I auditioned the Naim - I it was very pleasing and a significant upgrade from my preamp with a headphone jack.
I would consider separate headphone amp and Bluesound node over the a unit with amp section and headphone amp.
All in one unit for headphones- help me decide
This is a follow up to a previous thread. I am looking for an all in one unit to run headphones (Sennheiser HD800S) at a newly acquired vacation home. I am looking for a Dac, headphone amp, streamer, ability to play files from a SSD (internal or external) and self contained software/app. Based upon my spending time at Axpona, I have the following 4 candidates:
Auralic Altair (g1.1 or 2.1)
Naim Atom headphone edition
Hifi Rose (250 or ?)
Cambridge eVO (150 or 75)
I can easily review the features ( so limit your comments), but I am interested if anyone has experience with the relative sonic performance through headphones of these units. I am not interested in the performance through speakers and their amp output, only headphones. I have a suspicion that since the HIFI rose and Cambridge focus more on display and bells and whistles, their sonic performance is a bit below the other two.
Showing 2 responses by overthemoon
@meiatflask If you truly want to go a budget route, I'd consider a Poly Mojo2 as your interim step - it's a portable headphone amp and you can get them $500-800 (used/new). You can connect it to your phone or external streamer (including Chord's poly). This can then become something you can use for travel or share withe kids or grandkids. I think you'll appreciate your Sennheiser's on it. |