[Laceybloke]

Hi all,

Due to having a young child in the house these days, my evening listening on my hi-fi has been drastically curtailed. I'm thinking of doing something with my Apple Airport Express and some decent headphones.

However, I'm uncertain about the wisdom of doing this, and whether it'll sound very good.

My music is ripped as Apple Lossless on my iMac, and I stream it to the Airport Express via wifi and control it with the Remote app on my iPod Touch. I've borrowed a friend's Grado SR80s and experimented with plugging them into the audio output of the AE, and also into the headphone socket of my Touch. To be honest, the Touch sounds better than the AE. However, my Touch is only 8GB and I can't store all my music on there.

So essentially, I'd like a way of getting an improved sound out of the AE. I know the audio out doubles as an optical digital out, so should I be looking at a DAC? Or would a headphone amp between AE and headphones improve things? Is the output of the AE good enough to make this worthwhile?

If I did get a DAC, should I be looking at a separate headphone amp too or will something like the Beresford 7520 (with built in headphone socket) suffice? Any thoughts on the Musical Fidelity V-DAC and V-CAN combination? The price looks attractive.

I won't ever be buying £500 headphones - I think my budget would be £150 tops for something like Grado 125s or some kind of Sennheiser. As such, I don't want to go crazy on the DAC/amp combo either. If I could do it all for about £300 that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

[HiFi Headphones]

It's definitely well over budget, but have a read of this iBasso D10 DAC review on CNET that talks about exactly what you are trying to achieve.

We gave Nate at CNET an iBasso D10 to play with and he used it to improve the audio from his Airport Express.

Shaun

[Steven]

V-Dac has been getting very good reports as an excellent budget DAC, bettering Beresford and Dacmagic. Notwithstanding it's design means it does not fit in with the whole "hi-fi kit on the rack" look

A good quality headphone amplifier will accentuate the good qualities and maybe help improve the sound a little. I would be putting money towards a DAC and headphone before an amp every time. Well unless of course the DAC has no native headphone out to tide you

[Laceybloke]

Originally Posted by HiFi Headphones

It's definitely well over budget, but have a read of this iBasso D10 DAC review on CNET that talks about exactly what you are trying to achieve.

We gave Nate at CNET an iBasso D10 to play with and he used it to improve the audio from his Airport Express.

Shaun

Hi Shaun,

Yes, it is a bit expensive but looks very impressive! I notice there are two outputs on the front - one for headphones and one aux. Does this mean you can plug headphones in and take a line out to an amp both at the same time?

Also, can it plug into the mains or does it only run off its battery?

Thanks for your advice.

[HiFi Headphones]

See this extract from the iBasso D10 instruction leaflet that gives some information on how the inputs/outputs work.

The D10 can be powered via the supplied mains USB charger, via it's internal battery, or via a computer (when attached to a USB port).

It's a very flexible little device.