Desktop DAC/HPamp for ~$200

[Bun-Bun]

The hunt began a few days ago. Desktop DAC with heaphone amp with 2ohm or less output impedance, line out (preferably fixed), and USB or COAX input (preferably COAX).

Ended up buying a Fiio E7 because it was the only thing I could find that didn't get a crappy review and was cheap and met my needs. Everytime I think i found the perfect desktop amp I find it has high output impedance.

Two I am currently considering.

Audio-gd NFB-12

Maverick TubeMagic D1 DAC

Any opinions on these two or other suggestions?

[CrowdAds]

[nupi]

FiiO E10. Not really desktop, but mighty impressive if you do not need giant amounts of juice (it honestly drives my D2000 - which admittedly is easy to drive - every bit as good as the ten times bigger and four times more expensive Matrix M-Stage).

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Bun-Bun

… Desktop DAC with heaphone amp with 2ohm or less output impedance, line out (preferably fixed), and USB or COAX input (preferably COAX). ...

What are you looking to drive? While I don’t know a thing about either DAC/amp that you mentioned, I looked at the specs and noticed that the Audio-gd NFB-12 does have output impedance of 2 Ω (ohms). It looks like an interesting DAC/amp for the promo price of $200.00. While the Maverick looks sharper (IMO) at $200.00 it seems the minimum output headphone impedance is 16 Ω, unless I missed something in the specs.

Originally Posted by nupi

FiiO E10. Not really desktop …

While the E10 is probably a great bang for the buck, it has output impedance of 32Ω, so it’s not what he asked for.

Edit: Strike error after corrected by dfkt

[dfkt]

Huh? Where did you get the 32 Ohm output impedance figure? When I measured the E10 with multi-armature IEMs, the frequency response was flat, suggesting less than 1 Ohm output impedance.

Other than the E10, my suggestion would be a professional sound card instead of some hi-fi stuff - like the Echo AudioFire 2, for example. It should go for slightly less than $200, and it is exceptionally good.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Huh? Where did you get the 32 Ohm output impedance figure? ...

Glad you corrected me, my bad had a hard time finding the figures ... I question the Maverick figure as well.

Edit: oh forgot to mention I saw it on another site while searching around

Edit2: I looked back and found what I did wrong is used the output power figure of 150mW(32Ω)

[nupi]

dfkt: how does the AudioFire compare to the E10 when we are talking output only?

[Bun-Bun]

Sound card is not an option. This is at work where I do not own or have access to the computers to add expansion cards.

I am currently driving Audeo PFE 112's

The E7 was awesome but it did not let me switch between headphones and line out easily.

I ended up buying a Audinst HUD-MX1. Does exactly what I want and sounds great. Shipping was incredibly fast to. $180 shipped.