Looking for budget DAC suggestions please

dcouponzzzz

Hi there,

Please let me prefix this by saying that I'm not an audiophile, nor do I have any of the knowledge of one! I do however appreciate good quality sound  

I was looking at a pair of Sennheiser HD600 and a DAC (at least that's what I think I need). Could anyone suggest a sub-£200 DAC to connect between the headphones and my PC? If you need any specific specs of the PC please let me know. It's an Aorus Gaming 5 Z370 mobo and I don't have a dedicated sound card. 

Thanks in advance, and apologies for not knowing what I'm talking about

Belenus

I am not an expert but, as far as I am aware, your PC is outputting an analogue signal at the headphone socket so there is nothing to which you could connect a DAC.

A DAC is a Digital-to-Analog converter and that conversion has presumably already been done in the PC.

Unless there is some way of getting a digital signal from the PC, a DAC is useless to you. There are probably USB devices that will do that as, many years ago I had a little USB SoundBlaster dongle that gave good quality sound.

Edit:  cx6 has below just linked to 'audioquest dragonfly' and they look very similar to my Soundblaster dongle.

cx6

google audioquest dragonfly

coffeehound

I would agree with the AQ dragonfly suggestion, but if at all possible try with your headphones before buying. They are quite toppy and can sound unpleasant with bright phones. 

[Deleted User]

So two good options above - but both require the headphones to be plugged into the PC, so I'm thinking so may be after something that makes your headphones wireless?

If so, then a colleague of mine who is an audiophile guy (£10k valve amps etc) bought one of these last year for listening in the office:

https://www.fiio.com/btr5

Sandtree

dcouponzzzz said:

Hi there,

Please let me prefix this by saying that I'm not an audiophile, nor do I have any of the knowledge of one! I do however appreciate good quality sound  

I was looking at a pair of Sennheiser HD600 and a DAC (at least that's what I think I need). Could anyone suggest a sub-£200 DAC to connect between the headphones and my PC? If you need any specific specs of the PC please let me know. It's an Aorus Gaming 5 Z370 mobo and I don't have a dedicated sound card. 

Thanks in advance, and apologies for not knowing what I'm talking about

The spec for the mobo says it has audio jacks and an onboard sound processor so an external DAC is unnecessary unless you arent happy with the sound quality. 

Would add my vote to the Dragonfly too. 

dcouponzzzz

Thanks for all the info everyone, if a DAC isn't required then would an amp improve the quality? Shut me down again if it's completely unnecessary, I just don't want to spend £300+ on headphones and be bottlenecked at some point down the cable!

dcouponzzzz

I'll look in to the dragonfly as well!

cx6

yes the motherboard will have an onboard dac but the dragonfly is better.

no need to buy new - check ebay 'dragonfly red'

coffeehound

Yes dragonfly does more than just convert D to A, it does quite a lot of clever stuff.  E.g. it takes control of the USB port to ensure that the data rate is exactly right to keep the music at its proper tempo -- something that ordinary PC headphone feeds are really bad for.

Also you can just plug it straight into PC or mac and it works straightaway - no faff with drivers or settings.  It even works with iphones using a USB-A adaptor (don't know about android etc).

I probably made it sound an iffy choice with the previous post but it is only with some headphones it might sound bright, e.g. my Oppo 3 which do sound amazeballs through the dragonfly, but just a tad too treble-y

googler

Behringer UCA-202 or UCA-222 - available used for less than £20. 

The headphone socket is a 3.5mm jack, not a 1/4 inch, so if your headphones have the latter, you'll need an adaptor. 

I've been using one of these for years, great budget unit