I’m looking at headphones right now but might want to power a set of speakers in the future. Can you tell me a little more about what you’re talking about?
When the headphones are unplugged, the atom acts as a preamp output, so it takes the signal for your dac and you can control the level of that signal and it outputs through the RCA out. This is good for powered speakers which typically don’t have a volume control or a hard to reach one, so you can control the volume of the speakers through the atom. If you have passive speakers, you would have a separate speaker amp which typically has a volume knob of it’s own. He is noting that you may have issues with having two volume knobs
Oh ok got it. We talked about something similar earlier I just didn’t realize we were talking the same thing. If I did run into multiple volume knobs I would just set one and use the other for control, whichever I found gave me better output, which is what I think you are saying. Hopefully I have a better idea of what I am doing by then…
yeah sry, I replied to m0n but the way the forums works is that it displays all posts in chronological order and doesn’t sort by who replied to who.
what is your budget like for headphones? and does it matter what store you get them from? amazon, aliexpress, local shops in your area?
Yeah I saw that I just wanted some more info about your concerns for the potential future setup.
My budget for headphones is less than 200 unless they are really compelling for some reason. Store doesn’t matter too much although a return policy would be nice since it’s an expensive investment and I’d like to be able to say no if I hate them for some strange reason
I don’t know of any local shops and Amazon is always a plus since prime and great return policy, but again not sure store makes too much difference to me right now
well if 200 is your budget then the atom and d10 themselves will fill it. So you may have to either get a dac/amp combo or something rly easy to power and run it off your computers mobo and hope its internal dac/amp isn’t terabad.
Oh I misunderstood the question. I’d like the total system to come in under 500$ that’s a pretty solid limit with less leeway than the 200 ish for headphones.
I’m looking at it as an investment - like I said I may use the amp to power a set of speakers someday
I have the ASRock x570 taichi Mobo. It uses realteks ALC1220
The atom or d10 will not power speakers (for further clarification if needed). They can provide a clean signal and volume control for a pair of active/powered speakers (speakers that have a built in amp, let’s say some vanatoo t0’s) or you can use them with a pair of passive speakers (let’s say micca rb42s as an example) and a speaker amp (let’s say topping pa3 for example)
well if you pick up the topping D10 and the JDS labs Atom that puts you at ruffly 170 before taxes and shipping so you have lots of choices for headphones 300 or less. You will just need to identify what type of sound you like and do some searching for headphones that fit that bill. id recommend using the hifi guides recommendation feature to get started.
Let me take a step back for a second. If I were to want to set up a small home theater system in the future is this even the right path for that use case? Or am I trying to make apples into oranges?
Yeah but I have no idea what kind of sound I like. I think M0N is trying to steer me towards a good jumping off point with the 58x’s
What do you mean by home theater system? Like speakers in a room with multiple channels, or some nice bookshelf speakers on a desk?
Speakers in a room with multiple channels
From what you have said, your use cases, and also what you want out of a headphone, I think the 58x would be very solid price wise. Also as you say it’s a great starting point to learn what you like before you really invest a ton into something.
I think these are pretty different setups. You would want a separate system with a av receiver, some sort of bluray player or home theater pc, not really a headphone setup. I think they really wouldn’t be merged, and it would be something separate from a headphone setup
Ok that’s fine I can understand that for sure. I’m very new to all this…so if instead of a big multiple channel setup if I wanted a couple of nice speakers instead but still hooked them up to a Blu Ray or htpc setup would that be a possibility? Kinda an in between point before upgrading to a bigger av setup?
Or is this setup really primarily a music and gaming and not so much movie setup?
So with this setup you can branch out and pick a pair of nice bookshelf speakers to use with this setup in the future just fine. Headphone wise you are covered for movies, music, and gaming no problem. You can actually get a great movie experience out only 2 speakers imo, and for more fun you can add a sub later on too. Once you get to the level of a full on multichannel home theater though it would be a separate ordeal with different needs for equipment imo
My first setup was a Schiit Stack and an HD598 open. The times have changed as far as pricing. Nowadays you can purchase a really nice 1st time setup as far as price to performance. The HD598 always were so boring to me. It was the jump to the HD650 that got me hooked.
in case you haven’t found a link to the HD58x’s yet
and the obligatory z review of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE22dZ_jiyU
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