The software has been regularly updated based on serious audiophile suggestions. The X7 is a great catch all that takes the place of several pieces of equipment. In fact there are two extensive reviews/use thread on as well, one of which Creative employees are actively answering and attending to feedback. Creative no longer supports just gamers they are making serious insteps to the audiophile arena. Have you even used the X7? I own the LE edition and it's amazing. Whatever you do, don't get that Creative product. Because those are often the weakest links, upgrading those or fixing those things will often give you much more of an upgrade. Designing a perfect headphone or speaker or listening room with perfect acoustics, now that's much harder. Are you sure you even need an external dac and amp? Do you think that paying more will automatically make your music better? What headphones/speakers are you running?ĭesigning an audibly transparent dac isn't too hard. Audio is a blast but damn is there a lot of tasty products out there.Creative stuff are gamer brands, it's just not a good idea to pay too much money for their stuff. If I think of any more tomorrow that I may have forgotten to mention I'll come back and update ya haha. Tps:// uh.I think I'm tapped out on dac/amp combos now lol.

I've never tried IFI products but I've read really good things about them on Head-Fi. There's this Aune which I've heard good things about: Also has a headphone section out the front but there's no DAC built into the N22, and it's a liiiitle larger than you'd probably want for portability anyways.Īnywho, There's some other options I just remembered too. Aux in which is convenient since I have a roku stick plugged into one of my side monitors and I just output the audio into the amp. The amp is kinda neat as it has a bunch of connection posibilities on the back, including speaker out so you can hook up a powered subwoofer to it. Both the speakers and the amp have been flawless, no issues once so ever. I'm more of a headphone guy personally since it makes music more personal and i have my endgame headphones (Nighthawks), with a dream to own a pair of Focal lol. Have had the set for like 4 years and never upgraded them since they sound fine to me. Like i said, I have their N22 speaker amp that's going into their P4 monitors/speakers.

Audioengine d1 dac vs schiit stack