Hi, I'm new to the hifi game and am hoping to take advantage of the superior knowledge of the What Hi-Fi? crew. Feeling a bit lost as to what I need, so will be very grateful for your help!
I want to put together a tabletop hifi setup that will be focused on headphone listening. This whole setup will be left out on a small side table next to a comfy chair in our living room, so the components should look nice in addition to sounding great. The idea is to have a beautiful hifi headphone experience available to family members and guests. Here's what I think I'll need:
- Streaming device as input (I use Tidal)
- Headphone amp (if necessary depending upon the input device)
- Headphones
Can you please let me know if I'm considering the right components here? Do I not need a headphone amp? Am I forgetting something important (e.g., DAC)? What specific products would you recommend?
Note this setup will not be connected to a computer or phone as a source. Budget is around $2,000, but I could go a little over if needed.
Thanks!
LG
Hey! Sorry for being late to the party, but I couldn’t help but immediately think the Shanling EM5 or EA5 are perfectly suited to what you are looking for 😃
All-in-one amp, DAC, and streamer, with a little touchscreen on top and Android installed, so you can use Tidal or whatever else you fancy. Shanling’s house sound is crowd-pleasing smooth and warm (but not dark and sleepy). It would be easy to set up and you don’t HAVE to use interconnect cables (just a power cord and the headphone cord) or a remote, but you do have the option of a smartphone app remote.
The EM5 has a balanced headphone output, for cancelling some forms of distortion, but side by side with the EA5 it’s just as powerful and very close sounding, and the EA5 adds the option of a speaker amp… I like that flexibility, the option to have it beside the armchair for headphones, or flip a switch and turn the living room into a HiFi stereo listening room, for sharing music without the dominating presence of a TV.
Like
@Gray, I too like the linear sound of the HD 560S (it was originally intended as something home music producers could use when mixing/mastering, before the Sennheiser Pro and Consumer divisions were more hard-split like the Berlin Wall, and Pro came out with their HD 400 Pro version), it’s great if you want that Studio, “what the artist was hearing” sound in headphones. However, the slightly warmer and smoother HD 650 (or HD 6XX on Drop) has been a crowd pleaser since 2003 for a reason… it will still sound “natural” to most guests (it’s often heralded for having amazing “timbre” as well), but it’s also the perfect headphone to relax with at the end of the day and just sink into that armchair, beguiled into just letting the album play out or shuffle bring on whatever is next without feeling like you’ve gotta jump to the next thing. Personally, I use an HD 660S at my office chair (WFH), but HD 650 and an armchair just go together.
I know I didn’t use up your whole $2k budget, but I really think that would be a tidy setup that would just let you enjoy the music for years to come, and give you a lot of flexibility if you ever wanted to tinker around with adding different components to your system (like a different DAC, amp, adding a DSP or an android app with DSP/ features). If the remaining $$ is burning a hole in your pocket, just get a few years of Tidal HiFi for $79 each:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tidal-hifi-12-month-music-subscription-starting-at-purchase-auto-renews-at-79-99-per-year-digital/6407158.p