The value of this post may be a bit dubious due to the number of expensive hardware items required, but I spent even more money needlessly trying to find good audio so I want to share what I did to get the absolute best sound I’ve ever heard. I’m talking about tears rolling down your cheek awesome audio. The best part? I had given up and what I stumbled upon was a complete surprise. And free software makes it possible.
Hardware:
Asus Xonar DX Sound Card
- This card is available online for around $100, give or take. It works in Linux using black magic (the drivers are in the kernel).
(Mass)Drop Cavelli Tube Hybrid Headphone Amplifier
- You could spend a year trying out different amps and probably a majority would be just as good. This part is subjective, highly, and you could certainly use any number of other options. Just make sure you’re feeding enough power to your 'phones or speakers and from there it’s a matter of what sounds best to you. This is just what I use and I like it, use what you have or like. This one is about $200 but you can find it on sale sometimes.
Hifiman Ananda Headphones
- The most expensive piece. MSRP is $1000 but I paid $700 on Amazon. If you have a smaller head like me these won’t fit well at all. These are some of the most uncomfortable headphones I’ve ever worn because they don’t fit me at all. I bought some Dekoni Nuggets to attach to the headband to fill in the gap a bit. It helped but isn’t quite enough. But for all this uncomfortable trouble these headphones sound amazing…if you push them right. Keep reading…
Software:
Manjaro Linux
- Pick your flavor. I’m using Gnome and it came with most of the audio stack by default. Besides Pulseaudio I’m not sure what else the maintainers did that paved the way but I am working to document it as best I can so I and anyone else can reproduce this.
Install Pulseeffects and accept the options presented in the Add/Remove GUI
- Those optionals are ‘ZAM-Plugins’ and ‘rubberband’. Because I’m new to Arch/Manjaro I am still learning the pacman commands. If you use pacman instead of the desktop app I’m not sure how or if the options present themselves. Annoyingly, when I reinstall it I don’t get the options.
AppEditor
- An unfortunate side effect of installing Pulseeffects is it will clutter up your Gnome app menu with a metric butt tonne of junk you’d never launch alone. I found this little utility to clean up the menu.
GitHub - donadigo/appeditor: Edit application menu
So? Yeah, well, in the past I’ve used sound cards costing twice as much, settled for Windows in some cases, and I’ve fiddled with daemon.conf Pulseaudio settings for hours and hours and I never achieved the clarity, presence and sound stage I have now with largely out-of-the-box software. I have used Grace DACs, high-end Sound Blaster and various other portable DACs and the DAC on this Xonar card is just as good to my ears. The Hifiman Anandas are very very capable planar headphones but they’re pretty lifeless if you don’t do something to sweeten the audio. Now, in Windows using the Sound Blaster ZXR does something to sweeten the audio but it keeps the magic hidden as there’s nothing in the control panel showing what it is doing. It just brings in a lot more deep color and bass. Sounds great until it doesn’t and when you want to turn it off you can’t.
So that’s what makes this setup so special. For $0 in software I have a system-wide EQ, noise gates, limiters, crystalizers, and more. That’s what Pulseeffects brings to the table. It has all that stuff and it all works great. I find I have to make small adjustments to 60 and 119Hz levels depending on the music. Or with one click I can disable it too. This EQ is finally working WITH the amp, WITH the DAC, to bring my ears the best sound I’ve ever heard anywhere. I’m not saying it’s the best ever, just the best I have personally experienced. The experience is so good I want to share it and that’s why I’m writing this. Hearing individual standup bass strings vibrating, hearing the bow run across the strings of a fiddle, hear the pianist breathing - hear every single thing in perfect clarity.
The software should help anyone bring out the best in their hardware. The best will be subject to the overall quality of the components but “low-end” can sound remarkably good if you work at it. For me, the Ananda was a big step up from a Sennheiser HD 650 which I still use on my daily work computer and you can grab those for ~$300 on Amazon as I did. They sound great and have the benefit of being more comfortable but the Ananda sounds way better. But only if you tweak them right. The Sennheisers sound pretty decent on any setup I’ve tried without any tricks.
Bluetooth? The software stack is system-wide so even your Bluetooth gear will benefit. I use some Surface headphones for Youtube/L1 News/Stuff that doesn’t need great audio because I can move around. I leave the Anandas for dedicated listening sessions. The added benefit is this routine keeps me used to relatively crappy audio so every time I listen to the good setup it still sounds amazing. I’m not really an audiophile, I don’t have special training or knowledge, I don’t know more than you (or you or you) - this is just what I’ve done to enjoy music the best I can. It could be better I’m sure but if you’re hunting for good audio maybe this will give you some ideas. I hope it helps.
Cheers!
Chris