Hi everyone,
This is my first post, not just in this forum, but in ANY forum! So be nice
So I recently moved to America from England, meaning I had to sell my nice hi-fi (by nice I mean it sounded great yet was a budget set-up bought all the way back in 2003). I now own a cheap Asus laptop and a pair of Sennheiser HD202's. I love the idea of having my laptop as the "hi-fi" source and I now prefer listening to music through headphones than actual speakers (oh how I miss my Grado SR60's!). I have my music on a USB powered HD, with most music burnt as ALAC, so 16bit 44.1khz. I recently installed Foobar2000, which I love, and at some point I will switch out the mechanical HD for an SSD, but have questions regarding using a DAC on this particular laptop.
My laptop (running Win 8.1) has only 2 USB ports, one is 3, the other 2, but they are right next to each other, and according to Device Manager they are under the same controller. And they are the only input ports apart from an ethernet. So would it be detrimental to use them for both the HD and a DAC? (Currently decided on a Dragonfly if I can use one). My optimism has been risen slightly after reading about the Audioquest Jitterbug and the Uptone Audio Regan. Would any of these be beneficial?
They're my main questions for now. I know my HD202's are not the first word in hi-fi quality, even though they do sound awesome for the price! But obviously I am looking for a better pair, and am very intrigued by the Audioquest Nighthawk (that's if it ever gets released!). Due to short term financial issues I can't afford anything yet, but thought i'd get my research out the way first. The funny thing is, I love the sound currently as it is, and yes, that means i'm using the laptops headphone jack. I have foobar set up properly, which includes having installed the WASAPI component, but if that is pointless due to no DAC, then fair enough. I've also manually "optimized" 8.1 by uninstalling lots of unnecessary programs and tweaking and turning off some system features. Well if you can't go the hardware route, go software lol!
Hope I made everything clear, and thanks for taking your time to read this!
