Recommended headphone amp and DAC combos

audiokid

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I have some Grado RS1i and I'm looking for a good, compact headphone amp and DAC combo to plug into my desktop Mac.

Currently I have a Meridian explorer which is fine but would there be any merit in getting a more substantial headphone amp and DAC with its own power supply?

Ideally I was thinking of around £500 with a bit of flex and don't mind buying used, older models or ex demo. So far I have seen, and considered:

Burson HA 160DS

Burson Conductor SL 1793

Audiolab M DAC

Benchmark DAC 1 USB

Does anyone have any recommendations from this list or any others I haven't mentioned?
 

davedotco

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audiokid said:
I have some Grado RS1i and I'm looking for a good, compact headphone amp and DAC combo to plug into my desktop Mac.

Currently I have a Meridian explorer which is fine but would there be any merit in getting a more substantial headphone amp and DAC with its own power supply?

Ideally I was thinking of around £500 with a bit of flex and don't mind buying used, older models or ex demo. So far I have seen, and considered:

Burson HA 160DS

Burson Conductor SL 1793

Audiolab M DAC

Benchmark DAC 1 USB

Does anyone have any recommendations from this list or any others I haven't mentioned?

A genuinely transparent dac/amp can be had for less than £200, the excellent Epiphany EHP-02D for example.

Above this price you are primarily paying for functionality, flexibility and build quality, the Benchmark for example does every thing you could reasonably want but does not sound significantly better unless you are using particularlt difficult headphones.

Some dac/amps, Burson, Schitt, Audio DG for example are deliberatly 'voiced' to sound different, if one is to your taste, go for it.
 

davedotco

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audiokid said:
Thanks, the epiphany looks interesting. Could be just the ticket, I had never heard of them before.

Both the head amp and the dac are open source designs by a chap who (used to?) blogs as NWAV Guy. Here... http://nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/

You can read a lot about his thoughts on his site and why he went to the trouble to design his own dac and amplifier, I have only (briefly) heard the amp only (without dac) and it was very impressive in a non impressive sort of way.
 

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