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
I found something about it here - https://www.jdslabs.com/pdf/Instructions_O2-ODAC.pdf - but do not quite get it - will the sound be degraded if using the inbuilt ODAC as a source for other amplifiers? In other words - would it be better to use a seperate ODAC for other amps?
I'm not sure I fully understand the 3-way implementation. Would this DAC/Amp be invalid for RCA output to powered speakers? For example, if I have powered speakers hooked up to the RCA output, what happens when I plug in the headphones into the headphone jack? Would the audio signal switch to just headphones? I didn't see a switch of sorts at the front panel.. I had this issue with Aune T1 Mk II, the signal split to the amp and the RCA out but didn't switch. So when I plugged my headphones in, my powered speakers would still be playing.
It sure would be nice if @Will could jump in and clarify all of this for us by answering my questions on page 6 of this discussion.
I moved up to the Audio-gd NFB-15 since then, but is there another method that people use to switch headphones <-> powered speakers? Maybe majority of the people only use headphones for their DAC/amps...
In terms of the added distortion to both audio paths, you likely won't notice a difference via the speakers. The speakers' onboard amp will add more distortion, and it's a lot harder to get speakers to reproduce sound as transparently as headphones. You can reduce distortion to the headphones by unplugging the RCAs. If you want to avoid that, you could get the standalone ODAC and O2, and get an RCA switcher to switch the ODAC's output between the O2 and the speakers. Otherwise, you could use a separate DAC for the speakers and switch the output between the two DACs in the OS. Personally, I use the onboard sound to output to my speakers and a separate DAC/amp for my headphones. For Windows, I use a little piece of software called SoundSwitch that places an icon in the system tray to easily switch output devices.
I don't know about that "loud enough" problem with your JBLs. I would think that if you're getting a proper line level signal, not being loud enough would be a problem with the JBL's internal amp. If you want to avoid having to unplug the RCA jacks, a Behringer UCA202 would be a pretty good and cheap external DAC with line outputs for your speakers. It's under $30; NwAvGuy reviewed it, and he even has a mod for it to perform better:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KW2YEI/ http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/behringer-uca202-review.html http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/03/behringer-uca202-frankendac.html
Check out the Audio-gd NFB-15. Has everything that you're looking for. It has dual wolfson WM8741 chips, amp that will put out 1.8W at 50ohm, and amp with usb, coaxial, and optical inputs. It's pretty big dimension-wise, but I don't think you can get anything with that much features for under $300... Only thing is the Audio-gd team is based out of China and their communication isn't their strong point. They are responsive, but English isn't their strong point.
Thanks for the SoundSwitch suggestion! I should really try that out. I have another computer setup that has Audioengine A2+, which has a built-in DAC for its powered speakers, so I might just get this for as a dedicated headphone DAC/amp.. and not care too much about the switching function between headphones <-> speakers.
As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I think i'm talking myself out of the need for the autoswitching feature that i've been so OCD about. The speaker setup is so much more dependent on external variables like room size, speaker placement, sound reflections, etc, that perhaps it won't benefit as much from a good DAC as headphones will. As long as the speakers have a good amp to drive the sound up, maybe that's all I'll need.