Audio In ear phones

FaH33m said:
Chaos , any idea how will the RE-0 sound with the Meier Porta Corda III ?

I just checked out the RE-1 along with the Corda III which BF.1983 has and i was impressed :D.It looks like a good DAC/amp for 100$.
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No clue! Never heard any Meier Audio amps :p.
 
chic_magnet said:
noob question here: What does a DAC do? and how does it help? is it similar to a soundcard?
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Here is your answer

To understand what a DAC is, we must first understand what an analog signal is. An analog audio signal is a continuously varying voltage that represents (or is analogous) to the continuously varying air pressure of a sound wave that you can hear. A microphone turns sound into an analog electrical signal representing the sound; a speaker converts an analog electrical signal back into the original sound (or as close as possible) which you can hear.​

But how does one store an analog signal? A half century ago , one would store an analog signal as a groove on a record that moves the needle back and forth during playback to create an electrical analog signal representing the stored sound.​

Today, we repeatedly sample and measure the height of the analog signal over time, and then store the series of numbers on the hard disk or in the flash memory of an audio player. This series of numbers is a digital audio signal. A CD-disc stores these samples as 16-bit binary (ones and zeros) words, 44,100 times a second, but digital audio data can be stored in a variety sample rates, word sizes, and encoding or compression formats, and are brought to you on everything from your cell phone to your laptop. In every case, though, the last thing that happens is that the digital numbers get converted back into an analog electrical signal that can be sent to your headphones. The device that does this is called a digital to analog converter, or a DAC.​

Inside all media players a DAC used to convert the stored numbers into an analog signal that can be sent to your speakers or headphones. But if you want the numerous digits stored inside your player to sound as good as they did the day they were recorded, you need to use a high quality DAC. The easiest way to get a digital audio signal to an external high quality DAC is through a USB jack on your computer, but you can also get a digital signal from the optical and coaxial outputs of CD players, DVD players, and streaming audio gadgets of all kinds.​
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^^ Perfect :) .We are studying Digital sampling techniques in Digital communication systems (subject) these days and it's very interesting.

EDIT :

sorry for the OT :ashamed:
 
sato1986 said:
Read properly. I said external sound card. :S it means USB based..
Amp is useless on a laptop/pc when using with IEMs and listening to Classical. a sound card is much much more important here as OP's on-board sound cards are no good.
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wat r u stupid? an amp+dac is the rite way to go for a portable seup ... u want him to carry an subpar external sound card everywhere?:no: ..
Rightly pointed out by gannu ...
 
Come on guys, lets not beat him up about it ! I am pretty sure he got the message.

@OP - Get the RE0 and use it, my RE1 sounds great from my onboard sound and its driven rather easily. But make sure your music is high bitrate. I can hear all the defects in my low bit rate songs. :(
 
^^

sorry but i was still assuming normal portable amps like e3 n e5 and hence was suggesting usb sound card over it. have no idea about tube amp dac n stuff if it costs below 1-2k.

VanishingNerd said:
I am looking for in ear phones.

Usage: Music only. Good performance in western classical music (Mozart, Beethovan, etc) a must. Good performance in vocal a must too. Bass should not overpower and should be punchy.

Budget: 4-5K, can be extended depending on what I get.

I would prefer to buy from India because of warranty issues.

Please suggest some decent earphones.
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Gannu said:
The FiiO E5 seems to be a decent amp to pair with this one. If you can source the expensive tube-amps nothing like it. North of 10k perhaps!
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^^ It doesnt cost ~ 1.5k. More like 3k for the cheap ones to about 6k for a decent one. But then again no external sound card is going to be cheap (from any decent manufacturer like Asus or Creative).
 
BF1983 said:
^^ It doesnt cost ~ 1.5k. More like 3k for the cheap ones to about 6k for a decent one. But then again no external sound card is going to be cheap (from any decent manufacturer like Asus or Creative).
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Are these DACs only aimed at powering a particular product, like headphones, or are they good for anything, including speakers with an in-built\external amp? From the theory posted by hacker above, I would guess the latter.
 
Both! Cans and IEMs with high impedance, passive bookshelves & monitors which require an external amp/DAC to drive them. AFAIK. :)
 
Nice. Could you guys give me a list of decent dacs to look at at around the 5-8k mark?

Edit: And where could one source it in India?
 
FaH33m said:
How much for E5 on ebay ? link please :p.
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Seach on ebay.com (not in) for Fiio E5 and the first seller should be some guy from Hong Kong selling at $19.99. I added $2.99 shipping insurance so came upto $22.98 which is roughly Rs. 1200. I know it is expensive but I got tired of waiting.

Just recieved the E5 right now and currently using my old EP830 through them, because Amarbir still has not shipped the RE1 yet.

Sound vise it is heavier on the bass than directly connecting. Also there is a faint hiss when connecting without a power charge and huge amount of hiss when connecting the usb charging cable too. The problem is the source is not very clean with the office PC. I am looking forward to testing this out on my own laptop. Will report back in the evening.
 
Grease Monk said:
Nice. Could you guys give me a list of decent dacs to look at at around the 5-8k mark?

Edit: And where could one source it in India?
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Grease Monk, I'm not sure of any dealer importing these but gmano/superczar shall be able to direct you to some second-hand dealer in Chennai who deals with pro-audio stuff such as DACs, amps, bookshelves etc.

5-8k should get you a good deal on a second hand amp. Chaos bit a good deal on the Musical Fidelity A1 amp which's paired with a Jamo E700 bookshelves. I think the class-A amp fetched him around 10k.
 
also have a look at the amps /DAC's on jaben online site. Some of them are around the 150$.

They are soon opening a store in India with delivery.(hopefully will be cheaper).
 
FiiO E5 was wonderful with my EEEpc 701 4g, its output was very low, even at the highest volume with EP630/CXL400 it was lower then half volume of my sansa clip. but with E5 even HD595 works great, except a very low hiss sound coming continuously, which is audible only when you pay high attention to it :p, so not recommended for for (slow music/low volume) listeners.
 
Grease Monk said:
Nice. Could you guys give me a list of decent dacs to look at at around the 5-8k mark?

Edit: And where could one source it in India?
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portable USB DAC : Hotaudio DAC, Gamma 1 DAC, Ibasso D2

Desktop DAC : Zero DAC,

Sound card : Xonar STX , EMU 0404 or 1212
 
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