some higher end SS stuff will have a lot higher.

The short version ideally the impedence of the headphone should be large relative to the impedence of the output. For voltage loads with headphones largely are the output impedence is in effect in series with the headphone acting as a voltage devider.
And as the Headphone isn’t a constant resistive load it can impact certain frequencies in different ways, resulting in poorer sound (bloated bass being the most prevalent).

I have the lovely sendi aivas paired with a very low budget FX audio dac x6.

define shitty and define proper.
No one here can assign a value to it for you.
But there is better sounding equipment.

Shitty fx audio dac x6
Proper sp200 with su8 dac

Honestly I’ve never heard that DAC/Amp, I see claims of 10Ohm output impedance.
With the Sendy’s it might be night and day on a different amp because of the impedance issue, any of the newer well rated ~$100 would be worth a listen. You can obviously spend a lot more but the Sendy’s are relatively easy to drive so you don’t need the SP200’s 7+W’s, and DAC’s are general subtle changes to sound.
Maybe pick up a JDS Atom or similar from Amazon along with a DAC and see what you think

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The dac x6 is decent, but I think if you picked up something like an atom and d10 (or liquid spark and d10) or got something like the asgard 3 with the dac module you would be taking a step up imo

Thanx Mon, i just want a decent step up. Something i would go WOW, i want a difference in sound quality i can really notice

Do you prefer something a bit warmer, or do you like something a bit more analytical leaning? Or prefer somewhat balanced sound

I honestly dont know anything except the fx audio. So i honestly dont know. Just want something that will give me the most out of my aivas. Thats why i considered the SU8 dac as it has some tweaks for the sound.

What are you looking to spend then? Assuming around the 400 range for the amp and dac if you want to swing a su8?

More or less yes. Think thats a decent amount to spend. But saw a review of the archel 2 pro. And inly read good things. There is just too much to choose from :joy::joy:

The archel 2.5 pro and the enog 2 pro stack would be my pick if you want a balanced sound and aren’t dead set on the su8

The archel 2.5 is balanced in and SE out?

Correct. It pairs well with the enog 2 pro balanced

That would probably be a cheaper setup as well

Personally that would be my pick for bang for the buck, as the 2.5 pro should have plenty of power on tap, with a clean yet balanced sound and a great dac (as long as you don’t mind using optical)

I prefer optical. But i see the archel 2.5 pro is only 600mw at 16ohm. The fx audio is 1000mw at 16ohm. Does the dac with the 3 x voltage stages make up for the low power output?

So it will give you more gain, but yes you don’t have as much power

Also the 2.5 has 1 wpc at 16 ohms so go for that one https://geshelli.com/archel2-5-pro

Impedance 16ohms-600ohms thats from the link. Is that maybe the rca and xlr has more?