I've recently shifted towns and my headphones got damaged during the move. I thought it an opportune time to investigate an upgrade.

My dead cans are Sennheiser HD485. After some extensive reading I've decided to replace them with Sennheiser HD558 (with the HD598 mod). Please don't offer advice on alternative headphones for me.

What I'm unsure about is the rest of my system. Recently I've started to collect a few Flac songs but the vast majority of my music is mp3. I'm using onboard sound currently. My questions are as follows:


  1. Is my choice of headphones a significant enough upgrade to hear a perceivable difference for anyone with less-than-golden ears?
  2. Are the headphones such that an external DAC/Headphone amp should be seriously considered?
  3. Would the headphones (with and/or without the DAC) allow me to perceive a difference between Flac and mp3?


All of my mates have $20 Sony headphones (or something similar) and internal sound cards. I don't know anyone with a proper stereo. Nore do any of the shops in my small town stock anything better then portable CD players/ipods etc. Therefore I'm unable to test any of this equipment before purchasing. I will be ordering my stuff online from overseas.



Any advice would be greatly appreciated.