Hi everyone,

I use headphones sometimes to listen to the digital music stored on my PC. At the moment, this is not much fun, because the analog output (which my headphones are directly connected to) is not of very good quality.

Now I want to make things right and get some equipment that gives me *really* good audio quality. But if I buy a high-end pair of headphones, the other components have to be good as well... My idea would be to use the digital output of my soundcard. The main reason for this is increased flexibility: I could use the same equipment with the digital output of my PC, my CD player or my Airport Express base station then.

So what I need would ideally be a dedicated headphone amp with a digital input. Is there such a thing? Can anybody recommend one? Price is secondary for now, I would rather like to get an overview of what's on the market...

Thanks for any suggestions...

Andreas

Not exactly what you are looking for, but perhaps it can serve you well.

http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicI...ctID=0000010003

From what I understand, it is an USB soundcard with a high quality headphone out.

I've been wary of USB soundcards though and AFAIK the headroom guys normally build amps, not soundcards. You might want to investigate into other qualities like compatibility.

Here's a review of the Headroom BitHead at Dans Data. The USB soundcard bit is perfectly compatible for standard audio playback. Where you might have trouble is on non-windows OSes, or if you were playing games. The headroom guys just bought a turnkey USB + DAC chip, so their experience or inexperience isn't really a problem.

AndreasG - What actually is the problem with the headphone out? If the trouble is just that the analog port can't deliver enough power (likely to be the case on a standard line-out and any headphones that have impedance of 120 ohms or above. Modern soundcards don't have much amplification power, they really can't anything more than some portable headphones. In that case, a regular analog only headphone amplifier would solve your problem.

If, on the other hand, your analog quality just sucks in general, something like the BitHead is a better bet. Are you using the sound from an integrated motherboard soundcard? They often have interference problems that can't be solved except to switch to something else.

Thanks for your replies. The BitHead looks interesting and is within my price range, too. Although I would favour a device which has a digital audio input, too: it would give greater flexibility and also allow me to connect it to my CD...
Is there such a thing for well below 1000 Dollars/Euros? The Apogee MiniDAC and the Grace m902 look great but are just a little to expensive...

Yes, that *is* the problem. OK, I could get a new soundcard, but as I jsut said, I would prefer something more flexible.

I might even want to connect the digital output of an Airport Express base station to the headphone amp -- this way the soundcard would not matter at all: the audio gets transferred digitally via WLAN to the Airport, which seems indeed to be capable of delivering bit-perfect digital audio output (All my Music comes from CD, so I don't need other than 44,1kHz sampling or 20-bit sound and fancy audiophile stuff...).

Thanks again, Andreas

What is your current sound card?

OK, some Google searching turned up some hits. First, it is possibly to put a DAC on one of the inexpensive CMoy headphone amps. There are people who have done it on head-fi and headwize. You just have to find a DAC chip that will output directly to the amp. But you don't sound like you want to do a DIY electronics project. But if you did, here's a guide.

Headroom Overture DAC - $299
It only does toslink optical though.

ART DIO Tube Preamp - $160
Don't know that I would want a tube amp myself, but some people like 'em.

The SuperMacro may get digital in the near future, so says Dr Xin in their forum.

Couldnt you just get the USB version of the Creative Audigy? I have an extigy I use for my PC so I can bring it with me when I travel, and it has optical on it.

There's these things http://www.stereo-link.com/ as well for USB->Headphone. They are now back in production and accepting back orders.

If you don't care about portability the best thing to do is to pickup one of the nicer Sony minidisc players off Ebay. All Sony machines fuction as a DA converter if you hit record with no disk in.

You can then use as a DA Converter with a headphone amp in it, even if you never use it to play minidisks. You can get an a cheap one for $40 or $50 and a decent one with a modern version of ATRAC if you actually want to use it as an MD deck for $100ish.

Of course one of these http://www.gracedesign.com/products/902/m902.htm would fit the bill but is costs $1600

No one seems to make a portable box with a digital input, even Canford Audio have discontinued theirs.

The Benchmark DAC-1 has analog output which many people like and also a respectable headphone amp. It can't be connected directly to PC - you will need a card with bit-perfect digital out, which can be got for <$100.

Comments on the Grace and Benchmark:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread....12&page=1&pp=15
Of course, these things are a matter of taste to a large extent.

My Windows PC only has crappy onboard sound... For serious use I would definitely need a new one (The analog out is so ridiculously bad that I cannot even use if for watching a movie).

For most of my work I use an Apple Powerbook, its analog output is at least noise free. It doesn't even have a digital output, though. But via WLAN and Airport Express, it would be possible to to get the audio stream in digital format. Being able to connect the digital out of the Airport as well as the digital out of my CD player to the amp would be nice...

Andreas

The Headroom Overture DAC is interesting, but it's sold out. Although it is not what I actually wanted at first, I am also interested in the BitHead/Total BitHead. The good thing is, that I could use this device with a portable player, too... Does anybody know how to buy HeadRoom products in Germany and how much they will cost in Euros?

Thanks for all those links...

Andreas

LOL whenever someone says that changing the power cord makes a difference you know that you need to start running away.

You can get glitches in digital equipment due to brownouts and spikes you need a proper power conditioner for getting rid of these changing the power cord for one made out of solid silver under the blessing of a Buddist Monk in tibet is not going to help.

For example http://www.furmansound.com/index.php however go for the professional range of gear. Furman know full well what Golden Ear hifi types are like and charge the prices the market will stand on the consumer range

Does anyone say that in that thread?
(Corrected to link to the first page now.)
For certain equipment which generates a lot of RFI (class D amps) some people say certain power cords can stop that from getting out into other equipment; also that conditioning is better. I have no opinion.

For that price range, I picked up a set of monitors (Edirol MA-20D) that have optical
input and a headphone out. Work great with my Senn HD580 headphones.

It depends on the equipment and the nature of the fault - there are several cases in which a bad or underrated power cord (too thin conductors) can cause problems with amplifiers (generally very high powered ones). For example, a 1000 Watt PA amp that I used last year used to start playing intermittantly after a few minutes of high volume playing - we found the problem in a very bad plug connection that was getting hot.

However, on all sound quality issues I can't think of any reason why the signal coming out of an amplifier with a pure platinum cable blessed by the pope would sound any different from sound coming out of the same amplifier with an adequate copper cord. Any claim like this needs to be backed up with exceptional evidence (ie an ABX test).

Class D equipment should be properly isolated from it's power supply - if RF interference is leaking onto the power cord then the equipment is broken (possibly broken at design time).

I don't remember if it was Carver the company or Carver the man (Sunfire) right after the split came out with a high power amp that had separate power connections for left and right with the suggestion that they be plugged into separate 20 amp circuits.

Behringer SRC2496. A very high quality professional DAC/ADC with digital inputs, outputs(basicly ever connection you could ever want), you can choose/specify resampling, etc., and it has a built in headphone amplifier. Approx. Price: $130.00 USD

-Chris

if you're gonna spend $100-200 or around there on a headphone amp...wouldnt it be a good idea to get a nice soundcard as well?

LOL

I've specified several systems where the amps are wired directly into distribution boxes as they draw in excess of 20 amps each, you end up having to be very careful that you don't exceed the power inlet capability of your distro box which for most portable gear in the UK is going to be 63 amps.

For example http://www.crestaudio.com/products/pro200series/pro9200.cfm can put 6.5KW bridged into 4 ohms. At that sort of power you also lose a significant amount in the speakers cables. In many large systems you end up losing nearly 10% of the total amplifier power as heat in the speaker cable. This is why lots of extremely large scale systems are swinging towards using active cabs so less power is required.