Is an Amp/ DAC combo worth it for me?

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories Headphone Amps
1

I’m wondering if it’s worth it to spend money on an affordable Amp/ DAC combo.

Here’s my setup and situation. I work on a laptop all day, but I game on a high-end desktop. I purchased a SoundBlaster Zx sound card for my desktop a few years ago, which is why I’m not sure if an amp/DAC is worth it for me.

I typically listen on Status Audio CB-1 cans and I have wired Audioengine A2+ on my desk connected to a powered Pioneer SW-8 100W sub. I plug the cans directly into the audio card’s amp’d headphone out and I run the speakers off of the card’s front outs (the sub gets signal from the A2+ sub out).

I could see a portable amp/ DAC combo making sense for listening while I work, but I’m not sure if my desktop setup would benefit without me spending considerable money.

Thanks in advance for the insight!

2

You could get a dac amp combo, but admittedly the benefit wouldn’t be as large if you were using some higher end headphones. If you see yourself buying some high end headphones later on, it might be something to consider, but tbh I don’t think that would be the best use of your funds at the current moment. You could get something like a great can like the hd58x (or many others lol) for the price of a good amp and get way more benefit from it than that dac amp setup

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3

Thanks for the input. That’s kind of what I was thinking. I figured that a portable amp/DAC might help a little with my laptop, but since the CB-1s aren’t high impedance it wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

4

Yeah, it would help but the cb1 isn’t that amp picky and is fairly easy to drive, so I would suggest to spend the money on another headphone before an amp/dac in your case