What would be a good portable Dac/Amp to use with my HD6xx and Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone?
I am new to this hobby. I purchased a HD6XX and plan to use it with my Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone, that has a 3.5mm jack. I was wondering if I needed a portable dac/amp or just a portable amp and if so what would one recommend? Any assistance one could provide, would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, Haz
Mar 7, 2024
Introduction out of the way, I have been doing a little reading and it has come to my attention that I may need a DAC/AMP for these. Let me give you the run down on how they will mostly be used; PC gaming (currently through an iMac so please keep in mind for cable connection purposes... gaming PC incoming but my build is not finished), mobile listening (iPhone), and just good old music listening through my computer (again, an iMac).
Do I really need a DAC/AMP, and if so is there one that would fit all my needs above? If there isn't, I prefer it to work with my iMac for gaming/music over my iPhone. Is there a single unit that will do both or is it best to pick up two different units?
A few options would be preferable. I would like to keep the price sub $200 if possible.
Thanks, Your local non-audiophile
if you don't mind spending a little money to get better SQ, you can probably take a look at Fulla Schiit, which retails for 79 bucks.
if you don't mind spending the 200 bucks, you can probably get the Schiit Magni/Modi stack for even better SQ. you can probably get a bit more if you go for second hand, or b-grade goods.
To be fair tho, like mentioned above you don't really need a DAC/AMP...tho you may get better appreciation of the headphones with at least an amp. The advantages of just an amp unit is that it'll work with all devices because you just route it inline between your device's headphone out and your headphones. FiiO makes a decent set of portable headphone amps, the Objective2 can also be used but they're a bit larger, and you have a plethora of desktop amps from companies like Schiit, SMSL, Audioengine, etc.
You do need an amp, unless you want these to sound super average. The HD650s scale to infinity.
Personally after reading this and so many other articles I'm thinking about the Schitt combo. Thing is, I dont know how good the sound card on my motherboard REALLY is so I dont know if i need a DAC. I've never had a problem yet, but then again my best headphones currently are the HD518's which dont have the imedience the 6XX's have, and theyre running through the Blue Yeti Microphone. $200 is the most I would like to spend as well, as I dont really care for swapable tubes and the like, I just want to make sure the amp can drive 300 ohms (which was actually not that easy to find, probably because I didnt know where to look)