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HE-500 & Xonar STX - Page 2

post #11 of 63
11/6/12 at 6:03pm
Thread Starter 
After reading through the rest of that, it appears that even with an $800-1,000+ amp that's more than sufficient to drive these suckers, the Xonar's DAC will (supposedly) be an audible bottleneck, at which point the ideal, total set-up for 'phones, amp, and DAC is looking more like two grand. Yikes. Might have to re-evaluate my price:performance:value ratio. Thoughts?
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post #12 of 63
11/6/12 at 6:56pm
No need to consider a DAC and amp for 1k. I'm using a cheap little Nuforce Icon2 which only runs for $350 and drives my HE-6 very well out of the speaker outputs and I've tried some VERY nice DAC and amps before. You obviously don't need that much power. Take a look at one of my thread from a couple months back for some options: http://www.head-fi.org/t/627372/advice-on-down-sizing

I think audio-gd has some pretty good options for you especially the NFB-10. No really sure what is your budget though...
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post #13 of 63
11/7/12 at 11:06am
Thread Starter 
If I recall, the HE-5 & 6 are harder to drive than the 500 right? Or do I have it backward?
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post #14 of 63
11/7/12 at 12:12pm
HE-6=83dB, 50ohm. HE-500=87dB, 38ohm. HE-5=89dB, 30ohm.
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post #15 of 63
11/7/12 at 1:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gauchotodd View Post

If I recall, the HE-5 & 6 are harder to drive than the 500 right? Or do I have it backward?
But you still want a fairly decent amp to drive them...I believe they are as difficult to drive as a 600ohm headphone. More power is never really a bad thing thumb.gif
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post #16 of 63
11/7/12 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohhgourami View Post

But you still want a fairly decent amp to drive them...
Of course. I use a 100wpc @ 8ohm speaker amp to power my HE-6s.
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post #17 of 63
11/7/12 at 2:00pm
I have a stx. You can't use both headphone and rca output simultaneously. When you change between then you hear de physical click of the stereo output being changed. You can use the spdif up to 5.1 only. I have a Denon D2000 it may look like it's extremely easy to drive (32ohm), but don't be mistaken it's a fairly bass oriented can. I can top the dial without the high gain option (+12db). That's LOUD, with high gain I can barely use 50%. There's even a +18Db option but for obvious reasons I never used it. It's meant for 600ohms cans. I'd say get the stx if you're not happy get a desktop amp. That covers all I guess

Enviado de meu GT-I9100 usando o Tapatalk 2
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post #18 of 63
11/7/12 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I guess my dilemma is now whether I want to drop around a grand and get great performance while knowing I can get more out of the headphones, and as such, do I want to consider a potentially better value set-up at that price point, or do I want to drop 50-100% more to get a setup that will get the most out of them while having better equipment invested for any potential future purchases. I was sort of going for the "this will be my prized pair of headphones that will keep me from wanting anything else" take, but who knows how well that really works wink.gif
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post #19 of 63
11/7/12 at 6:09pm
I can guarantee that the HE-500 will sound better than any subpar headphone paired with very good source.

The best thing to do is just get the HE-500 with the STX and see how that runs first. If you still require more power later on, you can always get an external amp down the road.
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post #20 of 63
11/7/12 at 6:14pm
Thread Starter 
Good point. I think I assumed at first that having a great power supply powering the STX would be sufficient for powering the headphones, but I get how the card powers the 'phones (a little) better now.
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