The HE400SE are going for $80 and $90 for B-Stock and Open box respectively on the HifiMan website. Mannnn that's such a good deal. How would they pair up with a fiio BTR5? Also the KA3 (India) is being marketed as the K3 for US? (Same pricing too 8k so isn't worth importing for the DAC ig). Also a forum member has listed the Lotoo Paw S2 too.Sorry, the suggestion is KA3. Go ahead with the Tempotec but I'd honestly recommend the KA3 over it since I bought an xDuoo amp once I started EQ-ing since the Tempotec wasn't pushing it for me. Honestly, I could have saved money by going with the Apple Dongle + xDuoo amp combo and achieved the same results. 2 years ago, the KA3 wasn't an option else I'd have definitely got that for a portable but somewhat powerful USB DAC/AMP.
I'm not dunking or even commenting on the Astros/PC38X since I don't know enough about them and can only recommend/talk about products I have experience with or have read enough about. Honestly, if you want to get one of those then go ahead; no chance you will be disappointed if the PKCell man himself likes them. I took a chance on the HiFiMan 2yrs ago and couldn't be happier; who knows what I'd be saying if I had gotten the ATH M50x instead
PC Peripherals Which headphone to import from US?
Stronk
Adept
The BTR5's unbalanced output is about the same as Tempotec Sonata HD's (75mW) at 80mW. Unless you need the wireless connectivity feature, I'd steer clear of DAC/AMPs with internal batteries due to potential battery (swelling) problems down the road. Plus, the HE400SE is pretty big and I doubt you can use it in a public place anyway (although using it around the house shouldn't be an issue).
I hadn't suggested the Lotoo Paw S2 so far because of cost but that is an excellent choice too (150mW), but my reservations about non-removable batteries remain.
Mr.J
Skilled
Wow, really? That's a news to me. Usually nerdy stuff is expensive in India.
I don't get the comment about volume dial. I'm only suggesting to get an amp because mobo audio doesn't have enough power for headphones in midrange and above.
Topping is better as a DAC but you might need to get an AMP separately to pair with it. Fiio or IFI have DAC+AMP models. So it depends on what you want. There are couple of DAC+AMP models by Topping as well.
I've heard that the HE400SE is power hungry, so that might actually need a proper amp - BTR5 might not cut it (check reviews to be sure). Everything else I've seen discussed here would probably be fine with something in that class. That K3 is probably a good choice, or maybe the Topping DX1 if you don't want the battery - IIRC it was reviewed well and is a similar price.
BTW, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't worry much about stand-alone DACs - as has been suggested, the Apple dongle is more than good enough. In fact, DACs are pretty much a solved problem - a decent implementation of a good DAC chip will be audibly transparent to pretty much everyone.
Damn I completely forgot about the battery part. Yeah fair point. I just knew it was real capable (Mr.PKCell ran a HD600 with it really easily). I just weighed the option of moving around the house, yes.
I mean any source can drive a headphone it's just about the volume i.e. how loud it drives it isn't it? I believe (hot take) that people should just use EQ and any AMP that can provide listenable volumes instead of splurging on tube AMPs to get darker sound and so on. But I don't know their use case, their convenience and so on... I did think about getting an ifi zen dac 2, but that just means I'd be spending more on the source than the headphones themselves. At this price point, it'd be better to just dump all that cash on a better headphone instead of the source right?
Will definitely see if I can still get the dac 2 though. But as of now the HE400SE for 9k seems too sweet of a deal to miss out on. (Also what are some good topping DAC+AMPs?)
The sad thing is I don't have a type C port on my MoBo so would adding a USB to C dongle then the apple dongle degrade it's quality or provide any grounding issues? Actually I'm in the same boat as you about the unpopular opinion. The best option here would be to get the headphone imported first then go from there because it would be evident if I need more volume / a better source? Honestly speaking I think the current bottleneck in my system is the audio files themselves and not the HDMI to 3.5mmm passthrough in my monitor but without better equipment, I can't really tell anyways can I?
Just FYI, Headphone Zone has it on sale right now for 10k - the ease of warranty returns might justify the extra 1k, especially given Hifiman's reputation for shoddy QC.
So long as the dongle isn't absolute garbage that shouldn't be a problem - these dongles are usually just straight passthroughs, and are unlikely to create any new signalling issues that don't already exist on your motherboard, at least AFAIK.
That would be my choice, yes. You may not be able to get a lot of the fancy stuff here, but you'll most likely find something that will do the job.
Well, the Apple dongle is almost certainly a better DAC than whatever's in your HDMI adapter, though whether that difference will be noticeable to you is another question. As for your audio files, it depends on what codec they're stored in - contrary to popular belief, MP3/AAC at high enough bitrates is indistinguishable from FLAC for most people, and even for those who can distinguish them the difference is small enough that a lot of them don't care anyway. If you want to test for yourself, this is a good place to do it online.
Yeah it's going for 10k on amazon too. Though I have ~300 credit on headphonezone (How's their return situation? Do they credit the store wallet or back to original payment?) so could also try buying from there.
How is the HifiMan Deva Pro? Is it worth the extra 6k for some wireless connectivity and "inbuilt DAC/AMP" functionality? Since the bluetooth dongle also acts as DAC/AMP when connected wired, I wouldn't even have to bother looking out for an 8k DAC/AMP (or even the 17k zen dac 2).
Yeah don't want anything too fancy. The pricing for DAC/AMPs isn't too different overseas so getting them here would be better.
But is downloading the only way to get those high bitrate files? Because I mostly listen to music through spotify and youtube but if better can be found somewhere else would gladly shift as long as catalogue is available.
I believe it's store credit, which is not as good as Amazon, but you can exchange do it no questions asked (so long as condition is unchanged), unlike most things on Amazon. Pick your poison.
No idea, never heard it. As for the dongle, are you referring to the Bluemini one? Never heard of it before, but the obvious shortcoming is that it's less versatile than just getting a dedicated BT dongle because of the custom shape.
The highest quality settings on YouTube Music (not YouTube) and Spotify are equivalent to 320kbps MP3 IIRC, which is more than good enough for most people, and is equivalent to what you'd be torrenting anyway (unless you're going for FLAC). Personally, I rip what I want to keep permanently from YTM - if you have a subscription you can use youtube-dl to get the high bitrate versions of the files, so it's better than your standard YouTube downloaders. Doing this actually used to be a fair bit harder when it was still Google Play Music - I have no idea why they made it easier, or even if they realized that they made it easier, but I'm not complaining.
mystic_mining
Recruit
I tried out P38x and sennheiser hd 560s which are highly rated for gaming. I needed something accurate for FPS gaming (Apex legends to be precise).
Both were extremely disappointing for me.
In the end just went with Logitech Pro X and totally blown to see how good they are for FPS gaming. Will recommend and they are cheap as well.
Both were extremely disappointing for me.
In the end just went with Logitech Pro X and totally blown to see how good they are for FPS gaming. Will recommend and they are cheap as well.