The right Dac/amp for Sennheiser 560s/6xx and Hifiman Sundara
Ok.. If this works, I'll just need a dac/amp for the above headphones and all I need is an optical IN on the dac to hook up to my optical out from my TV. And an optical OUT to go to my optical IN to my a/v receiver. In my head, I'll be able to use these headphones with enough power to listen to music, movies, and console games which are all hooked up to my HDMI arc inputs of my TV. If this makes any sense, could someone recommend a dac/amp that has these features that produces a minimum of 192khz/32bit with enough power to drive both the Sundara's (37ohms, low sensitivity) and the Sennheiser 560's (120-150ohms) and possibly the 6xx (300-333ohms) ? A remote control is preferred unless I'll be able to control the volume from my a/v receiver... If this will work. It'll work, right?
Jan 11, 2023
- Tried enabling aptX codec then AAC codec in Bluetooth Explorer, a developer tool for Macs, which some people claim helps performance, but it didn't help.
- Tried using a cheap $20 earbuds / AirPods ripoffs. It didn't have the same issue and played even short, intermittent sounds like notifications fine.
- Tried using Bootcamp to use Windows. The audio was clipping like crazy, even during sustained audio playback, and was unusable.
- Tried using Bootcamp with the cheap earsbuds. It also had extremely bad clipping. I think the Bluetooth stack for w/e chipset Apple uses must just have horrible drivers in Windows?
- Tried pairing with my iPhone and iPad. If I go to the Sounds preferences and play some of the demo sound effects for things like text message notifications, it's badly clipped off too.
- Tried pairing the cheap earbuds with my iPhone and iPad. There are no audio issues, and every playing back short clips like notification sounds work fine with no clipping.
- Factory reset the headphones multiple times. Reset to original firmware. No improvement.
Any ideas? My only other option before returning these headphones is to visit Best Buy and see how they sound paired to other non-Apple machines. And to state the obvious, yes, I did try both wired (3.5mm and USB-C) and those sound fine with the same headphones. Thanks