Besides the Schiit products, would the FiiO Q1 Mk II be a good choice?
The Q1 Mk2 sounds pretty good for balanced output and a portable amp. It wont compete with a normal desktop amp, even a small one though.
I also dig the ES100 as a small portable balanced amp.
Haven’t heard the Q1 MKII but honestly I like my old gen 1 Fiio E17. I take it with me on planes and rubber band it to my cell it with either my Porta Pro or my HD 25-1 ii make a nice little portable combo! The built in EQ is handy to, but portables are of course good in portable situations. If you don’t need or think you’ll use your Dac on the go then no need for a portable!
I have a FiiO E12a Mont Blanc portable Amp and though it doesn’t get much usage it is a great piece of kit. Sounds nice and had plenty of power for iem’s and low impedance cans. Though I wouldn’t use it for something like my HD650. It powers it but the sound lacks body and feels a little underpowered. Good portable Amp though.
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Thanks, @prfallon69.
I was thinking of the FiiO strictly as a DAC to connect to a more robust headphone amp for desktop use at home and as a portable DAC/AMP when at work.
The alternative would be to stick with Schiit for both pieces and just use my Dragonfly Black at work. I’m driving HD58x at home and Sennheiser PC100 at work.
And I’m searching for a good closed back or semi-open set for home that doesn’t require the sale of a kidney.
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My current favorite mobile DAC/amp…$200
Hooked up to the Element at work.
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This is not a headphone amp, but a DAC, Streamer, integrated amp combo I just picked up for my desktop setup. It feeds my Amps and Sound Kenzie Encore. Polaris by Auralic. Very impressive sound…using primarily through Roon, although Auralic has an app for controlling the device. Very pleased thus far…definitely an upgrade over my Meridian Prime Headphone amp/DAC I was using.
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UPDATE: The amp section suffered some type of failure and won’t boot up. It got very hot and quit. Had not used it much in the first week due to other commitments. Sat down yesterday for a couple of hours of listening when it failed. Back it goes. Hopefully, the return process goes smoothly.
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Sorry to hear this that must have been very annoying. I hope that it gets sorted soon.
This could go in here or in the “systems and synergy” post, but I just drop it here.
After months with the small/basic Schiit line I decided to upgrade my amp and because the new amp will ask for it, a better dac is also in the horizon.
I don’t want a SS amp or a OTL tube amp since I prefer the ability of the amp to drive IEM or lower impedance headphones. Lyr 3 is almost in my budget limit for an amp and most of the reviews and comments are favorable.
The DAC is the issue here. Ideally Bifrost MB from Schiit is the perfect one, good synergy and aesthetically is the “one and only”… but at $600 is over my budget for a DAC!!!
After reading about dacs and amps and using my short experience my conclusion is that -is better to have a very good amp and a good dac than the other way around- and if money is in the equation… it has the last word.
I was thinking then about Massdrop Airist R-2R for $350 to pair with Lyr 3. Reviews are amazing, better than the few I found about Bifrost( there is not many so is kind of unfair for the Schiit dac).
Does any one have tried that combo before?? R-2R dac plus Lyr 3 amp?? I know aesthetically is a disaster, but what about synergy?? My headphones are HD800 (modified or not), HD6xx and Focal Elear( with Sonarworks ,who put them close to the Clear’s sound) and HD600 by the end of the summer if my friend give me a good price. My sources are my cd’s and tons of FLAC files.
Any other suggestion for a DAC is welcome( not over $350/$380 please).
Thanks guys!!
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First, I’d say “try it with the DAC you have”, before you do anything else.
Beyond that …
Most of the reviews for Bifrost MB I have seen were done on what I would call “original” versions of the DAC. Those sound rather different, and not as good, as the units I’ve heard that were manufactured starting in October 2018 (it’s possible whatever changes are at play go back before this, even, but that was the oldest unit I had heard that exhibited them).
“Original” Bifrost MB was almost impossible to distinguish from Modi MB. So, new USB Gen 5 interface not-withstanding (which was a further improvement over the old one and the one in Modi MB), there wasn’t a lot of reason to buy a Bifrost MB unless you wanted upgradability or an aesthetic and size match with the other amps in the same sized chassis.l
“Current” (i.e. units newer than ~10/2018) Bifrost MB sounds notably BETTER than both to the “original” one and to Modi MB. It’s closer to the original, pre “A2” (since it’s not an official thing) Gungnir MB than it is to the old Bifrost MB or Modi MB.
Still … it’s $600 so outside your budget, but I wanted to clear up the differences. I’ll have more detail on that in a-soon-to-post review.
Regarding the Airist R-2R DAC (RDAC) vs. these DACs, I would rank it like this:
Bifrost MB (Current) > RDAC > Bifrost MB (Original) >= Modi MB
RDAC with Lyr 3 is a decent pairing. There’s no particular “magic” or “special” synergy there. But there’s no particular issue either. Though I would tend towards more linear/less “warm” tubes with that combination.
As for other DACs … there’s a good population of them around the $100 mark. The bulk around $350 are DAC/amps and in most cases not notably better, as DACs, than the $100 or so pure DACs, unless you needed balanced output (not relevant to Lyr 3).
The Pro-Ject Pre-Box S2 Digital is probably the best you’re likely to find, without paying for more stuff than you need to. The headphone output is anemic, but isn’t very involved in it’s implementation, so it’s not wasting much of the BoM on that. It’s not pointlessly doubling up on parts to give “balanced” output that you won’t use with the Lyr 3. It supports pretty much every input format/standard going from high-rate PCM and DSD to MQA, if you care about such things. Has a very competent USB input (and can be USB powered or externally powered if you want).
The Topping D50 is similar, in many regards, to the Pro-Ject Pre-Box S2 Digital, and $100 cheaper, but it has an annoying power arrangement, has weaker format support and it got fatiguing fairly quickly where as with the S2 I didn’t run into that.
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My Lyr3 ought to arrive tomorrow. I have the iFi xDSD DAC to try with it in “line out” mode, also a Dragonfly Black. I don’t know what @Torq would say, but the iFi Nano DSD Black Label (link is to Amazon because it’s convenient, not because I get anything for linking there) is within budget and would probably also work. I do like the Burr Brown (now Texas Instrument owned) DAC chipset.
I’ll probably do some sort of impression piece by next weekend.
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I wouldn’t use any of the DragonFly range as a DAC to feed an external amplifier into a Lyr 3, as you’re always stuck in DAC/amp mode.
And while I think the iFi Nano iDSD Black Label is an excellent, perhaps the best, $200 DAC/amp unit, and it’s certainly a better option to drive the Lyr 3 than the DragonFly units (it has a proper line-out, albeit with a 3.5mm connection), as JUST a DAC it isn’t really any “better” than the Modi 3 or Grace SDAC unless you want DSD and/or MQA support (bearing in mind that getting both on the iDSD requires tradeoffs).
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I am, in general, someone that’ll steer people away from minor-upgrades just because they “fit the budget”. Sticking with an existing DAC and saving a little to get something meaningfully better, rather than just, mostly, a “side-grade”, is almost always a better option.
In @Hansel’s case, above, then absent wanting high-rate DSD and MQA support (via the the Pro-Ject unit), that’d be what I would personally do - i.e. keep the existing DAC and save for the current version of the Bifrost MB.
Serial-side-grading is what keeps people from really progressing their systems. Their money, so their choice, but if the goal is to get to a better system, it’s a very inefficient way of doing it.
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The Modi3 has an AKM chipset, which I know little about. The SDAC is one of the ubiquitous SABRE sets. As I recall, although you clearly state that the specific implementation matters the most, that you are not particularly a fan of SABRE.
Would you care to expand on this aspect? I really don’t know much about AKM.
I agree completely about serial side-grading, and would also strongly suggest that he try what he has first. I’ve not been impressed at the attack on the turntable market mounted by Pro-ject and Music Hall, and am personally not inclined to support either company.
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Thanks @Torq and @pennstac for your advices!!! Very appreciated!!!
@Torq you are totally right, some times( mostly people with little experience, like me), we are trying to get all at once and have the “perfect” combo, I just put R-2R before Bifrost based in many great reviews and the $250 less.
My current DAC alone is Modi 3 and is the one going with Lyr 3 to start. I own other 3 portables DAC’s but since they are dac/amp I was not counting on them. They are iFi nano iDSD BL , the Dragonfly Red and the ES100 and that is my preference order. I’ll give a chance to the iFi Nano as well as the Modi 3 and save for Bifrost and/or check out that Pro Ject S2 that I never hear of it before. Why do you suggest the Pro Ject Pre Box S2 will pair better with Lyr 3 than the Massdrop R 2R?
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I knew you’ll fall for Lyr 3!!! And since yours is arriving earlier than mine ( I haven’t bought it yet ), I’ll be waiting for your first impressions here!!! Congratulations !!
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The Lyr3 checked off the right boxes. I did not want to buy a new headphone amp, but my Headroom Standard is fried for unknown reasons. That means I have no really good way to listen to my Hifiman HE-560s. And it would be nice to pair with my Sennheiser HD-580s and Massdrop HD-6xx.
I was looking at tube-hybrid as a first choice, but not ruling out either all tube or all solid state. I do not require balanced, and if, at some point I decide that I do, I will probably budget $2500+. It was mostly a process of elimination. In this process, I was most tempted by the $100 Atom solid state alternative, and at that price, I may still pick one up for an alternate stack.
I have tested extensively at work, and find that having any music is distracting. There are a few tasks that I do that I could do while listening to music, but for most, that is not possible. I absolutely would not want music, even in the background, when talking with clients. That means those cute workplace headphone battlestations that some here are able to post is not for me.
My wife and I presently have two homes. One is our primary residence, and the other, 120 miles away, she inherited from her Mother. My parents live in the same town (we grew up there). At our primary residence, when I happen to be alone and want music, there is a choice of headphones or speakers. At my wife’s house, we have some SONOS speakers, and a few backup headphones. I’m at that house about every other weekend.
So back to the Lyr3. It is a purchase of semi-necessity. It appears that at least, I will have avoided getting something stupid. I look forward to trying it out.
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It’s an AKM 4490 chip. Same thing that sits at the heart of the RME ADI-2 DAC and the Bryston BDA-3.
The SDAC uses an AKM 4452 - a lower-spec, cheaper, chip in AKM’s line-up than the 4490.
As much, maybe most, of the sound or signature of a DAC is down to the implementation around the chipset as the chip itself. Of course, since there are specific requirements for such implementations, they tend to be more similar than not.
More frequently still, they are straight implementations of the chip vendor’s reference implementation or data-sheet design … maybe with some qualitative parts-tweaks (which may or may not matter). This is true for most non-boutique (and a depressing number of expensive/boutique) DAC implementations, regardless of chipset employed.
Which is one reason why, for example, so many ESS 9038 based DACs show the same IMD hump (and why more thoughtfully engineered implementations do not).
My experience with DACs (which is what started me posting reviews on audio forums in the first place) has shown a much higher instance of unpleasant audible elements (harshness, “over sharpened” or “artificial” detail, grain/grit in the treble, etc.) with SABRE DAC implementations than with any other chipset (except the CS4398, which I’ve never heard an implementation of that I cared for).
Whether that is because they’re more difficult to implement well, the reference design has limits (or isn’t being followed correctly), they’re unusually sensitive to common things that other DAC chips shrug off, or some of their special internal features are employed in place of superior external/custom implementations, I can’t say.
Which is a long winded way of saying that, for a given level of performance, it might just be that some chipsets, such as the AKM ones, are easier to implement “properly” than others, such as the ESS chips.
It could equally be that there are more data-sheet based ESS DACs in the wild than there are using other chipsets. In which case, assuming an equal incidence of issues for any given converter, that’d still result in more ESS-based DACs being found wanting.
So that’s likely the bulk of it.
I don’t dislike SABRE in and of itself. There are excellent SABRE-based DACs out there. But more of them I’ve found to be turds than from other architectures, so I am generally a bit wary until I actually hear them.
Another thought … when you look at the raw numbers, the ESS chipsets often show superior theoretical measurements (i.e. the raw capabilities of the chip in ideal circumstances), leading them to be preferentially selected over other DAC chips.
Just because a DAC chip spec says it can achieve -140 dB distortion, doesn’t mean you’re ever getting that in a real world implementation. And unless your supporting electronics are, in such a case, state-of-the-art, you’re probably quite a bit worse off.
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Thank you. My quick Internet search of the SDAC may have been an earlier model showing SABRE. My affection for Burr Brown probably started with their op-amps and continued with the implementation of their DACs in the higher-end ROTEL CD player that I have. (Much nicer than either my old NAD or SONY players).
I very much like the neutrality of the xDSD. And yes, I have been impressed by the technical prowess of the SABRE DACs also, but many I have heard in moderately priced equipment did seem to exhibit exactly what you say - harshness and graininess in treble.
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