This wasn’t my experience with the Amber 3, it took very well to the BNC SPDIF and the Pi2AES BNC is SE AES. It was my prefered way to listen at the time, it was a long time ago. Does your Pi2AES have a good power supply and perhaps the 5V power mod?
Lower the volume on the DAC’s output? Why? The gain on the Amber 3 is just fine and does not need to be lowered unless you have some weird piece you are outputting to.
Yes the USB is a very good input BUT there were NO issues or negative performance characteristics using the AES or SPIDIF inputs on the Amber 3, do not feel like you are shortcutting yourself any sort of meaningful performance by avoiding their use.
Don’t do wiring gymnastics if you have NO actual need it’s not necessary 
I haven’t bought the Pi2AES yet. I’m trying to plan out what I want to do first. I don’t have a DDC or such yet.
Did you try the coax input on the Amber 3?
Maybe my mind’s playing tricks on me, but I feel like the Amber 3 sounds better at hi-gain. It’s not normally an issue with my headphones…until the DT-880 comes into play. I feel like I’m hearing distortion
The DAC doesn’t change loudness when I try to lower the volume through Windows itself.
But I think you’re right. I could be overcomplicating this and should just use the coax. It would solve my problem either way
I did try the Coax, the outputs of the Pi2AES are good, I thought the AES was their best output but I didn’t have an AES input on my Amber. I wouldn’t even worry about a DDC if you’re just starting as the Pi2AES to Amber on its own is a great place to be especially with a decent cable.
It’s in the manual if I recall, Lukasz says it’s his prefered setting.
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So I’m not crazy! Goodness gracious
Are you talking about the mod where the Pi/PI2AES each run their own power?
Has it made a difference?
It sounds very good with the mod where you feed the 5V power into the Pi2AES hat and then it powers the Pi board.
Not sure what configurations the new Pi2AES had supports though and it may have this as a built in solution.
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What happens if a tube dies in a hybrid amp while running?
Most likely the output will just cut off, you might get some odd sounds out of it before that happens.
BUT it depends to an extent on the amp and the tube, and how the tube failed, in most cases the heaters burn out, and they do that at power on, so you just get no sound.
All bets are off if you are rolling tubes the amp designer didn’t intend.
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Hi guys, I’m trying to help someone into entry level audio gears and get off of Beats and AirPods. They are looking for a balance headphone that can pull a good amount of low level details in the music, but the budget is 600 Euros as a whole. They do not have any audio chain and this is their first one. Source is PC.
I was going to recommend the Sennheiser HD650 or 660s2 as a safe buy as their genre of music is pretty wide, but they listen to Jpop and rock most of the time. But what amplifier/DAC can I recommend? Both the HD650 and HD660s2 are typically around $400 right now, so that leaves about $200 left for a DAC/amp. Should I recommend them the Dragonfly Cobalt USB DAC as that fit the DAC/Amp bill and it’s within budget?
Any other headphone recommendations is open as well. Just need to recommend someone a complete audio chain within 600 Euros.
I assume were talking Europe, which likely makes the 6XX unobtainable since that’s under $200 here in the US right now.
I guess it’s somewhat important to understand what he values in what he hears with his beats and airpods, consumer tunings tend to be quite bass forwards, and taking that away might be a bit of a shock.
In that price range I’d normally suggest Schiit, but again, it’s more expensive and hard to get on Europe.
Ifi maybe.
I haven’t heard any of the more Euro centric brands entry level stuff, so outside of that your inro the usual Chinese manufacturers.
You don’t have to jump all the way to an HD650 and $600 as a first step, the HD598/599’s are actually pretty good and easier to drive. You could probably go with one of the better Dongle DAC’s for those.
Beyers are nice if you can tolerate the treble.
Hopefully some one with more knowledge of European pricing and availability can jump in.
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I forgot about those. He does live in EU, so most likely can’t get those.
I ask what he prioritizes and he told me balance. But have a feeling he likes bass, specifically mid bass punch and vocals based on the pop songs he likes.
Not too familiar with Chinese audio equipments as I never really use it before. I was thinking Jlabs stuff might be good too, but again it’s EU so don’t know if it’s available there.
Thanks, that’s actually a good recommendation on the HD598/599 as that will give him more flexibility to spend the rest of the budget on the DAC/Amp. I forgot about Beyerdynamic stuff being pretty good but the guy is in his early young 20s, so he is probably sensitive to treble.
He told me he can try to look for audio store to demo, so I would probably suggest him to find the right headphone first and we will worry about the chain later.
Thanks again for the advice!
SMSL, Topping, and all the other brands with the same holding company, not something I’d generally recommend, I think the entry level Schiit or IFI stuff gives you more options and sound better, but there isn’t much wrong with them.
This is a good place to start, there are a lot of entry level options, Sennheiser, Beyer, AKG, Grado, and they are all worth hearing even from a not great source in a noisy environment, because it’ll give you an idea what he’s looking for.
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Guys, I’m thinking of buying tha yggy OG . Does anyone knows how it pairs with SE amps like MZ3, HPA1, 13r, or anyother SE amp only?
There is a lot of talk about the SE out performance of Yggy OG.
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It gets overstated, It’s not ideal, but neither is it terrible.
Balanced is obviously better, but SE is still very good, you can always build a balanced to SE transformer box (probably $300-$400), which would be exactly like the balanced input on most tube amps. I think SBAF has the schematics to one using cinemag transformers.
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This box works wonders and you don’t have to build anything, I’ve got two of them. All input transformer will add some color to the conversion. The more you pay for iron, the closer it will get. Think thousands, not hundreds of dollars for those input transformers.
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In my experience the cobalt aims more for a fuller organic sound, not necessarily clean and detailed. I don’t have other USB dongles to compare, just my impression on the signature.
This makes me think Meze 99 Classic… I would definitely suggest listening to these. A very acceptable tuning for a first step above consumer level and although they appreciate quality amplification, they don’t need crazy amplification, runs just fine from a regular headphone out on smartphone.
I’ve also got friends who were disappointed when trying more audiophile HP’s. There is so much variation in the signatures once you move out of general consumer tuning so the best advice is indeed to look for a few places where you can try stuff and get a grasp of what he likes and especially what he doesn’t like.
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I thought a USB DAC would be good for someone first time as I figure the average consumer probably listen to music from their phone. Don’t know any other USB dongles as I never explore that option and it was the first brand that came to mind. I told him to think about the IFi Uno as well since that one seem cool, but to try out the headphones first before purchasing any DAC/Amp.
I currently have the Mezes 99 Classics and I honestly didn’t like the headphone in the long run. I also don’t think it fit the criteria in what he is looking for in a headphone in the first place.
He wanted a headphone for more for music dissections. The type of music that community listen to have a lot going on in the music. He told me it took him hours to dissect a single song which I think that’s fine because that song got a lot going on in it and it’s a complex song (Ado “Show” and Ado “kazarijyanainoyonamidawa” are the songs he felt he took too long to dissect). But he wanted a better tool and I’m always up on supporting people that want to get into music a little more. This is his first “hi-fi” headphone, so I thought it should be a headphone he can enjoy as a long run and also at the same time pull a lot of details in the music when he wants to start “dissecting” music like he wanted to in the first place. I have a Beyerdynamic D770 that I use as a tool (mostly video editing now) and I never really enjoyed those headphones except when I tried them on my current chain. Then I remembered I was in his shoes before and how I got started in this hobby. I wanted to kinda dissect my music more (cause I wanted to create more sample beats at that time) so I got the Sennheiser HD600 as people recommend those as good home studio headphones. I ended liking the Sennheiser HD600 way more than I would thought and music became much more fun to listen to (at least that is how I remember it). I didn’t want to recommend the Sennheiser HD600 to him because I don’t really care about bass vs the average consumer, so I thought the Sennheiser HD650/660s2 would be a good middle ground.
At the end, I ended up telling him a list of headphones to try from Sennheiser, AKG, Beyerdynamic, etc and buy what he likes. I also informed him a Beyerdynamic beginner package I found online since used buying is the best way to save money in this hobby, but got to wait for him to figure out what he likes.
Quick netowrking question: I have google wifi mesh modules around the house. My Roon core is plugged into one, my DSDjr on my 2 channel setup is plugged into one and the hermes streamer I have on my headfi setup is plugged into one. Is this a bad idea? Should I work on wiring everything up? It is a little annoying that I can’t use roon arc in the current configuration.
I also have a cable modem with 4 port switch built in so my gaming PC can bypass the wifi
I’ll use " - " for wired and " > " for wireless in the diagram below:
I end up with:
Roon Core - Google Wifi hub - Cable modem [room 1]
Gaming PC - Cable modem [room 2]
Hermes streamer - Google Wifi hub > Cable Modem [room 2]
DSDjr - Google Wifi hub > Cable modem [room 3]
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roon arc isn’t meant to work when you’re connected to the same wifi as your core, for that you have the regular roon apps.
I also use a google/nest wifi system, works great for everything I needed (far from a superuser)
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