Hi all I’m new to the game and my head is battered!! I’ve nearly bought so many different amps then read they’re not good for certain things.
At the moment I have a pair of hd 58x and a pair of tin t2. I am planning on upgrading both in the future but that’s down the line. I’m currently running the senns from a little fosi audio amp which distorts quite early in the proceedings.
I did have a smsl su-8 and a loxjie p20 which I had to sell to fund other hobbies but now have (limited) funds to start again.
Anyway after all this rambling I’m looking at buying an amp up to about £150 possibly could stretch to £200. I was considering the zen dac which would fit my needs but I think I might have read somewhere that it doesn’t play that well with the hd58x.
Any suggestions are welcome. Uk based so amazon seems to be the best place to go. Any schiit seems to be sold out indefinitely over here as I liked the look of the magnius
I can recommend what I own, and that’s EarMen products.
I can recommend the TR-Amp, and it fits your budget. Now, I will not go ahead and compare it to devices that I don’t have, but I can tell you that more than one person has told me that it outperforms both iFi and Fiio devices.
Considering that TR-Amp has enough power to drive the HD6XX, it will have no issues with driving 58XX (in terms of power)… however, 58XX has a sensitivity 104dB/mW, making it a higher sensitivity headphone - and you might face audible noise from TR-Amp.
I had this issue with iBasso SR2 which has a sensitivity of 108dB/mW, there was audible noise - so I started using the SR2 with EarMen Sparrow, which handles higher sensitivity much better.
Sparrow may be what you are looking for, since it also has a 2.5mm balanced output - which would come handy for any IEM’s. It has plenty of power, but I doubt it will be able to drive some harder to drive headphones. It is using Sabre’s flagship ES9281Pro. I don’t think there are any issues that you will have with pairing the 58XX with the Sparrow.
Cheers for that. I think I’m looking at more of a desktop amp and also I want to drive planars in the future (should of said!) and it says it would struggle. Certainly looks a good bit of kit to my untrained eye
Alternatively, you can also visit the Beresford capella page, but you will need a Dac Wie Topping E30 or Cambridge Audio dac magic 100 that works very well with the capella.
It would even be on your doorstep if you like it, because Beresford is in England.
And it is not even bad in quality.
I had the Beresford capella and thought it was really good for the money.
Otherwise it is quite hard to find something for 200£.
When dac was still the Massdrop Grace Design Standard X would not be wrong and cheap.
Paired with the Shiit Vali 2, there is another option.
Jds labs o2 dac with the atom or this one.
The ify would not be conditionally wrong either would probably soon reach its limits.
The absolute alternative to the bridging would be the Hidizs S3 or S9 until you might have a better budget for something better.
The Hidizs would not be wrong if you also want to be mobile.
