Can anyone please advise me on what setup I should be looking at. I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650's and want to use them to their potential. The thing is that a lot of my music is stored on my Mac G5. Before anyone says anything I just want to explain that it is nearly all either lossless or uncompressed so the quality is still there.

What should I be looking at? Do I need a headphone amp and a DAC?

Thanks for any help....

[alexs2]

If you want to get the best out of these,then a decent headphone amp and DAC would be recommended.

You could get a USB DAC,of which there are a few now,and combine that with a headphone amp,to get what you want from them....

As for prices....the cheapest decent haedphone amps are around the £60 region,and either chinese sourced or DIY.
From there up,you have things like the Creek at around £100,the MF X-Cans at around £200 up(used) and the Slee,etc etc from there on up.

My own experience is that the headphones will go on improving up to using amps costing a LOT more,so the choice really is wide open.

For USB DACs,you could look at the one that Russ Andrews sells...not cheap but worth a try,and also the Headroom Bithead which will combine both amp and dac,but is from the USA.

Also worth seeing who else adds to this,as there a lot of people here using all sorts of things.

[DorKnight]

I must ask, what's your budget?

Thanks for your replies. I'd be willing to go upto the £400 - £500 mark. I don't know whether that is enough to get a decent setup. I have been looking at the Headroom stuff but didn't know whether it was available in the UK? Does anyone know if you can get it from anywhere over here?

Thanks again

[TameRacingDriver]

If it were my money now, I'd start by adding an amp such as the Heed Audio CanAmp. It looks good for the money. I use an amp which I suspect sounds fairly similar, and cost a similar price when it was out.

That will cost just over a couple of hundred quid, and that leaves some money for a DAC. Personally I use a modded Musical Fidelity Digilog which cost me £250, but its pretty rare, and will be difficult to find, but there is no reason to suppose there aren't other good DACs around at a similar price.

With this rig, I get a superb sound from my HD650. Its pretty forward and lively, but it's just the ticket for grabbing the 650s by the throat and waking them up

[DorKnight]

For a DAC take a look at the Zhaolu D-2.5 with AD-1852 DA-Chip, you can mod this with a Zapfilter 2 or do some opamp rolling;

http://www.diykits.com.hk/dac.html

As for an amp take a look at Jan Meiers amps, drop him an email and get a price quote on a CORDA HA-2 MkII SE and the CORDA HA-2 MkII.

You could always look at a cheaper amp with built in DAC like the CORDA ARIA or increase you budget and go for something like the CORD OPERA;

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/index.htm

[DennyL]

I think that to use your HD650 in a way that justifies your lossless files you definitely need a headphone amp and a USB DAC, or a combined headphone amp and USB DAC. I think the HD650s definitely need a decent headphone amplier to get anything like the best out of them.

Combined amplifier/USB DACs you could look at are the Meier Corder Aria:-

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/aria.htm

Or the more expensive Corda Opera:-

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/opera.htm

And there have been some very encouraging reports of the much cheaper Headphonia:-

http://www.headphonia.co.uk/Amps/HEA...tches::43.html

You could also think about the Headroom Micro Line:-

http://www.headphone.com/products/he...he-micro-line/

All these amplifiers have crossfeed, which I think is desirable. I find that there are some early stereo recordings that are all left or right, and they can be hard to listen to on headphones, and crossfeed is a great help with them. I have one amplifier with crossfeed and another without, and there are times when I feel I need the crossfeed.

Of course there are two schools of headhone users, those who must have a valve amplifier, and those who prefer solid state, so you might want to think about what camp you are in.

An amazingly cheap valve headphone amplifier with a USB DAC is the Dared MP-5 (this costs £250, including a pair of white cotton gloves):-

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin.../dared_mp5.htm
http://www.kronoshi-fi.co.uk/dared-amps.htm

There are very many delicious-looking and sounding DACs and amplifiers out there, and you might go to head-fi.org and lurk a bit (there are long threads on the Opera and the Headphonia there at the moment) but make sure your credit card is in good fettle first!

Good luck with your choice.