I bought my gf a Meze 99 Neo as her upcoming Christmas gift. She’s not an audiophile nor am I, but she definitely listens to a lot more music than I do.

The headphones are intended as an upgrade to her AirPods Pro for listening to music at the office.

I’m debating whether she would really benefit from a Schiit stack (Modi2+Magni2) that I could buy second hand, mainly because I’ve read the DAC in the latest generation MacBooks and iPhones are actually not bad at all and a 100 USD DAC won’t beat it… How true is that? I would simply get her the 9 USD USB-C to 3.5mm adapter (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/)

Again, she’s not an audiphile and I would believe that (1) on a pair of 99 Neo, (2) coming from AirPods, and (3) listening to lossless (24-bit/48kHz) a Schiit stack is overkill. Yes?

Appreciate everyone’s thoughts.

  • Aggravating-Tale-939@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Unless you’re going to be doing some crazy equalizing then the iPhone will be plenty.

    I use the Neo’s on my ancient OnePlus 6 and would never go over half it’s volume unless it’s a really old non remastered song. They really are that easy to drive.

    However, a physical volume knob and peace of mind if you ever want to upgrade to harder to drive headphones would be a nice thing to have with a seperate dac amp.