Im planning my first upgrade since 2018 (looking for some advice)

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories Headphone Amps
1

I’ve been reading the forum trying to get a hint on what should be my first upgrade to a “mid” tier setup and got confused.
I’ve begin in this using a sennheiser 6xx with a small DAC/AMP Micca Origen G2 purchased after being recommended by Zeos in a video a while back.
This year I’m planning to step up a little bit but I’m a little confused about what should I upgrade first.

My budget is 500$ to spend on DAC AND AMP and in a near future get a new pair of cans (probably sundara)
According to many users 6xx benefits a lot from tube amps but If planning to add new headphones to my collection will these benefit too? I narrowed my options to:

  1. Tube amp like Darkvoice or Little Dot II and keep 6xx as my main headphone for a while?
  2. Asgard 3 as amp
  3. S.M.S.L SH-9 as amp and buy balanced cables for 6xx (will 6xx benefit from this?)
  4. Which DAC do you guys recommend getting if using any of these amps?
2

While the 6xx does appreciate a tube amp, you may be better served in your budget range with something like the Asgard, unless you can find something like a used Bottlehead Crack, EC ZDT Jr, or SW51 in budget. You could continue using the Origen as your DAC or pick up something like the Modi 3+, Liquid Spark DAC, etc. until you can save more toward that upgrade.

Note - the Sundara will not likely be a good match with most tube amps, which is another reason for considering the Asgard 3.

1 Like