Hi there, total noob here very new to the “hobby”. I recently upgraded my home theater with an awesome new setup and got into the whole audio/audiophile space researching my purchasing decisions. The research sparked a lot of thinking about music and audio quality in general and besides a switch from Spotify to tidal it also sparked my interest in trying quality headphones.

For now I got a pair of Hifiman He400i that were available 2nd hand near me, to try out the planar magnetic hype.

I plugged them into my MacBook Pro M1 and they sounded very thin and didn’t get all too loud. To be expected…

I went ahead and plugged them into my Steinerg UR22C audiointerface and gained some body and volume. If I turn the level knob all the way it’s a tad bit over my comfort listening volume.

Overall I think they are good headphones but the “out of body” listening experience I expected didn’t hit at all. My question is, are these headphones not as good as I expected, is the UR22C bad as an amp or are my ears just bad?

What would I gain from a dedicated stack for amp and maybe even DAC (Forums tell me the UR22C’s DAC is fine just the Amp is average at best).

Can you try to describe to me what I would gain from spending money? Like if I am maybe at a 5/10 of what my Headphones are capable of, how much better do I get with for example a Schiit Magni and Modi DAC (available near me 2nd hand for 200E).

What would take me even higher?

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