The hiss can probably be fixed with an attenuator, that's what I do with my Westone IEMs, which are very sensitive too. I don't get buzzing interference though, that might be more annoying and harder to fix.

If you don't mind a receiver, one with SPDIF inputs (pretty much all of them have it) will give you absolutely the most bang for buck, and give you multichannel too, if you need it in the future.

I don't think you need either a standalone DAC or a headphone amp at all.

See if you can get a cheap SPDIF amp on ebay? But I'm sure there are new ones that are cheap which don't have 7.1 or HDMI. You can even get stereo ones from a quick look at Amazon.

The hiss is probably more due to the sensitivity of your IEMs than of the headphone output itself. I have a last year Pioneer Elite receiver and his is still noticeable with very sensitive IEMs like the Westone UM2. Try an attenuator. I have the one that used to come with the Ultimate Ears IEMs, and they work great.

If the objection to a receiver is just price and tech overkill: I got a Pioneer receiver on close-out at a very good price (NZ$200, which at the time was like US$130) precisely because it did NOT have HDMI and all the HiDef goodness. So close-outs and specials might be good for you.

If there are other reasons for not wanting a receiver, pardon my irrelevance, pls.

Well, back in the day (er, 2005 or so?) I fell victim to Head-fi, and bought a couple nice pairs of headphones (Grado SR-60, then a year or so later ER-4 IEMs, and a Meier portable amp for my iriver h300), and then another year or so later a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-880s). Well, I quit reading head-fi a couple years ago, probably for the same reasons as everyone else here. At that time, I didn't really use my computer for music much at all.

Since then, I've found myself using it more and more, and my h300 only for portable use. The integrated audio on my motherboard is not great - at least when using the ER-4s, it's almost unlistenable when listening to music with very quiet portions (a lot of classical, for example) due to the background hiss, as well as electromagnetic noise when scrolling pages, minimizing windows, and such. This is still noticeable with the DT 880s, although much less of a problem. As per TOS 8 I won't state that my motherboard sound is overall poor quality, though if I had the ability (and equipment) to do a proper ABX test I'm sure the results would confirm this.

So, on to my question. I would like to get a DAC for this PC. I also plan to get some speakers at some point, probably inexpensive bookshelf speakers with a cheap amp, because I won't use them as often as headphones. However, I'd like to run these from the DAC too. So I need something that takes either USB (or, preferably, since I have a few 96 KHz FLAC files and this would mean I could get more, S/PDIF) input, and has unamped output for an amp or receiver for use with speakers. It would be nice if it also had a built-in headphone amp, but if it's more cost-effective or would be better in terms of quality to get a separate headphone amp, I can do that too. It should also work with Linux (not an issue for S/PDIF, but it is for USB, because as far as I know Linux only outputs up to either 44.1 or 48 kHz over USB (although this may be based on old information, I haven't found anything refuting it)).

Now, I would like to keep this as cheap as possible. I've searched head-fi, but that place is really useless. Everyone has a conflicting opinion on every DAC over there, but they all seem to agree that if you can't afford to spend $1000 on your gear, you shouldn't be there. I've searched here quite a bit. There have been a lot of DACs recommended here, but few within my price range There are a few - it seems you can get a very good DAC for less than $100, but most of them (e.g. the Behringer U202) don't have a headphone amp or S/PDIF input, and/or their Linux compatibility is dubious, or something. I've seen recommended here a number of pieces of equipment that look good, but I'm not sure they meet the requirements (e.g. Behringer SRC2496 - also, that thing looks absolutely monstrous in pictures, I don't know that I even have room for it). I don't want to spend more than $200 for sure.

So, can anyone help me, or should I try to trim down this wall of text (yeah, I didn't really expect it to be that long, but I wanted to be as clear as possible)?

One thing I read on Head-fi seems to make sense to me, but I don't know whether there's any real basis for it: that a portable DAC or amp at a particular price point will perform more poorly than a non-portable one at the same price point, unless one or the other is particularly poorly implemented (or overpriced).

Quote from: tom` on 2009-12-11 04:21:38

One thing I read on Head-fi seems to make sense to me, but I don't know whether there's any real basis for it: that a portable DAC or amp at a particular price point will perform more poorly than a non-portable one at the same price point, unless one or the other is particularly poorly implemented (or overpriced).

This is not true.  DACs have reached the point where it's quite easy and inexpensive to get a sonically transparent DAC.  The main difference between many portable and desktop DACs is that many portable ones can only do 16bit/44khz whereas desktop ones can do 24bit/96khz or 24bit/192khz.  Of course, if you are listening to CDs this does not matter.  A lot of what is intuitive in other technology areas (e.g. Laptops vs Desktops at the same price) is simply not true in audio because the bottom end stuff is really good and the "high-end" stuff is only high end in price.

As for the quality of motherboard outputs being bad, I think you'd be surprised in a blind test.  The main problem is electrical noise.  I have done volume matched testing between my motherboard out and "better" gear.  With the exception of electrical noise, current onboard sound solutions are very good!

As far as dealing with electrical noise, I've found that even an basic amp can help.  I typically plug my headphones (I have a DT880 as well) into my motherboard out.  But IEMS (especially Westones) are too noisy when I do this.  So I have a CMOY and this quiets the noise enough that I can use my IEMs (not the Westones UM3X though).

A Fiio might do this as well but the Fiio my start clipping/distoring with the 250 ohm DT880.

Honestly speaking, I think the asking price for separate DACs and headphone amps is too high.  One you cross the really inexpensive stuff (UA202 + Fiio) it's almost like you have to spend $200 - $300 to get a nice DAC+AMP combo.  If you are willing to spend that much I think the Echo Audiofire 4 would work.  Speaking purely in terms of sonics for listening, I doubt it's worth the cost over using some inexpensive setup to address your onboard's sound electrical noise. 

You could also think about an internal sound card like the Asus Xonar Essence or HT Omega Claro.  Both of these should be silent with your IEMs and they have a special headphone amp circuit.

There are some portable DAC+AMP combos for under $200 but I'm reluctant to post them in fear that somebody might assume I'm actually recommending these "audiophile" products

My headphones however, are only k240 sextetts so I always thought that was one of the primary reasons, but the rest of my setup i believe is still overkill, after selling of some of my slighlty higher end stuff.

tom` - what's your intended budget?  I can probably point you towards something if you give an exact budget.

As for the idea that double amping is bad - where did you read that again

Remember, a lot of people don't even realize that most everything has an amplified out so they're not all that qualified to make claims about if doubling amping is bad or not.

resistor attenuators work well with some earphones, but with others, affect the output really poorly. examples of the latter (which attenuate treble) are balanced armature earphones. small dynamic earphones are very good though.

And don't worry about double-amping - that is a headfi myth. headfiers usually have about as much experience as it takes to register a nickname. I would doubt than even 2% of them could tell the difference between a line out amp and a headphone amp. There are differences, but they are hardly problematic in most cases. Some line outs are actually worse than the headphone out (Cowon X5) for example.

well, wouldn't (say) plugging an amp straight into my motherboard output just amplify the noise?

Also, does anyone know a good place to search for hardware/reviews? If not head-fi, then where?

The volume-matching thing is an excellent point, and I think that's the number-one obstacle for proper ABX tests.

The EMU 0202 looks nice (I'd looked at the 0404 in the past), but both have the same issue in my case - they only have very basic driver support in Linux (i. e., you can use them as a sound device at 44.1/48 KHz, but beyond that I don't think much is supported).

The Total Bithead has always struck me as a bit expensive for what it does (since you can get audio interfaces that do 192 KHz and have input and output (that I'll probably never use, but still) for close to the same price), and also, it doesn't have an unamped output...