Hello,
I’m looking to buy an amp for my Beyerdynamic DT880s (250 ohm). I have been using them with only my motherboard’s audio (Asus Maximus VIII Hero) after being told it should be enough here on the forum. However I think it could be better with some dedicated gear and I won’t have to search for motherboard with the best audio when I’ll be upgrading later.
What AMP or ideally AMP/DAC combo would you guys recommend as being adequate for getting full potential out of my headphones? I am a complete noob in this regard so any description / aditional info will be welcomed. Also, I am based in the EU (market here kinda different from US).
I live in the Czech republic, so if you want to do a quick search on what’s available where I live, check out this site: https://www.heureka.cz/
I’m also able to buy staff from Amazon Germany, but it would be better to buy it locally: https://www.amazon.de/ I’m not looking to import from the US, the customs here are expensive and it takes a lot of time and effort.
I’d like to not spend a fortune on it. It would be nice if it’s not more expensive than the headphones themself, the budget is ~100$…
I don’t know what motherboard he has and even if I did I wouldn’t know how good the audio is off of that motherboard, but I can tell you there are motherboards out there which will make something simple like a FiiO e10k worth it. I know from experience since the difference between the e10k and my laptop is pretty significant.
Now I don’t know a whole lot about amplifiers, but I would maybe look at something like the Xduoo XD-05 basic I think. It’s about 135 EUR where I live, but it can be used portable as well.
Sold neither here nor on Amazon Germany. That’s why I put the upper case EUROPE into the title. A lot of stuff which can be easily and cheaply bought in the US.
Well, my motherboard is audio-wise pretty good, at least within motherboard standards, so it makes me think that for example the E10K may not be worth the cash, but I may be completely wrong. I just know that the DT880 sounds way worse using other devices I tried it on (phones, laptops, desktops with cheaper boards…) compared to my desktop
Exists in headphone amplifiers, yes.
And it makes sense to not overly dampen the driver. OTL Tube Amps often have in the hundred ohm range output impedance.
The other philosophy is the lower the output impedance the better. Which makes sense for feedback designs.
