so I’ve been researching for abit and I’ve came down to either picking the fulla 3 or schiit modi/magni stack for my beyerdynamic custom studio 80 ohm. Was wondering which should I rather buy if I only plan to use spotify/youtube for music, do some competitive/casual gaming, and watch shows in netflix? is the extra $100-120 worth it to buy the schiit stack over the fulla 3 or should I just buy the fulla 3 to save the money? Is there a difference in soundstage, clarity, detail, and stuff in terms of what I’ll be using it for when these two are compared? (btw I dont really plan on getting tidal idk I just like listening to songs for free. I’m not really a full-on audiophile but I just appreciate better audio hehe 
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(I asked a similar question but with the zen dac and k5pro compared to the schiit stack but i cant find a trusted seller here in Philippines so yeah im only going to order from schiit )
You honestly don’t need either to drive the 80 ohm you could go with a cheaper setup. But if you plan to upgrade headphones in the future or collect like many on the forum a full schiit stack is the way to go. You will get more accurate sound, and the ability bro drive more headphones allowing for larger possibilities when buying the next set of headphones. Really though if you were to put the 2 setups side by side and used a custom studio pro to compare I highly doubt you could find that significant of a difference. But put a harder to drive and just overall better headphone and the differences become more obvious.
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well actually i dont really plan on buying any headphones for the next 7-10 years (from what i heard beyerdynamic headphones last very long) so it would be better to buy the fulla 3 instead?
(btw will i notice a change in soundstage with either dac and amp?)
that is entirely how good you hearing is and how much you trained yourself to pick up subleties in gear. if you are just starting out probably not. if you dont plan on buying anything over the next 7-10 years then you might be better off with a fulla, its cheaper and will do just fine driving you headphones cleanly and audio lanscape can change pretty drastically 7-10 years from now. you would probably be better off saving the cash on your source gear and spending a bit more on a better set of headphones like a 250 ohm 770 instead
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hmm, if you don’t plan to change that headphone for a very long time your fine with just a fulla… the magni and modi will be better especially on power but the sound differences will be extremely negligible so I wouldn’t really worry about that one too much
as for the zen dac over there that one does sound different as its on the warmer side of things so the bass and mids will have a warmer tonality to them… soundstage wise eh roughly the same the cheaper amps and dacs really aren’t anything “spectacular” they just get the job done like you want. In terms of clarity though I personally liked the magni and modi more… but the modi had a slight treble glare(note I didnt have the newer modi at the time so this may have been fixed) depending on the headphone.
k5 pro is a more neutral clarity kinda amp… its a great entry level honestly… but in your case this really isn’t needed.
I would say it depends on you… if you plan to get a better headphone at all anytime soon and want to slightly future proof your overall setup… go with the magni and modi otherwise just go with a fulla or whatever your finding at the cheapest price point so you save money… it definitely doesn’t take much to drive those studios
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thanks!
(oh btw If i buy the fulla 3 itll be $109+$25[shipping] would that still be worth it?
edit: and also i checked the website again and actually its a fulla 4 so…
ighttt! thanks rice guru👍
doesnt change my opinion on it really…
go with the better budget option for you in this regard
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I have a Fulla2 and very pleased. From what you are describing I can’t see spending that much more money.
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when you said that the sound difference that i would get between the schiit stack vs the fulla 3 is negligible if i were to only use it for my beyerdynamic custom studio, did you mean that the difference isnt even noticeable to worry about? like even tho its maximum power for 50 ohms is 150 mW RMS and 40 RMS for 300 ohms?
power does not = better sound. You will get the same sound from the unit regardless of power as long as the headphone is getting -enough- power from the unit. There are long drawn out reasonings behind why amps and dacs cause different sounds
pretty much. There is -some- differences but studio isn’t one of those thats so picky that it will be a glaring issue to begin with… it’s not something to be worried about. The only thing to be concerned about is potentially going with the option that has the most power to it incase you want a bit of future proofing
for casual use, your really not working with the best results to begin with… studios are decent but I wouldn’t rate them over a dt 770 for example… better to just go with the budget option that gets the best bang for the buck in this case.
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ohhhhh i use to think that more power will make the headphones louder than it used to be in the same sound level as when the headphones are powered by a normal laptop. Like 50% volume on a dac/amp setup will be louder than 50% volume on just a normal laptop dac/amp. And j thought that the lower the volume level the clearer the sound will be.
btw thanks again!
Amps will make them louder yes and can even blow a headphone(too much power from the volume knob being put too high)… regular motherboards do not stand up to dac amps whatsoever. Sound quality is better on dedicated dacs and amps than a motherboard.
you need appropriate power for a headphone to sound correctly… but this isn’t really taking into headphone scaling and what not which isn’t so much power as much as topology, parts, design, etc etc.
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What about comparing Fulla to Drop O2/Sdac one? I have HD58X and am pretty much mainly music / video / gaming (story driven, immersive type). Suggestions are much appreciated.
Edit: misread and commented below
Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean. Please clarify 
Oops, for some reason I misread lol. Sorry about that, thought you meant connecting a Fulla to O2. So normally I’d say a) they probably sound almost the same anyway so not worth spending the extra and b) Fulla gives you the option to connect a mic, but atm it seems Fulla / Hel has a lot of compatibility issues so I’d suggest either go for O2/SDAC or grab an early generation of Fulla or wait until the issue is resolved
I plan to pair with HD58X, is the compatibility issue happened with that headphone? I dont use mic for gaming at all so mainly just the audio quality and the simplicity of the setup is my main focus.
No, not with the headphone, but with the computer. Many have reported audio dropout, so probably a firmware / driver issue of USB.
I see, I thought Fulla / Hel was driverless dac amp combo just plug and play. Good to know about the issue. Thanks again
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