I have the Sennheiser HD600, Neumann NDH-30, Audeze LCD-X.
I use these with my SSL2 hp out, and with Qudelix 5K.
I spoke to someone about my impressions and his first question was: which dac/amp? and when I told, he just winked.
So my question is: is the difference this obvious with a more expensive dac/amp combo? Should I spend another 6-800 euro to get one? Do your headphones open up/perform that much better?
I believe expensive DAC’s are snake oil, the important part is not being a half assed afterthought, like what comes with basic PC’s or various electronics. Apple’s $10 will do just fine up to 44KHz, and there is debate that higher frequencies are even detectable by humans. That’s not to say it is not. For a long time the conventional wisdom was human eyes can’t see more than 60FPS, but I could, now there are 240Hz gaming monitors everywhere.