Improving Headphone Sound

by the way, how much are you prepared to spend? I can answer your question better if i knew. i've been down your road with the benchmark..seriously. i haven't even mentioned half the options i explored. For me, anything over $3k is a waste on headphones. I was prepared to buy the sennheiser HE90 and singlepower es-1 fully modded (total of around $12k used) until I heard it. NO WAY. The Stax Omega rig for $3k was in some ways better and the HE90/ES-1 was in no way worth the extra money.

BTW, Steerpike... buying used over on the Head-Fi ForSale subforum is a great way to audition headamp prospects, with depretiation already taken off the price and turning it over again if not satisfied, with S&P.P. being the low cost loss.

Also, do research there for "Iron_dreamer"'s review of the Benchmark DAC1 vs. Meier Corda Opera , Stello & other competitive DAC/Headamps...I'm sure you would find that useful reading...

Regards,

Thanks everyone for your very helpful responses. I have now registered at Head-Fi and am beginning to discover how little I really know about Headphone listening. Thanks Finthen for the heads-up about "Iron_Dreamer"'s review(s), they'll take some time to digest but initially are truly impressive & valuable.

Kublakhan, I'm not sure what "She Who Must Be Obeyed" has decided that my budget will be, but would guess in the $2,500-$3,500 range.

Again, thanks everyone and I'm off to do my homework.

Regards,

Bob

Is She Who Must Be Obeyed possibly going to be listening with you? In that case you should keep an eye out for amps with two jacks...although even with an external headphone amp connected to your DAC1 you can listen from the DAC1 and from the headphone amp at the same time (which, btw, is a great way to decide whether the amp is better than your dac1 jacks.)

If you budget is that high I can recommend w/o hesitation the Stax Omega II system for around $3k new. Very satisfying for audiophiles relegated to cans.

If you haven't already invested in power conditioning then this is a must. I've used various devices which all had some good results. The cheapest was a Brickwall audiophile surge suppressor ($240). I wasn't expecting much power conditioning since I bought it because I lived near the top of a mountain in North Carolina and wanted to leave my equipment on all the time since this improves performance significantly. The Brickwall was pretty good at cleaning the noise from the power supply.
Better was a PS-Audio Ultimate Outlet (about $200). Unfortunately the two outlets on it are not isolated from each other so often digital gear will put noise back into the power line which can feed into your amplifier.
Other options which are still not too expensive include power strips built by Bolder Cable which include Bybee Quantum Purifiers to isolate some of the outlets from each other while at the same time as filtering the power as it comes into the strip by the use of the Bybees. I'm currently using separate power cables which have Bybees on both sides of the line.
The first time I used the Ultimate Outlet I was stunned with the increased clarity cause by cleaning up the power.