I have the 900 pro or whatever they’re called with 250 ohms and they run perfectly fine from my pc. If I had them louder I’d probably get hearing damage. Is there really a big improvement with an external dac?
That depends what kind of soundcard your PC has. For example some MacBooks feature a DAC with support for high impedance headphones. Most „standard“ PCs don’t have a very good soundcard, so you would definitely benefit from using a DAC. Maybe not from a volume level standpoint, but with regards to audio quality.
If you have a headphone amp that supports high impedance headphones, you can go with the 250 ohm version, otherwise use the 80 ohm version.
Both will get equally loud before distortion. But your amplifier need to support it.
I have the 900 pro or whatever they’re called with 250 ohms and they run perfectly fine from my pc. If I had them louder I’d probably get hearing damage. Is there really a big improvement with an external dac?
That depends what kind of soundcard your PC has. For example some MacBooks feature a DAC with support for high impedance headphones. Most „standard“ PCs don’t have a very good soundcard, so you would definitely benefit from using a DAC. Maybe not from a volume level standpoint, but with regards to audio quality.