Review: Portable amp roundup! 37 portable amps reviewed and compared

[dadozen]

I don't think that low/high current has something to do with low/high impedances.

For me, high current will drain more power from the battery but will deliver more "power" to the amp circuit to drive whichever headphones are being used.

[weinerproc]

why no Rudistor XJ-03?

[Malakei]

Awesome reviews, im looking for an upgrate to my LDM+ without losing portability, any suggestions? Obviously anything above it your rankings but im looking to keep the price point down [street price used] as im working on saving for a Wadia iTransport so i dont want to blow a big wad on a portable amp. Which of the amps on your list do you think best suited jazz/rock whilst being very portable as in close to, equal to or better then the LDM+?

[Malakei]

Also can anyone produce a corresponding list 1 through 25 of the street price of these amps used on head-fi? or even ones they know? im looking for a value componenet here :P

[Headphile808]

Originally Posted by Malakei

Awesome reviews, im looking for an upgrate to my LDM+ without losing portability, any suggestions? Obviously anything above it your rankings but im looking to keep the price point down [street price used] as im working on saving for a Wadia iTransport so i dont want to blow a big wad on a portable amp. Which of the amps on your list do you think best suited jazz/rock whilst being very portable as in close to, equal to or better then the LDM+?

First of all Skylab you did an incredible job on the amp review, it was the reason why I joined Head-Fi. How about the Meir Headsix? At $145, It has to be one of the best deals around. Skylab has it ranked 7th on his list, all the other amps in his top 10 are all 2-3 times the price. Just a suggestion, I was gonna get a Headsix then I read Skylabs review on the RSA P-51 Mustang. Review blew me away!
Pre-Ordered one shipping this week!! Might wanna check it out & good luck replacing your LDM+. Happy Holidays!
Headphile808.

[Skylab]

Originally Posted by Headphile808

First of all Skylab you did an incredible job on the amp review, it was the reason why I joined Head-Fi. How about the Meir Headsix? At $145, It has to be one of the best deals around. Skylab has it ranked 7th on his list, all the other amps in his top 10 are all 2-3 times the price. Just a suggestion, I was gonna get a Headsix then I read Skylabs review on the RSA P-51 Mustang. Review blew me away!
Pre-Ordered one shipping this week!! Might wanna check it out & good luck replacing your LDM+. Happy Holidays!
Headphile808.

Thanks for the kind words. And I think your suggestion of a Meier XXS/HeadSix is excellent

[jamato8]

Originally Posted by Headphile808

First of all Skylab you did an incredible job on the amp review, it was the reason why I joined Head-Fi. How about the Meir Headsix? At $145, It has to be one of the best deals around. Skylab has it ranked 7th on his list, all the other amps in his top 10 are all 2-3 times the price. Just a suggestion, I was gonna get a Headsix then I read Skylabs review on the RSA P-51 Mustang. Review blew me away!
Pre-Ordered one shipping this week!! Might wanna check it out & good luck replacing your LDM+. Happy Holidays!
Headphile808.

I don't think you will be disappointed. It has its own musical realm and journey should be fun.

[tamu]

Originally Posted by Skylab

Thanks for the kind words. And I think your suggestion of a Meier XXS/HeadSix is excellent

Hi
this is my first post after spending months reading the forums.
First thing I did after spending some time on head fi was to get my self a decent headphones. decided on alessandro ms-1s, OMG never had phones like this and Im very happy. changed my experience..
There is a new EU rule; every portable music player will have volume caps on them which is about 50%. This wasnt enough for my Ms-1s so I needed an amp so I got headsix.
Everything has changed in my experience after recieving and plugging it in to my Ipod .. I know some says amping from ipods jack does not change anything but it actually it does. Some people just got so used to proper amped outputs that they just miss the change in all aspects of the sound.
I have an sony home theather connected to my PC via optical and the sound is very rich out of the sony amp but when compared the same tracks out of headsix I notice a huge difference(how important is the purpose built component!). Everything is more controlled out of headsix except bass being a bit weak. In a portable setup I say headsix is a bang for the buck. Everyday after work I just rush to my house to listen to my jazz through headsix and MS-1s. Without any doubts I will recommend headsix to anyone!
Dont forget every headsix bought contributes to Head Fi forums.

[Brighten]

Skylab, how would you compare the Pico amp to the Eddie Current Lunchbox you used to own?

[Skylab]

These are not comparable. The Pico is a great portable, but it does not compare to the tubed home amp Lunchbox - I prefer the Lunchbox.

[Brighten]

Ha, shut down. Thanks!

But would the difference be as large with low impedance/high sensitivity headphones? I mean, would the Pico offer 80-90% of the performance of the Lunchbox?

Sorry I am being so persistent...

[Skylab]

> Storm Little-2

(Info: Storm-Amp - but in Chinese only).

I was asked by the designer to review this amp. I have had very mixed feelings. Some Storm amps have been good, and others – not so good. This one looks nice, is nice and small, and at $120 is attractively priced. And it sounds pretty good, but does have a “flavor”. See below.



Build Quality: A: The nicest build of a Storm amp I have seen – includes built-in rechargeable battery, and a USB charging cable – very nice. One little issue – “Storm” was misspelled twice . But there was no noise, hiss, or any other issues.
Treble: B+: The treble is reasonably neutral. Unlike some other Storm amps, the treble is very clean. However, it is dark -the amp lacks extension and air compared to my reference amps. It mated much better with my Senn PXC350 than with my AT ESW9. The treble that is there is pretty smooth, so this is more of a flavoring than a problem.
Midrange: A-: The mids reasonably clean, transparent, and neutral. Good performance for the money Skye Edwards’ voice on Morcheeba’s “Trigger Hippie” was rendered well, sounding right – not too think or too plump.
Bass: A-: Good bass quantity, and reasonably tight and well defined. Good performance here as well. I got the kind of gut-wrenching bass I expect from Morcheeba’s “Moog Island”.
Neutrality: B+: Too “dark” to be really called neutral, but not in a way that got in the way of the music once you were used to it, provided you are not trying to use it with dark-sounding headphones.
Soundstaging: B+: good width, good depth. Average performance here – many amps I have heard do better, but nothing really problematic.
Transparency: A-: Quite good performance here, for the price class. Essentially clean and grain-free sound.

At $120, the Storm Little-2 is a nice, full featured, very small portable amp that sounds good with the right headphones. It’s very quiet operation will make it just the ticket to mate with IEMs that the owner things are a little too bright.

Conclusions (12/11/08)

NOTE: All new reviews have to be added to the end of the thread due to the length of this post - only the rankings will now change. I have put in links to the posts with the reviews.

OK, so now it’s now 44 amps! Here is my view on how the amps stacked up. Note that the sum of the "Grades" I give does not always tell the whole story in how I rank them, since the whole is sometimes greater or lesser than the sum of the parts, and I am often forced to split hairs here, since the list has gotten so long. Also please note that even if these amps include a DAC, that DAC performance was NOT a factor in these rankings AT ALL. Also, for clarification, this ranking is based on sound quality ONLY, and does not take things like size or battery life into account.

1. Triad Audio Lisa III
2. Qables iQube
2. RSA Mustang P-51
2. Larocco Audio Pocket Reference II mk 2 (availability unknown - PLEASE read entire review)
3. Headamp Pico
3. Meier Audio 2MOVE (and the older MOVE)
4. RSA SR71
4. RSA The Predator
5. RSA The Hornet “M”
6. Xenos 1HA-EPC (discontinued)
7. RSA Tomahawk
7. Meier Audio XXS / Headsix
8. TTVJ Portable Millet Hybrid
8. Decware Zenhead
9. Xin Reference
9. Meier Audio Porta Corda III (discontinued)
9. Xin SuperMicro IV (current version auditioned 1/22/08)
10. ALO Double Mini3
10. Headamp AE-2
10. Graham Slee Voyager
11. Go-Vibe 7
11. Mini3
12. Leckerton Audio UHA-3
13. Portaphile V2^2
14. mSeed Spirit (discontinued)
14. Mini-Box E
15. Storm 3 (NOT B3)
15. Storm Little-2
15. Storm B4
16. iBasso P-1 (discontinued)
17. Visely HEA- 1
18. Microshar uAmp107
19. Practical Devices XM4
19. C&C XO
19. iBasso T2
20. Go-Vibe 6 (discontinued)
21. Xtra X-1 Pro
22. Xenos 0HA-REP (discontinued)
22. iBasso T1 (discontinued)
23. Xtra X-1 (discontinued)
24. C&C Box V2
25. Storm B3
25. Little Dot Micro+ (discontinued)

As always, this is JUST MY OPINION, but I hope it has been helpful.

[ddoingwell]

I'm aware that many other head-fi types have passed on high praise for Skylab's excellent work herein, but I just had to toss in some more.

I've had the "Review: Portable amp roundup!" page bookmarked for much longer than I've been a head-fi member (found it on a Google search) and have referred to it and all the add-ons umteenmillion times. I never get tired of the info and find something new that I'd missed every read through. Saying THANK YOU to Skylab just doesn't seem like enough...

Sadly and probably neglectfully, I have not read everyone's varied contributions to this thread and there are a few amps, albeit minor players, that I'm curious about and don't seem to come up in the searches I've done on this thread:

HOTAUDIO40's TPA6120A2 Based Headphone Amplifier with a 32 Step Digital Rotary Encoder Volume Control

and

Little Dot MK1/MK1+

Any comments lads?

Thanks and cheers from Tropical Far North Queensland Australia where Christmas is mango season. Thanks again Skylab; I raise a mango in your honor sir.

[Skylab]

(Blushing) Thanks! I appreciate the mango!

[Brabus9999]

Hi Skylab,
There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said before, so I'll just say thanks for taking the time and making the effort to provide this superb review. Your insight is priceless to a newbie on a limited budget like me. I've lost count of how many times I've gone over it again and again. Excellent work!

Gritt