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Do I need a headphone or speaker to appreciate high-end DACs?

This is a common opinion I hear on forums:

That to appreciate TOTL DACs you need a very resolving transducer.

My question is, to appreciate such quality, do I need speakers, or will headphones be enough?

Typical TOTL DACs i hear are from dcs, Chord, Mola Mola, Holo, Lampizator, MSB, Rockna, Weiss etc. To enjoy that level of fidelity, do I need speakers?

When I say "enjoy", I dont mean subjectively feeling good. I am asking about the differences being big enough to spot on in blind A/B testing, compared to say, a 200$ Schiit or JDS.

kandamrgam

Showing 2 responses by mulveling

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,121 posts
 

I'm of the opinion there's more meaningful difference between DACs when compared on a good 2ch speaker system. With headphones, no matter how resolving, the differences in spatial information / presentation are far less meaningful when it's all being crammed into a headstage. The tonality and smoothness of a DAC are still quite important, of course - and this needs to be carefully matched to your chosen transducer - but there's generally "less" overall difference amongs DACs on headphones than with speakers. 

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,121 posts
 

Save the AKG K340 because i have a sounstage out of my head...

K340 has a very nice headstage. Their unit-to-unit sound variation these days is quite horrible; sounds like you have one of the good pairs left out there. These have already exceeded the quoted lifespan of the electret driver; but if it sounds good now it probably will remain so for quite a while longer. Count yourself lucky! Very nice headphone, and we will never see anything like it again.

There are a couple more exceptions that have an unusually large/nice headstage:

  • Sony MDR-R10 - Now impossibly expensive and risky (drivers). Best headphone ever made for classical, but not great for rock.
  • AKG K1000 - They’re decent, but I never really got on with these.
  • RAAL - Looks like a modern K1000. Haven’t heard them.
  • Sony Qualia 010 - When ALL the stars align, you can maybe just about forget you’re listening to headphones. But the "perfect" fit is almost impossible to achieve and the midrange is very weird. Sennheiser shamelessly copied this design for their HD800, made the midrange better (but still not great) and in turn cut out everything that made the Qualia 010 special. 
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