i just dunno between nano BL or hip dac or whatever… i dunno which would be the easiest to do… the zendac looked cool but then it turned out i had to plug it into the wall which i dont like because i dont have a TON of plugs in my room
The hip dac is warmer and also something you would want to use balanced, the nano black label is also good and has a dac line out so you can use it as a dedicated dac so that’s cool
sennheiser sadly doesn’t have a 4.4 mm balanced cable
but yeah i was thinking hip dac… the only issue is that battery life but 12 hours seems pretty good for my average day (the battery might be empty on a weekend or a summer day but thats about it)
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thanks… the one difficult thing is that maybe the sennheisers might get TOO warm with the hip DAC since the 58X are already kinda warm… its either i try that, find out if the zen DAC can be powered with just USB or try and find a brighter dac that could work well (since the only thing i dont really want is a SUPER linear and basic dac)
yeah i’ll either do an ifi zen or hip dac (i just have to put my heaphones in on the right side instead of left side)… or a dongle DAC like the zerda or dragonfly… that will be dependent on if they sound fun and detailed and if they can work with the stuff i plan to buy in the future (the beyerdynamic 770s for a very neutral monitoring headphone, or a very hot and bright and has a deep bass but not too much… a la something like the HD800s (bert review’s sound demo made them sound so amazing because it was not only slightly louder but also like the dream sound) but better priced
@duke86fan The DT770 are certainly not neutral. I know because I tried the different ohm models. The 250 ohm have a very V shaped sound signature with very recessed midrange, and it only got even more V shaped the lower you went in ohm rating. I would not consider them a monitoring headphone choice at all. If you want a really fun bass headphone with bright treble, they are awesome for that, but not for monitoring.
The Beyerdynamic DT880 are supposed to be neutral, those would be the choice for a headphone closer to being good for monitoring.
You can definitely monitor oh headphones with big v shapes the m50x , the dt770, 990. I’ve seen all used for monitoring with great success. The big v shapes doe a good job really exposing bad things now rather than noticing in the mixing or production stage. When mixing though is when you really want to bring something neutral as to not add too much bass or mix the treble too hot.
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I suppose DJ and live tracking it might be okay, I just couldn’t see myself using something like that. I would personally prefer something more neutral-bright with excellent detail for that, but to each their own. 
Not just ok but the the dt 770s and m50x are studio standards and you’ll often see one or the other or both in every studio I’ve ever been in
Yeah I see people use them for recording vocals for movies, but just because more people use something doesn’t mean it is the best choice, or even if something is the standard.
Aggreed but for the purposes they do they became a standard for a reason. One reason is they are cheap , but another they do their jobs well the m50x is narrow sounding and unforgiving. If your pitch is off you know like literally right away no matter how v shaped a headphone is how notes sound never really changes it just gets more quite or louder depending orn frequency response so if your a female singer or a male singer who has a deep voice any flaw in your pitch becomes immediately obvious. The dt 770 while wide sounding does the same jobjust as but the soundstage makes things more tolerable but I have found it does better is expose the little details like flaws in a room say your following a guy around with a camera
The deep bass in the headphone doesn’t really come out unless the song demands it so it’s not too much of a concern
yeah but i heard they might be the best for me as a closed back option for my future…
but then again i seem to have liked the 58X sound more and more as of late so i’ll either have to find newer closed backs that match that, better more accurate monitoring if i ever wanna make my own music, or something completely else…
for amp i’m aparently supposed to see either a zendac or a fiio K5 pro… both are probably great and the only debate might really be if i want MQA and if i want burr brown instead of AKM
or i dunno maybe there is a dongle dac that is just as good for me and can be just plugged in forever
the issue is
- portability… has to fit on my twin size bed
- not be super expensive
- can power at most up to maybe 6XXs
- no need to charge it
- have a nice sound (maybe also some features like MQA would be nice)
so hence i am thinking ifi or a dongle dac
a review of the monolith USB dac i was given for free
Background:
Monoprice seems like the objectivists audioquest, where audioquest tries to give as high of a performance as possible for a cheap for hifi price, Monoprice knows that all you need is some decent wire and you can sell it for cheap. Their monolith brand has had a good reputation due to the use of THX AAA audio for a lot of their productions and the liquid spark having what is considered a warm tube like sound for about 100 bucks. The USB Dac is clearly fighting against the audioquest dragonfly line, promising high performance of say a dragonfly red or cobalt for the price of a dragonfly black
Build:
There is definitely a lot of plastic going on, it feels sturdy enough but definitely feels cheaper, I did buy it used and there isn’t much of a problem of durability though, it probably could break somewhat easily if you put a super heavy object on it but my laptop was not heavy enough to break it. I do notice a lot of heat coming from the monolith though, not burning hot but definitely feeling warm while its in use
The fact that this dac has amplification buttons makes it interesting and more unique, though the upper button on the dac lowers the volume and the other makes it louder which is weird, basically its safe to max out the windows volume (it defaulted to doing that for me) and using these buttons to add some more loudness, though the very exact picking is kinda difficult
Sound (Headphones Used: Sennheiser 58X Jubilees):
As what feels like a middle finger to audioquest, the monolith advertises sample rates up to 32/384 DXD and DSD256. I tested this with a demo from 2L, which it clearly worked with and sounded fairly well, I don’t see much of a use for DSD as it sounded just as good as say a 192/24 PCM file and not a TON of music comes from it, but I do find it cool to see and pretty nice (also tip, if you are using foobar do WASAPI (push) for your output driver, event sounds HORRIBLE on PCM and WASAPI gave me DSD support).
Taking an example from the HDTracks free sampler that was released… I felt like the tracks had a lot of texture and energy to them, the mastering felt like there was a lot of nice guitar strings and a smooth simple ride, I found one thing unique about the monolith as my first real experience with a dac and that’s that the drums did have a more clean and relaxed sound to them, which I feel might have lessened some of the power of them but was smooth and satisfying, even on youtube this less crisp more softened sound is there
Brand New’s “Can’t Get It Out” is a personal favorite song of mine so testing the 96/24 download I have of it on this was exciting, at first I didn’t really notice much until I got to a moment of multiple people singing, one thing that almost hypnotized me back when I first heard it was that the chorus had kind of melded into one voice around the 1:15 mark, but with the monolith I felt like there wasn’t as much of a melding to it, which is more revealing and nice but I kind of wonder if I lost a lot of the beautiful mental illusions the lesser audio on my laptop was giving me.
Going on to streaming on tidal. Slide by calvin harris with frank ocean and migos feels as fun as I remember and the bass feels just right in how pronounced it is and no instruments feel cluttered, useful as this is a song that has a lot of meticulous instruments, there is a bit of a focus on the mids but nothing too intense to really bug me. While Fennesz’s amazing ballad with David Sylvian “Transit” definitely showed the mid focus more, its pretty but the vocals are a lot clearer in the mix and the noises feel a little more synthetic than before.
Comparison:
Compared to my old dragonfly black, I do consider the monolith to sound a good bit better, with the dragonfly I felt like I wasn’t really getting a big audio improvement over what I already got with my headphone jack. But maybe its because of the DAC chip or the fact that I used exclusive mode and WASAPI on my digital files, but I definitely could notice an improvement. Whether its better than a red or cobalt I cannot give since I have never owned either of them, if anyone who has owned a higher end dragonfly can speak about the sound quality comparisons, I’d be more than welcome to update this
Conclusion:
For 100 dollars I can consider it a great starter DAC for laptops, it may not have the big features of something like a dragonfly but what you are getting is pretty nice
this also helps me find what can be good recommendations for fixing my slight issues with overly clean instead of intense sound signature in a new dac or new headphone
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and a couple days later and i cant tell the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC and the sound is fine but it feels like its focused on features than on sound quality, its cool it does DSD256 and 384/32 audio but it means nothing when there isn’t enough pop or intensity or texture being given to me… i dunno if thats the dac or the headphones thats the issue
what is the sound difference between a xduoo XD05 and an ifi hip dac, i want something that sounds warm and textured, i keep hearing i should get an xduoo for my work (and probably would get the plus version because USB C is so useful and it might not need a power block), but i feel like ifi would be just as useful for the situation
The Hip is going to be the warmer of the two, and has a balanced option. The XD05 has more power and a little more functionality with the SPDIF and line out functions. IIRC, the Hip does not have line out functionality
Correct. Headphone out only.
I’m at the point where I only recommend the Hip-Dac if you KNOW you want that sound signature. If you’re headphones/IEMs are too bright and need the treble to be reined in a bit, it’s a good portable amp.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I really like the Hip Dac with my Elegia and my KSC75 which both tend to benefit IMO from the warm tilt of the amp. I’m also considering an IEM like the Blessing 2 which seems like it would be a good pairing with the Hip Dac due to the comments I’ve seen about its brighter / neutral tuning.