AMPs:
JDS Labs Atom $100
Schiit Magni 3 $100
Topping A30 $100
Out of those DAC/AMP combos listed which do you think I should buy? Or should I get a separate DAC and AMP and if so which ones should I get?
Note - I own the Ricardos (ATH WS1100is) and MH751. Will be buying the Sennheiser HD58X in the near future.
Also using it mainly for PC and console gaming. But mostly PC lol
A great bang for buck setup is the topping d10 and a jds atom. It allows you to upgrade easily and is flexible. The atom is very transparent and can power most headphones just fine. If you want to consider planar’s later on, perhaps opt for the monolith liquid spark, as it has more power but not as transparent as the atom.
If you wanted an all in one setup, the fiio k5 pro is hard to beat with it’s overall great sound for a great price. Personally I prefer the atom + d10 stack better but if you want an all in one unit its great
There really isn’t a reason to spend more unless you want to jump to the 400-500 range, which I don’t think will be worthwhile for your current plans
if you don’t mind used gear people “upgrade” often and you can get some good used gear on ebay cheap. I’d stick with a 100$ dac and check out what there is for used amps, you might be able to get a mid- high end amp for not much more, i’ve seen 500$ amps for 100-200$.
Also true, you can find some good deals on used amps that could be worthwhile to look into. I don’t think I’ve seen a headphone amp that is currently 500 on amazon for 200 less on ebay or other selling sites, but you might be able to knock off a couple of bucks
2016, yeah I think it came out around 2011-2012 still a really good amp, a bit too powerful for me to trust using with some of my lower impedance headphones since there’s no low gain switch and its 7 or 8 watts into 32 ohm. but i have seen lyr 1 and 2’s around 200-300. I wish I did more research into amps the same guy I bought it from was selling a nice burson amp forget which one but I seen one for 1700 later, I think it sold for 400.
Some of the burson amps can be really nice. And yeah it still is a nice amp, I was just saying like if something is currently selling for like 500 new on amazon or ebay unless you find a killer deal or a beat up unit it might be hard to find a super good deal. But you bring up a good point that finding older amps can give you good bang for buck
you usually see the best deals on mid end amps around 300-800$ cause people will sell them to upgrade to 1000$+ amps/dacs. most of the time the gear is like new. the only amp I bought new was my jotunhiem, and my jdslabs dac, everything else I got used. I’d recommend buying headphones new for sure, but I’ve had good luck with used amps and dacs.
I’ve had good luck with +300 headphones as well. And amps/dacs like you said don’t really have much wear on them, as they sit on a desk and usually are treated pretty well
as far as an amp, if you do a lot of fps and mic talking in general, the mayflower arc is a very good option for gamers. it has a very clean dac and amp, and has mic passthrough to eliminate ground loop feedback.