Recent content by bigrobmac

These are interesting alternatives, thank you.

Thank you for these tips. I shall save them for future reference, as it is the kind of thing I may one day move to. For now though, it's a bit more than I am looking for - both in terms of the physical space it would take up and the cost. I would like a single DAC with built-in amp (which I...

That does look like a very good DAC... but I would need a separate amp, and I can't plug my headphones into it.

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding. I *think* one of the iFis will improve the soundstage. Am I right? Has anyone tried both a DragonFly and an iFi, even if they're not exactly the same ones? Has anyone tried both an Uno and a Zen V2, even with different headphones? Should I get...

Thank you for this. It's interesting, but I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I've played around and tried other iFi products and they all seem to give a similar result. It also only talks about decibels, which isn't the only factor; I'm still pretty convinced that an Uno or Zen V2 would...

Thank you all for your responses. I think I have settled on either the iFi Uno or iFi Zen DAC V2. Does anyone know how they compare? Is it worth paying more for the Zen?

I understand this. There's only so much you can do with the source audio. But I don't listen exclusively to bootlegs and the test was with a studio track. I'm not sure you could even get an MQA of a bootleg! It's also part of the reason for me sticking with MP3s. If the source audio is a...

Re the first part: I'm glad to hear this. Sometimes I feel like I must be the only one who can't tell the difference! That DAC looks fantastic, but unfortunately is out of my price range, which is a shame.

Thanks Bill - but they sound just as good as FLACs, WAVs or MQAs to me. Hence the first sentence of the original post.

I'm sure they are... but this is what confuses me. Before I bought them, I just had a cheap pair of AKG Y50s, and I had never been able to tell the difference between an MP3 and a lossless file. I assumed that was because the hardware wasn't good enough, and thought the headphones would make...

What sort of thing? Do you mean software?

Thank you all for your replies. I think my Elegia headphones are capable of more performance than I am getting from the DragonFly Black, and your replies suggest that is correct. The tricky part is knowing how much to spend before the returns diminish. For example, the DragonFly Red would...

I am looking for advice from people who listen extensively to bootleg recordings and music in lossy formats. I have a library of MP3 files, which I have spent years collecting and curating exactly as I want them to be. These are in MP3 format and I have no interest in either changing them to...