[hardtrance]

With senn HD600, or any headphones for that matter, I hear no difference in sound between my headphone amp and and headphone output in my M-Audio Fast Track USB external dac. I think it sounds even worse out of my amp, a bit more veiled and the bass is less controlled, but the difference is still minimal.

 
The amp is Lake People (now known as Violetric) G93. Its balanced headphone amplifier thats supposed to be able to drive my headphones well. Its connected with XLR->RCA cable to RCA outputs in my dac.
 
I even switched it to -/+ 30 high voltage mode ("for high impedance headphones" says in the manual) but still hear no difference between plugging my phones straight to dac.
 
Whats wrong here? Is it my dac being too weak or what? The HD600 are new and Im already considering selling these as they dont really impress me anyways.

 

[JRG1990]

The M-Audio Fast Track has a bulid in headphone amp which is clearly good enough to drive your hd600, nothings wrong other than you were mislead into beliving the differences between 2 different amps are huge when there not longs they drive the headphones properly the hd600's properly prefer the M-Audio Fast Track more due to output impedance or something.
 
Also don't use balanced to unbalanced cables the result is a -6db loss of signal, use only unbalanced to unbalanced or balanced to balanced.

 

[hardtrance]

Quote:

 
Also don't use balanced to unbalanced cables the result is a -6db loss of signal, use only unbalanced to unbalanced or balanced to balanced.

So I should be using an amp which has RCA inputs? Is the loss of signal loss of volume or quality?

 
Also can you recommend fairly bright and/or very detailed amps for HD600 in price range 0 - 300€?
 

 

[JRG1990]

Both -6db of signal is lost means -6db of volume, losing -6db of signal also hurts the signal to noise ratio.
I use a fiio e9 drives all my headphones fine should be ok with the hd600, there are plenty of hd600 owners here so you should ask them what amps they use.