Hello, i’m a beginner in the audio scene and i am currently looking for a dac/amp solution to power my senheiser hd6xx headphones. I stumbled on to these two headphones amps/dacs since they are in a similar price range. Anyone got some recommendations about these devices or got any other recommendations in a similar price range?
Thanks already.
I would say that if you like the form factor of the element and want a more transparent amp, the element is the way to go. If you want more power and a slightly warmer signature and can accommodate the size, the asgard 3 is the way to go
Both amps are beasts from great companies that can pretty much power anything you need them to
To be honest you would need to jump to the $500 range if you wanted to outperform these options. I would say that these amps are probably the best all in ones in the price range
I hope ASR puts up results for these…don’t think the Element ins up and the Asgard 3 is probably too new still.
The Asgard 3 is a really good amp for the money. It has a hint of the Schiit house sound compression but not nearly enough for someone to tell without having a much more expensive amp to compare to. It’s a lot better than any other schiit amp I’ve heard and the noise floor is low enough to use sensitive IEMs on. Havent heard the combo with the 4490 dac or the element so I cant comment on that
Thanks for all the responses, I’m now choosing between the Asgard 3 with the 4490 module, the Topping dx3 pro v2 and the all new aune x1s pro but cant find much over the aune amplifier since its pretty new. Also i dont really know if they all have enough power to drive my 300 ohm headphones.
The Aune outputs 200mw at 300ohm and the Asgard puts out 600mw. I use 2 300ohm sennheiser cans, original HD580 and HD650 black silk, and on high gain I hasn’t left wanting any more power out of the Asgard 3. Hopefully that helps 
Yea the asgard 3 should have plenty of power but what about the Aune or the Topping cause the price of the Topping one is very tempting. I just fear it does not have enough power to drive my headphones?
I would say that the aune x1s is a bit better in sound then the dx3 pro, but the dx3 pro has better features. If you are limited by budget, the topping should have no problem powering the headphones
The topping does 123mw at 300ohm according to ASR, ~1/2 of the Aune and ~1/6 of the Schiit. I personally wouldnt consider that enough for listening at anything beside max volume. If budget is a concern it will do for now and leave you plenty of room to upgrade in the future. The topping does have practically 0 distortion until full volume so it is possible.
Still looking at getting one of these two by the end of the month. How does the Element II DAC compare to the Multibit DAC in the Asgard 3?
The element dac is cleaner sounding, where the multibit is warmer sounding to sum it up lol
Beautiful and clean versus powerful and fun, got it.
The dac inside of the jds is also fun lol, the multibit is a bit more relaxed and wider actually imo
Hi there,
I would listen to Mon in this case.
the headphones where you have is tuned quite transparent from the start. And if you plug the whole thing into a transparent amplifier, it can be too transparent for you. So rather too much of a good thing.
Since you are already looking at the Asgard from your belly, it would be a good combination with your Sennheiser, so you have a wide-open, transparent stage with warm accents, which is also fun to listen to bad entry, later you can always try something where you say even more heat or more transparent or analytical, but that is on a different page.If you don’t like the Asgard after a week you can still send it back if you live in America.