PROLOGUE

When I got into this hobby back in 2010 my seminal purchase was a Klipsch Image One headphone. At the time it was the first headphone I had spent over $100 on and the first audio product I had purchased in a long time. I had owned countless numbers of beater Sony’s and Koss Porta Pros but the Klipsch headphone seemed like a step up to something more serious in my book.

The problem was that it was a little too insensitive for my iPad and iPod. That lack of drive or ability to pump up the volume from my two Apple sources would be the catalyst and my undoing.

Not having enough power with onboard amplifiers in those two devices is what initially got me looking for some small outboard amplifier that I could connect between the iPod and the headphones to get the volume levels I wanted.

At the time I wasn’t even sure such a device existed…. An amplifier for a headphone, with portability…. This quest for some device I wasn’t even sure existed was the jumping off point for my journey down into the Head-fi rabbit hole.

I had no idea at the time, what I was getting myself into.

6 years later, I’ve torn through probably 20 different headphones, 5 or 6 dacs, at least 5 different desktop amps a couple few different portable amps and thousands upon thousands of dollars.

The entire time, I’ve been chasing a dragon of very specific origins. Because despite spending a ridiculous amount of money on playback equipment and being as susceptible as anyone to Madison Avenues gaming of the consumer system, I don’t consider myself an audiophile.

I don’t listen to high res, I don’t really care a whole lot about detail retrieval and think imaging and soundstage are overblown when it comes to headphones.

In the 2 channel game, with speaker playback, imaging actually matters because you can, with the right speakers, actually cast an image out into the room of a band playing. 2 boxes placed in the corners of a room can project a sonic hologram of sorts.

With headphones it doesn’t work like that. Not even close.

Even the greatest imaging headphones like the Stax SR-009 or the Sennheiser HD800 only provide a mild amount of extra depth to a soundstage that is essentially within inches of your face (in the absolute best circumstances) and right in the middle of your head in most cases. And I think stereo image width, has a lot more to do with the track mix of the file being played than the acoustics of a headphone. The headphone imaging game is really a game of inches and so I don’t place a lot of currency in it.

What matters more to me is color & tonal richness, dynamic drive and scale. I want a headphone that plays forcefully and pressurizes the air and creates some rhythmic drive that interacts with me on a physical level.

I don’t want to listen to my system, I don’t want to be a passive observer with my sound system. I want to engage my music. I want to feel it and be immersed in it.

To that end I’ve been chasing a dragon further and further into high end Head-fi territory that seemed to be getting further and further away. I was beginning to think maybe my dragon didn’t exist.

Still the end of 2014 marked a point at which I stopped chasing. I pulled the trigger on an HD800 headphone to couple with my Audeze LCD2, T1 and my LuxMAN’S tube amp.

I had been dragging my feet on the HD800 because of all the universal criticisms of it being overly bright and being a bit light in the ass on low frequency fare. Still I felt it was an Apex predator and I outta have it on hand. The LCD2 I own is the third specimen I have purchased. The LCD2 does not wow you, and I’ve twice now, tired of it and sold it because I wanted something different for difference’s sake. In any case, at the end of 2014, I acquired an HD800, had an LCD2 and a T1 in hand and from then on have been largely satisfied with my system, despite still feeling that all 3 headphones sound a bit anemic dynamically. Even these apex predators were, to me, light on tonal weight and density and lacked the air pressure that I wanted.

In the meantime I’ve developed a mild addiction to DIY audio and am always strung out on vintage gear, particularly Tannoy Reds and Golds (If you gots hit me up!) , but I have kept my headphone rig in the same general state… short of a tweak or two.

I’ve also been immune to the upgrade bug and the hype machine that is the audiophile press. I still read sites like 6Moons, Computer Audiophile, Digital Audio Review, Audiostream, Stereophile and Inner Fidelity but nothing ever really grabs my attention.

I don’t own a DAP because I find the concept redundant. Even though I have been tempted repeatedly, I have managed to resist attempts by the hype machine to convince me to buy a second device that I can stick in my pocket that’ll play music slightly better than the other device in my pocket that plays music.

So when Focal Audio announced the imminent release of two new flagship headphones, The Elear and the Utopia, it barely moved the needle for me. I do remember going on their new website to look at the models. But I had the same response to it that I did to the Pioneers SE Master 1, or Final Audio’s Sonorous or even the Audeze LCD4. I was more irritated by the price point than interested in the device.

And so I disregarded it out of hand, until something happened.

Tyll at Inner Fidelity posted a review that wasn’t just a thumbs up… He was over the moon about it.

Mind you, I treat most audio review sites with a healthy level of skepticism. I’ve been burned more than once purchasing a product based on an audio review sites or multiple sites gushing recommendation only to find the product performance falls well short of what the reviewer described.

Tyll Hertsen is one of only a couple exclusions I can think of. Other writers at Inner Fidelity are viewed through the same cynical lens as the rest of the market, but Tyll has a track record of calling it like I see it. So when he posts a review with unbridled enthusiasm like he did for the Focal Elear it forced me to take a second look.

Maybe I need to consider this a little more seriously.

Despite being hamstrung on cash at the time, serendipity provided the answer. I had posted a mechanical part for customizing one of my cars on an obscure auto enthusiast forum. I just didn’t have the time or the need to install it so had listed it and the ad had been collecting dust in some obscure corner of the internet for months.

Suddenly out of nowhere, I had a bite. Full price plus shipping… Done and done!

So with my Paypal account suddenly overflowing with cash, I made arrangements to acquire my own Focal Elear. I was able to catch the second wave of Elears that flooded the market in September and have now had the device in my care for over 3 months.

HEY HO LETS GO!

So to begin in earnest, the Focal Elear comes in your bog standard retail box but with a relatively nice cardboard carrying case with magnetic closure. I do like the acoustic foam on the lid. It looks like the grill pads off of an old JBL L100 vintage speaker. And while the box is nice and protective it is massive. It will not work if you want to throw your Elears in your suitcase to travel unless you’ve got a very large suitcase.

I purchased a Pelican case (iM2100) and used the cardboard insert out of the Focal box to create my own travel case. I happen to think it looks pretty sharp if not exactly like an OEM product.


 
Other ancillaries are limited, a gargantuan cable, a cable wrap, and warranty/ user documents.

In hand the Elear is a very good looking headphone. On its surface it looks like a better engineered or more durable Beyer T1. Obviously the housing/ driver is completely different but the suspension system is similar. The Elear uses aluminum blocks at the end of the headband where the T1 uses plastic, the Elear has a 1” wide yoke hanger/ headband slider where the T1 was less than half that, albeit with thicker aluminum stock. The yokes are connected to the ear cups with metal pins, the T1 connection was plastic with a metal screw, and the headband leather is more substantial. The leather on the T1 was remarkably soft but always felt a bit fragile to me.

Not to give too much away, but the reason I speak of the T1 in past tense is because it has been sold…. This should be a pretty clear indicator of how I feel about the Elear but there is more.

One thing that I need to mention that I haven’t heard much chatter about is the headband noise. To me it is actually a pretty significant problem.

The Elear headband does appear more substantial than the T1, and I do think the T1 suspension was chinsy and poorly engineered contrasted against a bombproof everlast design like the LCD2, or perfectly silent and seemingly durable design like the HD800. But the Elear also appears to fall short here.

I think the Elear suspension/ slider mechanism is too complex and made with poor material choices. Let me explain:

First I think the gimbals/ yokes are made of thin but wide aluminum material and were likely formed in a press… Problem is that the geometry with the rolling bends in thin aluminum stock strikes me as easy to bend or deform, and despite babying my pair since day one, there is an actual lack of symmetry between the left and right side of mine.
 

 
Also inside the headband, once you remove the screws on the aluminum blocks, what you actually have is a plastic headband housing with a top and bottom shell. There are small springs on either side of the housing with plastic bearing plates glued to the plastic housing to allow side to side movement. There is a spring loaded pin connected to the slider that catches against detents inside the headband and another spring loaded tab inside the headband that applies pressure to the slider. With all this movement, I don’t see anywhere in it where a specific part is encountering forces or friction that will cause it to wear down or fail. But because there are so many little plastic odds and ends inside there, and two different axis of movement being controlled by spring loaded parts I’ve found that my specimen actually has a couple different spots where different pieces get hung up on each other and make audible pops and scraping noises. Also both in the center and out on the edges, the headband makes creaking noises fairly often.

Numerous times when listening to music, I’ve heard the headband making noise and the obsessive part of me goes into a tailspin. I end up completely distracted by the noise waiting for the headband to give me another pop or click or creaks while the music continues in the background.

Also the headband just doesn’t feel solid… Not LCD2 solid or HD800 solid. It feels a bit loose.

I would love to see a reengineered headband for sale separately or even as an aftermarket solution that was more simple and/ or made of more durable materials.

So I don’t think the Elear is perfect. I think the headband falls remarkably short of what should be expected from a $1000 product and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect silent operation from the mechanical bits of a product during use.

That said, the remaining aspects of the build quality are all positive. I love the metal ring on the cups, I really like that they utilized the simple and relatively easy to source 3.5mm connectors versus some obscure, exotic or proprietary connector that is impossible to find. I like the removable pads although Focal has shown no indication that they are going to sell replacement pads yet. And despite being too long and ridiculously heavy, I do actually like the quality of the cable. It is unwieldly but is a solid cable with good conductors of good size and is what one would expect from a serious piece of audio equipment. I just wish it was maybe 3 or 4 feet shorter.
 

 
HOOK IT UP!
 
Okay with those few but significant grievances out of the way let’s get down to the heart of the matter.
 
Is the Focal Elear good? Damn Straight! At this point in my journey, it is the closest I have come, in the headphone game, to getting E X A C T L Y what I want.
 
But that may not be quite enough for some people so let me elaborate.
 
The Elear has an intoxicatingly rich tone. It has weight and dynamic punch in spades. This isn’t to say it is just about bass. Bass with the Elear is certainly one of its strong suits and I can’t imagine anyone coming away from the Elear saying they were unsatisfied with its bass performance but it really is about more than bass and frequency response when you talk about the headphone from a tone perspective. It energizes the space around your ears, it moves air to physically interact with you. And to me, because it pressurizes/ energizes the air it creates this momentum and in a way, demands that you pay attention to it.
 
It is not a headphone you wear to listen to music while you work. You'll get nothing done.
 
The Elear is not an acoustics superstar. Compared to the HD800 and to a lesser degree the T1, the acoustics seem darker and murkier, fringe notes and small light details out on the edges of the stereo signal are less clear than they are with the HD800 and T1. Still despite not giving clarity to the depth that the HD800 and T1 do, this darker acoustic tuning also seems to create this inkier black space for music to spring up from, creating emotional tension and anticipation. When listening to Tool's 'Wing's for Marie' the alternative scratching noises out on the edges between the main notes being played in the center could not be heard as clear as they could on the HD800, but the Elear could track the small variance in volume as the guitar came in (once again bouncing back and forth between left and right channels). It's ability to accurately represent these "micro dynamic" changes in volume communicated the building tension and anticipation. Where the HD800 was able to remove all the shadows it's inability to convey the small dynamic shifts left it sounding accurate but lacking the emotional engagement.
 
One of the most remarkable experiences I had was after playing music through the Elear for a good hour or so, I plugged my late T1 in to see how it compared. Mind you this was a 19K serial number T1, not the early models that were plagued with inconsistency and mid treble glare. The sound coming out of the T1 was so bleached sounding, so anemic sounding that I actually pulled it off my head for a minute and checked the connections because I was worried that something was wrong with it… Nothing was. It was just after listening to this full bodied sound out of the Elear for so long, switching over to the T1 seemed like going from 3D to 2D or from color to black and white. It was a remarkable difference.
 
VS. LCD2 the differences were similar to the differences with the T1. Contrasted against the Elear, the LCD2 sound lacks the dynamic weight of the Elear. I don’t think the bass performance on the LCD2 is anywhere near the level of the Elear. At least not with my list of priorities. For those who don’t mind that recessed sound, the LCD2 has remarkably linear response down into subterranean levels. It just does so with it quite a bit less propulsiveness (is that a word?) It can play certain low end fare with texture and nuance, but it does this with a significantly recessed presentation. It is very much like the often maligned HD650 veil. Compared to the Elear, the LCD2 has this same veil on.
 
In my world, this hamstrings engagement with music. It doesn’t give you the dynamic feeling, the pressurization of the space around your head, moving volumes of air to make music come more alive. It gives you the data, an accurate representation of the sinewave but lacks that extra layer of hills and valleys, quiet and loud that create tension and momentum that draws you into the music.
  
The Elear isn’t perfect. It's soundstage is relatively crowded in comparison (although contrasted against the larger market it isn't bad) but the tone is so rich, the dynamics are so engaging, its a nourishing, involving, potent communicator. And like I said I don't care a great deal about soundstage so the Elear is extraordinary in my book.
 
So in terms of the LCD2 and T1 I think the Elear destroys them both…. With my tastes in my system.
 
To your run of the mill audiophile who listens to his system at quieter volumes, or who wants to listen to his system as much as he listens to music, the Elear’s propulsive up front nature may leave him wanting it to take a step back to allow him to investigate detail and textures and filigree more.
 
But I am not that guy… I want the music to cast a spell over me…. I don’t want to observe the performance I want to be immersed in it. The Elear does that for me.
 
Vs HD800. Now this one is a bit interesting because of my obvious proclivity for punch, you would think that the HD800 wouldn’t stand a chance,at least that’s what I thought. But what I’ve found is that the HD800 while clearly not excelling in certain areas that the Elear does, is a wonderful alternative voice to have on tap. Obviously the HD800 has more clarity front to back and cast sunlight in a number of places where the Elear is still casting shadows. But with the tone controls on my Luxman amp, the HD800's dynamic slam can be brought up a notch to compete on a more even playing field and though they each excel at different things. I think for me the HD800 and the Focal Elear are a perfect dynamic duo to continue my Head-fi journey with.
 
To me, the Elear is like the Les Paul with Seth Lover humbuckers and a big Marshall Stack. A big, full bodied, wall of sound that punches you in the gut and prioritizes the leading edge attack and warm powerful sustain…. The HD800 is the Fender Telecaster with a P90 pickup and a vintage Hot Rod amp that has more nuanced articulation of individual notes. It excels with a cleaner tone and offers up more info with reverb, decay and release.
 
They are both masters of certain parts of the tonal envelope, and complement each other.
 
Obviously I can’t get the levels of body and punch with the HD800 that I do with the Elear, but I do think the HD800 midrange is more honest and linear. There is a smidge of hollowness to the midrange of the Elear. The HD800 gives me a completely different look, more air, more depth (there are those damn sound stage words again) and despite the Elear ticking most of my personal listening habit boxes. I still find that I want to listen to the HD800 quite a bit, even with the Elear in house. So I am keeping it!
 
Interesting side note:
 
I’ve always viewed my HD800 as my microscope. If I was looking at different dac or amp options for my system, the HD800 has always been a good tool to have on tap to tease out differences between devices, especially since differences between dacs are usually vanishingly small (you heard it here first, don’t believe the hype!) but there are often small differences and the HD800 has proven invaluable in identifying them.
 
What has surprised me is just how adept the Elear is at this same thing. I don’t know a whole lot about its design at an electrical level, but it seems to be remarkably sensitive to upstream changes in a system. I am better able to pick out differences between my two dacs at my office system with the Elear than I am with the HD800. One other thing I have found is that the Elear will and does sound like a completely different headphone depending on what amp you tether it to.
 
Connected to my big rigs, a Luxman SQ-N100 (the original Japanese version) and my custom built Nelson Pass transformer rig the Elear is the most dynamic headphone I’ve ever heard, bar none.
Connected to portable amps like the ALO Audio National, the Cayin C5, and to a lesser extent the Chord Mojo, the sound is more restrained sounding and not quite as dynamic…. Still better than most, but it does sound a bit lackluster compared to the experience through the Luxman tube amp. This pairing, the Elear and the SQ-N100, is almost obscene how good it is. And if I was content before, I am pretty much at games end now.
 
The only item on the horizon that still has me wanting to make one last run into the market, is the new Sony flagship. Because I am only too familiar with Sony’s habit of building their sonic foundations on bass and tonal fatness and because I have been lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time with Sony’s legendary R1, and because I admire the full throttle engineering approach Sony takes with statement products, I am curious about this lone specimen out in the wild.
 
Beyond that. I think I am done. The Elear is the dragon. It is what I was looking for. While I am not entirely thrilled with the headband, it hasn’t failed on me and so I can only knock it for not ‘feeling’ like it is going to hold up without any real proof of that… Time will tell. I hope it does, or that someone brings a solution to market that is better.
 
And as far as the Utopia goes…. If that fancy 3 armed detail on the cup of the Utopia had been milled out of aluminum and the cup ring material had been upgraded from plastic to either aluminum or wood, I may have looked at it a bit more seriously.
 
But because it is a plastic part and the only other difference is the yokes are made of carbon fiber, I have trouble with the notion that the more advanced driver of the exact same shape, is worth 3k. Not saying it isn’t. I just have trouble seeing the value in it.
 
So no Utopia for me.
 
Nope… Short of the Z1R taking up residence here, I’m done.
 
Game over.

 
The first major sortie fired to announce this coming wave was fired by iRiver’s re-branded Astell & Kern players, which many claim has set a new gold standard for performance. And then came the marketing juggernaut Pono with its bold claims of sonic utopia and even bolder rock star endorsements. Pono has balls and made no bones about its intent to poach Apple’s enormous customer base with promises of better sound quality from its Toblerone shaped player and Pono centric music market.
 
Since the market explosion in 2013, Astell & Kern has enjoyed its position at the Vanguard and Pono’s success is ballasted by rock star endorsements. Even against an onslaught of derision from audio critics and tech sites alike. The rest of the portable audio player segment is left to duke it out over the scraps on limited R&D budgets and next to nothing in marketing.
 
If you consider that both tech giants Microsoft and Samsung bent the knee to mighty Apple just a few short years ago and pulled their Zune HD and Samsung Galaxy players from the shelves. It's absurd to think that an obscure group of Korean and Chinese audio houses could submit products that compete for King Cupertino's crown. And yet that is exactly where we find ourselves... How?
 
Simple really.... Apple's throne is in jeopardy because Apple has let its vast portable/ digital audio kingdom fall into disrepair. It has spent the last few, Jobs-less years focused on multi-media content consuming devices like the iPad and iPhone, while the music focused iPod has become a bit of a person in the Apple hierarchy. This was never more apparent than when Apple decided to kill off the The Classic, which is the only unit it its line up with respectable storage capacity, in favor of the more app and cloud friendly Touch.
 
One could argue that Apple has lost interest or at least lost their vision in the portable audio market just as the market itself has matured. It was the iPod that resuscitated the segment from near death after years of failing health and atrophy from too many years of plastic disc spinning Sony Walkmen. By the late 90's you could buy a CD spinning Walkman at a gas station for $20
 
If it weren't for iPod there may be no such thing as Audeze, Inner Fidelity, Cypher Labs, ALO Audio or possibly even Head-fi.
 
Yet now we find Blue Chip audio companies like Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, Kenwood, TEAC, and Onkyo focusing significant resources on the portable audio market while carefully walking back from their "All In" position on 5.1 and 7.1 Channel A/V to try and repair damaged reputations in the 2 channel stereo game.
 
Meanwhile life giving Apple is focusing its efforts on..... digital horology?
iWatch.... Times are Changing.
 
Still, this year alone I’ve counted at least half a dozen companies who are bringing devices to market to try and ride this Portable Music Player, Digital Audio Player, MP3 player (WHATEVER!) wave. Whether we’ve reached a saturation point with new devices is anyone’s guess but I doubt we’ve seen the last of them.
 
For me the question is whether these new market players, like the queued up review sample (The Fiio X1), are setting a new state of the art. Or are they all just traveling down a well-worn road Apple blazed years ago while bringing nothing new to bear. It could be that they are simply filling the vacuum left by Apple's faltering interest. Basic economics.
 
We shall tease out the truth at the entry level jumping off point today.
 

​

 
For me to be willing to consider a future life with a Fiio X1 or any other DAP it must show itself as superior to the current experience I have with my litany of iPods. And that isn’t just a cut and dry matter of sound quality. Mind you I am flush with Apple devices and am not one who finds their tone offensive, so the notion of moving out of the Apple ecosystem is not so easy. I currently have no fewer than 6, including two “audiophile” approved Apple iPod videos (5th generation) with the older Wolfson silicon as well as 3 Nano’s an iPad Air and an iPhone 6.
 
With such a large collection of Apple devices, the idea of leaving iOS based playback feels a bit like the idea of abandoning Nikon for Canon or ditching DSLR for mirrorless. It’s not just the camera itself that you are replacing. It’s the ecosystem and long term investment in lenses, filters, software etc… that makes the switch far more disruptive.
 
And while I do have a fair amount invested in iOS/ Apple based playback it is not insurmountable. I have a few line out docks to tap analog line level signal from Apple’s proprietary connectors into a portable amp, I’ve got a dock that extracts digital audio from my lightning based products and I’ve got DACs purchased because they work with iOS devices using a CCK.
 
Apple’s User interface makes for a hell of transport if you can move conversion and amplification off board. But those same DAC’s are likely going to work with this modern crop of portable units just as easily.
 
Flexibility and connectivity are important in todays market. Consumers won't accept the Casino like cradle to grave environment of iTunes from modern DAP makers.
 
For this reason among others, I've stayed away from using iTunes for music management or playback. That honor goes to JRiver and because of its plugins library I am able to sync and load most all of my iPods with music directly from JRiver. Making the move away that much easier. The only devices I sync with iTunes are my phone and tablet because they are governed by the iOS monopoly.
 
Meanwhile only Pono has had the gall to try to create its own iTunes like ecosystem, but Pono offers a line out that doesn’t require custom cables. So in that regard it isn’t as closed a system as Apple. I do think a great number of consumers are like me and are going to need more than just promises of better sound quality to justify the change, especially since it seems like everyone is promising better sound quality. Despite the fact that sound quality differences at the transport/ front end stage of the game are relatively small.
 
A lion share of Canon cameras use an 18 MP sensor which is a far lower resolution than Nikon’s 24MP spec on even its cheapest D3300 DSLR, yet Canon outsells Nikon with general consumers because they’ve marketed their gear as “fool proof” with celebrities like Ashton Kutcher fumbling and bumbling around taking perfect shots without any training. The average Joe sees Canon’s as easy to use and approachable and will drop $400 on a T5 without even considering image quality.
 
Not to say one is better than the other!
I really don't want none of that fight!
 
Although I do appreciate the handsome nature of the Astell and Kern 100 and 120, and am even taken with the look of the new entry level X1, before I venture too far down this DAP rabbit hole, I need to understand what the aftermarket DAP manufacturer is bringing to the table and where it may conflict with my sound system and my listening habits.
 
 
So to begin in earnest, I don’t think Fiio needs much of an introduction for anyone on Head-Fi. They are a prolific entry level company for us Head-fi types. Early on their reputation suffered from perceived “cheapness” and even I was skeptical of buying any of their budget gear fearing it was cheap Chinese plastic fit for Walmart. Maybe a step above Radio Shacks Boostaroo in my book but certainly not up there with HeadRoom, Ray Samuels etc...
 
As years wore on, Fiio held strong to its core mission and earned a reputation in the Head-fi community as a fantastic company that offers very good performance on a budget. Their line up of battery and USB powered headphone amps and DACS are what many a Head-fier has cut their teeth on, and still are to this day.
 
I personally have owned their E10 dac/amp for 4 years and it has made more than a dozen trips across country with me and is a vital part of my travel routine.
Fiio has 3 tiers to their digital audio player line up ending with their $350 TOTL X5 (recently updated with Mark 2) which is chocked full of features, inputs & outputs. But I chose the golden $99 X1 for no other reason than I thought it looked best and because I am testing waters here, not diving in head first.
 
IT BEGINS!
So with a 64 GB micro SD card in hand I quickly formatted the card to Fat32 using the Fiio X1 (as per the user’s manual) and proceeded to drop some 60 odd GB of uncompressed 16/44 CD Rips onto the card from my PC.
 
I spent the next couple hours listening through my main system while watching the music get written onto the drive and waiting for the X1 to reach full charge.
 
Once the SD Card was filled to the brim with musical goodness I punched it into the slot on the side of the X1 and hit the power button. Turning the device on you are met with a colorful Fiio greeting then taken to setup screen where you select language and update library. What took nearly two hours to write onto the SD Card took a matter of seconds for the X1 to scan and organize. I added some 1300 songs in a matter of seconds and the Fiio X1 was ready to play. I used the scroll wheel to take a look at the music and selected the “Artist” category… Sure enough it was all there… What was more is the X1 read all of my WAV file format tags without a single hiccup. Even though I've spent a God awful amount of time updating tags on all my music(I use Tag Scanner BTW) they usually vaporize into thin air when moving files from one device to the other or from program to program, so 'Good On Ya' Fiio!
 
Next I plugged in the only in-ear monitor I own and the only one I’ve ever listened to that agrees with me, The VSonic GR-07 and listened for a bit finding nothing at all offensive. SO far so good.
 
I didn’t want to be hasty by turning the unit on, listening for 10 mins… shouting “IT’S CRAP!” and shove it back in its box with a return label from Amazon…. It’s not entirely fair to pass judgement without giving it some time to break in. Now I know I am acknowledging the existence of voodoo here and I couldn't tell you how it works to save me life but I do feel there is something to it. Letting component parts fully energize and allowing the caps, resistors, diodes etc… to stabilize does seem to do.... something?
 
Maybe it is brain burn in, but  (big but!) reality is that my perception is perception, my reality is reality, so if I perceive it as my truth…. It’s the truth as far as I am concerned! It doesn't matter what the underlying laws of physics are. 
 
So I plugged it into my computer through a constant power USB port and sorted by All Songs, selected the first song  and hit play... By JRivers calculations it should take the X1 4.25 days to play all the music I had loaded onto it, but I only gave it 24 hours +/- of run in. The next day I unplugged it from the computer and beater phones and plugged in the GR-07...
 
It sounded ok.
 
I didn’t really feel like I was listening to something extraordinary but I was using a $150 set of IEM too. There was a bit of sharpness in the tone and some of my hotter recordings did cut at my ears a little, which is not something you typically hear with the  VSonic GR-07. The GR07 is about as warm and cozy an IEM as I have ever heard.
 
Luckily this bad boy has an EQ! Go ahead and groan audiophiles, I really don't care. 
 
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Certain music can sound flat or thin or 2 dimensional depending on source material, amp, headphone etc... Having tone controls is a good thing and I tend to use them often. 
 
Attempting to move the sliders the best I could to mimic a Fletcher-Munson loudness contour I was able to de-ess the treble and goose the bass a little. Making the adjustments proved a bit counter intuitive with the Fiio interface but after a couple oops & damnits I was set. This added a bit of depth and a degree of warmth to the tone. With a nice rich full sounding recording like Smashing Pumpkin’s - Siamese Dream or Gish things were sounding pretty damn good. The part of “Today” where the guitars and drums flood the stage after the small guitar intro was a bit harsh but other songs like Quiet, Geek USA, and Rocket sounded full and had a good amount of live character. With less than stellar studio efforts like Off With Their Heads ‘Home’ the Fiio sounded harsh and the albums already strident nature was pretty bad with the Fiio, EQ or not.
 
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
I swapped out the GR-07 and pulled the microscope down off the shelf. The Sennheiser HD800 is probably the best headphone I have for analyzing gear because of its sometimes brutal honesty. I tapped the headphone out of the X1 directly to the HD800 and cranked up the volume to 75% and while I was getting a good volume level out of the X1, it was showing clear signs of strain. Static and electric hash were tainting edges of transients blurring the cymbal  crashes and lower bass was not distorted but truncated in the sense that overall dynamics were severely compressed. Not to worry! It was an unfair test of the little X1 in the first place. Although it is good to know that the X1 is a no go with pro grade full size cans… The same holds true for my planar magnetic headphones. The LCD2 was serviceable but like the HD800 the dynamics and punch of the music was compressed and the overall presentation was diluted pretty bad. With the HE400 things were better but at this point I was certain that the X1 would benefit from off board amplification. 
 
Time to bring in support. The ALO Audio National has been my go to portable amp for close to three years now and even though it doesn’t sound all that good with the HD800 because it’s tone is a little too clean, it does not lack for power with the HD800 and I am familiar with its good, bad and ugly. I knew the National/ X1 pairing would probably double down on problem areas in tone but wanted to use it in its likely context. Tethering the X1 to a $1500 desktop amp seemed like a waste of time, as I can’t imagine anyone would use it like this. So I did it anyway to check its performance against the E10.
 
I'll just briefly cover this before going into portable impressions. I found the X1 a near equal to the E10 with the E10 acting as offboard DAC to my laptop and the X1 acting as transport/dac with both sending a line level analog signal to my desktop gears. Both sounded good running into Godzilla (my hot-rodded Sansui AU517) and my April Music/ Stello deck. I wasn’t able to identify any appreciable differences between the two in terms of sound quality and performance. That is pretty impressive considering I have about $2000 and a couple hundred man hours invested in optimizing my digital front end.
 
VS. King Cupertino
This is where it really shakes out for me... It was a comparable transport to my desktop set up, but the screen is too small and isn't the right form factor. No, the X1 is a portable transport and it must needs beat the iPod if it expects to see time in the starting rotation. Can the X1 unseat the iPod? This is where it will win or lose.

So I grabbed a male 3.5mm to Y adapter with 2 female 3.5mm so I could compare the two directly. The iPod was tethered to the National with a Forza 30 Pin Line Out Dock and the X1 with a 6" Forza mini to mini. I wasn't able to strap the X1 to the National because it's design doesn't lend itself to using rubber bands... The bottom buttons on the X1 are too low and you have to cover up the top ribbon on the screen. Not a big deal at all but still something to keep in mind if you want to bundle the X1 to a portable amp. Once they were both connected, I could cue up a song on both and easily switch back and forth to listen for sonic differences.
 
I was listening to "Taken For a Fool" by the Strokes on the iPod and then switched over to the X1... when ouch! Damnit! The volume jumped into the danger zone. The output on the X1 is significantly louder than the iPod. I found that I needed to attenuate the signal about 8 hash marks on the National volume pot to level the volume between the two. With all the cables and devices all clustered together and the small size of The National's volume pot and the front face of the National being a bit crowded my fingers had a bit of trouble getting at the volume dial, but they always kind of do. After listening to the X1 and my iPod Nano for some time, with albums from The Strokes, Weezer, New Order, Blur, Beck, Studio One era Wailers, and a bit of Lorde I was able to get a pretty accurate picture of the X1’s overall performance.
 
The Achilles heel, if you want to use it with full size headphones, is that Fiio disables its inbuilt EQ when you are using the line-out option from the jack. Without any of the X1’s tone shaping abilities available through the line out, the X1 exhibits a tendency towards sharpness in the upper register and though the treble was bright and revealing did not have the necessary level of refinement needed for such illumination through the top of the stage. Laid bare by the HD800, the X1’s tone gets fatiguing and I cannot reconcile myself to it even with softer headphones like the LCD2. 
 
ON AN ISLAND WITH X1
 
In order to try and reset my brain, I tried ditching the Nano as a reference point to see if I could get my brain & ears to buy in with the X1 on its own merits. I left the Nano at home in the morning and drove the 20 miles to work with just my X1. I was hoping the X1 would sound more agreeable without King Cupertino casting its shadow over the audition. I still wasn’t able to find peace with it. With the EQ engaged using a small portable headphone or with a warm cozy IEM like the VSonic GR-07 the sound is pretty good. But the X1 does not work well with off board amplification because the line out configuration cripples what I consider to be necessary EQ functions that can massage the X1’s tone enough to soften is otherwise fatiguing sound. 
 
Mind you my 2nd generation Nano is one of the closest things you'll get to a audiophile quality iPod. Some of you may snort with derision at that statement, but the older iPods used Wolfson silicon (WM8975) and of all my iPods (3 nanos, 3 Classics, 2 shuffles, 1 iPhone and 1 iPad) the 2nd Gen Nano has the most refined sound of them all. It has a much quieter output (as evidence earlier in this review) but as long as you have amplification that is up to the task, it has a level of refinement and more width to its stereo image than any other I have. Plain and simple It is the best of my iPod stable and if there is a compliment to be paid sound quality wise to the X1 it's that the two are very close to each other without any DSP.
 
The big score with the 2nd Gen Nano is its well implemented EQ presets which elevates tone density significantly when needed. The more popular iPod Classic and A-Phile approved Video 5th gen have well documented issues with EQ presets that cause clipping and distortion. So I tend to gravitate towards the lighter, smaller Nano and just have to sync up and change playlists more often if I want different music.
 
Also the X1 seemed to have a shallower and narrower sound stage. Switching to the X1 from the Nano, lead singers invariably moved towards me quite a bit and the outer edges of the stereo image collapsed considerably. While this presents as a forward and aggressive sound signature, which my inner punk rocker enjoys. Contrasted against something with more honest stereo imaging, the X1’s sound stage is pretty narrow.
 
I’d say it’s probably the most significant delta I can give the X1 between the two. Its sound stage is too forward and crowded.
 
Tone wise, all things equal, the deltas between the X1 and iOS were pretty minor. If you aren’t looking to move amplification off board, and are looking to use the X1 with IEM or small efficient portable headphones then it provides a near equal sound quality to the iPod. Functionally the iPod wins out with off board amplification because its EQ is still working in line out mode, but that is only if you want the added muscle for larger headphones.
 
So while I’d give the sound quality edge to the Nano. Which is simply softer, more refined sounding and is able to add a significant dose of warmth when using the preset of the EQ. It’s really not a night and day thing. The X1 keeps pretty good pace when you consider the two devices on their own merits. The caveat here being the soundstage... The X1 is very narrow and forward. But this is more obvious on staging giants like the HD800 than it would be on a pair of IEM's.
 
As far as user interface, I won’t even bother comparing. It is well known that the Cupertino giant trades heavily on the snappy nature of their interface. The UI is what has allowed them to stay ahead of the Android Army. Android is far better today than it was just 2 years ago, but still doesn’t hold a candle to Apple. The sheer simplicity, speed, and responsiveness are their UI has no rival in the market and Fiio is certainly not the company to overtake them.
 
Interface wise the X1 screen is relatively grainy and the scroll wheel is not the smoothest. The forward and back buttons seem a bit counter intuitive and doing things like adjusting the EQ are laid out a bit odd. With enough time everything is serviceable but it takes a bit of trial and error. The volume buttons on the side are fine, if a bit shallow and sometimes hard to get response from. One significant niggle I had with the X1 was that its screen could not be woken up by pressing any key. You had to press the power button in order to wake the X1. Good I suppose as this help avoid accidental volume spikes when in your pocket or song changes but still after 2 weeks of use I would still hit buttons or the scroll wheel on the front screen expecting it to wake up only to remember I had to press the power button to get it to come back to life.
 
So what’s good? There are a number of areas where the X1 does have significantly better performance than iPod and if, like I said, you were going to use the X1 strictly with small portables and/ or IEM then these are welcome victories.
 
Storage: Right now you can utilize up to 128GB Micro SD cards with the X1 and because it scans and assembles libraries so quickly you could have 2 or 3 or 4 different cards with different libraries and the few seconds it takes the X1 to assemble a library is nominal. This flexibility and ability to keep your library on Micro SD cards is definitely a plus.
 
High Res: I personally don’t own any hi-res music (beyond weird samplers of music I’d never really listen to) so the high resolution capabilities are a zero sum gain for me… But those who live and breathe hi-res certainly won’t find the same capability in an iPod. Betwixt the two, X1 is the only one that can play that game.
 
Battery Life: The iPods, being a bit long in the tooth, and with a habit for quickly losing battery memory suffer relatively short charging cycles, even with updated batteries. I did not track hours with the X1 but played music through it relatively frequently for nearly a week before I needed to plug it in and get it charged back up. My iPod requires a trip to the charging station once every day or two depending on volume of use. X1 slaughters it here. How it holds up over the course of a year or two I couldn't say... Head-fi's impressions thread may have the answer.
 
So does the X1 overtake the king? Not in my book. With my listening habits and the way I want a portable player to work.
 
That said if you are looking for a modern player that spends most all of its life tethered to a pair of in-ear monitors like the iPod was originally marketed, then it offers comparable sound quality along with storage flexibility, battery superiority and high resolution capability.
 
All good things to the right customer.
 
That customer just isn’t me. So does the X1 turn me off to digital audio players? No. I am leaving room for the potential. If the right device with the right interface popped up I could see it as a portable transport that could take my entire library anywhere I go. Ditch the laptop altogether. But for now that device remains elusive to me.
 

There has obviously been a number of reviews of Cayin’s C5 Dac recently, due in large part to Cayin’s recent product review tour that had its genesis here on Head-Fi. I was one of those who signed up for the tour  A.) because I was curious what a portable unit from Cayin is capable of, and B.) I am actually in the market for a new portable unit and thought that the Cayin may be worth consideration. Better than paying the cost of return shipping to Amazon again!
 
For at least a year, I have been searching and researching portable units that could replace my workplace desktop rig. The idea being that I could listen to it at work, like I always do, without losing too much sound quality wise. However I can also throw it in my bag and take it home with me or  take it on business trips, airplanes, hotels, etc...
 
I have invested a fair amount of time and quite a bit money trying to find a portable solution that punches in the same weight class as my desktop rig. Up until this point I have been unsuccessful. My iFi iDSD has come the closest but still falls a bit short so why not let the Cayin C5 make its case.
 
My current desktop set up, that I am looking to replace, starts with a music library of 420 plus CDs ripped to AIFF and stored on a Glyph Studio Raid hard drive. My library is tethered to a HP Envy Laptop running JRiver 20 which busses data to a AR-T Legato USB converter feeding 1’s and 0’s to a vintage Philips DAC 960 which feeds an analog signal into an April Music Stello HP100 Mk2 headphone amp.
 
I am aware that replacing my desktop set up with a portable unit is a tall order. It is a very potent rig and plays beautifully with both my HD800 and Audeze LCD2.
 
But the audiophile tweaks eternal.
 
In a perfect world, I would like to ditch the laptop/ Glyph transport and use my iPad air instead... or maybe even a new SSD powered iPad pro eh?
Couple this transport to a portable Dac/Amp that can keep pace with and replace my Legato/ Philips/ Stello configuration and I've cut the cord... I can take my Hifi with me anywhere.
 
Because my vision hinges on an iPad transport, iOS functionality is a must.
Whether an OEM accomplishes this by shelling out cash to Apple for licensing or by using the USB Bus bypass lane of the Camera Connection Kit, I care not... I just need iOS connectivity. And the Cayin C5 Dac happily obliges via the CCK.
 
But before we get too far, just in case, a little (or maybe more) background on the company.
 
Cayin Spark states on its website that it has been in business since 1993, roughly 22 years. Personally I became aware of them only in the last 7 or so years through Stereophile and 6Moon reviews of their big brawny integrated amps. Cayin is a Chinese brand (as best I can tell), but seem to have either dedicated distribution or some division of their corporate structure parked in Germany. I could take the time to uncover what mystery here entails in the German/ Chinese connection, but it won’t affect today’s outcome. So Bygones!
 
Being a mostly Chinese brand means the audiophile community will  often view its inherent quality and brand strength with a dose of skepticism. I can attest to this personally. While I appreciate what Cayin has done and am enamored with some of their wooden clad vintage styled products, I don’t view them as a bonafide HiFi blue blood. They've put out some very blue blood quality products, but I subjectively view them as just a little 'less than' their body of work probably warrants.
 
 Cayin seems to be combating the looming specter of being “Chi-Fi” by consistently, year after year, bringing quality products to market at relatively affordable pricing (but not too affordable!) sweeping aside many of the labels, stigmas, and criticisms that follow even some long standing Chi-Fi companies. Not to mention, they have a robust US dealer network that instills confidence and have no grey market presence.
 
Cayin has placed multiple products on Stereophile’s annual Recommended Components list and have received accolades from reviewers throughout the industry. What is more (to me!) is that they are earning their accolades the old fashioned way. By making good gears.
 
They are not the ever present, schmoozing audio company who seems to always be flying a banner over this audio review site or that, always sponsoring this audio event or that. And always at the fore of audio press coverage.
 
You know the kind of company of which I speak. The darlings or insiders of the industry that always seem to be courting relationships too closely with reviewers and website administrators. They are paying sponsors at every website no matter where you turn and the audio press rewards them in kind with carte blanche coverage. Reviews, press releases, and new product announcements by industry insiders all get at least a little run with the audio press.
 
I know, I know its conspiracy theory. The truth is that these are the rules of engagement. Review sites need these paying bannermen to keep on reviewing.
But I don’t have to like it!
 
So I appreciate companies who appear committed to forging their way with product performance and design strength, and not by building out a robust marketing department and brand penetration strategies.
 
Cayin is not an insider in this regard. Case in point: I only recently found out about their, already long in the tooth, C6 amp by way of the classified section of Head-fi. People had already owned it and were rolling it out for something new and I was none the wiser. Until that point I had assumed that Cayin was devoted exclusively to large glass and gas V-8 muscle car amplifiers like the A-50T, A-88T etc... however Cayin had quietly entered the portable head-fi market and I was clueless.
 
Their most prominent piece to me, is their retro inspired SP-10a integrated amp that has been an object of desire ever since I first laid eyes on it. My only nit being its lack of a headphone jack, which I’ve always felt would have elevated it to compete with the likes of Head-Fi end game amps like the Leben CS-300 and Luxman’s SQ-38u for roughly half the price.
 
iFi/ AMR Audio have since tapped this gaping vacuum in market demand with their Stereo 50. Providing a valve based integrated with headphone capability and vintage feel without the painfully expensive cost of ownership that Leben and Luxman rigs require. Still, I would love to know what Cayin’s EL-34 based rig was capable of, were it properly fitted with a jack and a handful of resistors.
 
Alas, these big motor amps are not today’s mission!
Today’s mission is to tease out the quality, value, and functionality of Cayin’s latest portable offering, the C5-dac.
 
So Lets Dig In:
 
By the time the C-5 had reached me, it had already been globetrotting for a good month or two, making 4 or 5 stops before reaching my digs.
Upon arrival I was met with a golden/ champagne colored amp of relatively thin build and about the perfect size to ride back to back with a smartphone.
 
On top of the amp we find an original looking volume pot, analog 3.5mm line in, and 3.5mm headphone out all peaking out from behind an odd black smokey plastic cap. On the bottom there are 2 USB micro connections. One is for charging and the other is for the digital signal input. It also has a Coax digital output that is a dual mode socket that can be used with either a Coax (SPDIF) connection or a fiber optic mini Toslink. The ability to reclock incoming USB data and send it digitally via SPDIF is a major flexibility boon that allows for integration into a larger system.
 
It is a handsome little piece of kit… I like the champagne color, but like many others have mentioned here, the smokey plastic cap covering the volume pot and two jacks is an odd design choice. It looks ungainly and detracts from the products physical presence. Also worth noting is that having traveled the world and back a couple two or three times, it was a little worse for wear. The casework had a loose quality to it that I instantly recognized as pertaining to their choice of connecting the end plates with only 2 fasteners right smack in the middle of the end plates versus the usual, more fundamentally sound and rigidity inducing 4 corners.
 
So I had concerns about long terms durability from the word go, but I still want to hear how this thing sounds, so ignoring the casework demerit, I forged ahead.
 
On the side of the C5 I found the coolest thing…. A Bass boost switch.
 
I know, I know. Many audiophile puritans will scoff, roll their eyes and shake their heads with incredulity here and mumble comments of derision about signal purity but the reality is that a bass boost switch can come in handy. Depending on the headphone employed and the music being played some tone control options can add roundness, body or weight to an overly analytical, sterile or nervy tone.
 
While I get the “signal purity” argument, the truth is that amps, dacs, headphones and any of a dozen other variables imprint their signature on the signal… for better or worse. And I have fairly often stumbled across gears that strip away romance, sweetness and sunshine for the sake of high res magnification. In these instances, being able to add a dollop of honey back into the mix would be a welcome option. And unless you are a mastering engineer or recording studio professional, music is supposed to be about pleasure, enjoyment... not analysis.
It is better to have tone shaping available and never use it, than to need it and not have it.
 
Just saying.
 
So beside the bass boost switch sits another seemingly harmless switch. Though it sits nondescript and unassuming, this is not some benign little control button. This one is far more menacing and sinister than its outward appearance lets on. It is Cayin’s version of a High/Low gain switch. Or the “I’m gonna rip your driver from its surround” switch or the “I’m gonna pierce your ear drums!” switch or the “I’m going to damage your hearing” switch.
 
Kidding (sorta)... It really isn’t that bad. But in my 3 weeks of toying around with the C5 there wasn’t a single occasion where I needed the high gain setting. That is with a Sennheiser HD800, Audeze LCD2 and Fostex T50RP in hand.
 
It may come in handy with a brutally insensitive beast like the Hifiman HE6 but I don’t have one of those on hand to confirm. The high gain setting is far too loud for anything in my arsenal and I was barely able to get above 2 or 3 on the volume pot in high gain with both current hungry, low impedance planars and high impedance pro grade dynamics.
 
The silver lining here is that the C5 is a somewhat rare beast in the portable amp game that can play ball with any and all full size headphones. I have on hand an ALO Audio National and an iFi Audio iDSD Micro that can both play with certain full size headphones but both have limitations.
 
So to get the audition rolling I decided to tap my iPad air via CCK to the C5… To see how it stacks up against the field I tapped the digital line level signal from the C5 to feed my iFi iDSD micro for direct comparisons.
 
I also stacked the C5 against my ALO National, and against the Stello/ Phillips desktop set up mentioned in the opening.
 
So to answer the most pressing question, is the C5 good… Oh hell yes it is!
 
As detailed above, the C5 has its drawbacks. Especially its physical design with the black smokey plastic cap, questionable casework durability and a high gain setting that is incompatible with most headphones. But sonics here are above reproach.
 
Compared directly to the iFi iDSD the C5 plays it smoother and more relaxed. It sounds natural and free of any fatiguing extremes. If you needed a nit and were going to force a concession under duress some could argue it was too polite, but I think that’d be too stern. It is polite like a gentleman who shakes your hand warmly and looks you in the eye. Not the “I’m hiding something important from you” two faced type of polite.
 
The iDSD hits harder with big dynamics… It punches its kick drum with a sledgehammer and a few times I almost felt dizzy from the height and weight of its stereo image when a song came rushing back to full scale after a quiet interlude. Like the vertigo you get when looking up at a very high ceiling, and you feel like you lose your feet. The C5 is no slouch but still doesn’t have the same snap and pop as the iFi.
 
The C5 paints its musical picture with a pallet of warm golden highlights, autumn colors and sepia. It has ample body, rich tone and plenty of weight. The iFi is more brilliant… It paints in technicolor and splashes of neon… While it has big potent reserves for hard hitting dynamics its overall center of gravity may be a degree lighter than the C5. When it punches, it punches harder but doesn't have the same overall weight across the board... In layman terms the C5 would be "warm" and the iDSD "bright" 
 
Of the two… it was the iFi that actually induced fatigue directly out of its headphone socket first. It was too much Pixar when I wanted the real world. It can do some things brilliantly and coupling its (maybe overly enthusiastic) decoder to a warmer dance partner (like the Stello HP100) is just what it needs to bring its high flying act back down to earth. The C5 doesn’t go crazy with big acrobatic aerials. It seems to be the more even handed and practical all day all night portable unit even though it doesn't give you the same breath taking moments as the iDSD.  
 
I had not expected to like the C5 more than the iFi, so realizing we had a serious contender here, I mounted it to the DAC 960 via its coax out so it could play ball against the big rig.
 
What I found was that the C5 seems to be made of the same elemental material as the Philips/Stello combo. It presents with the same golden slant where the iFi is more silvery. Because it doesn’t have the big coils of iron or the deep capacitor reserves available that both the Dac 960 and the Stello, It doesn’t have the same gravitational pull as the big rig. It can play just as loud, and retrieves the same detail and cast the same sunshine on everything, and hit all the same notes but it doesn’t have that same ‘big motor feel’.
 
It’s the difference between going 100 MPH in a Turbo powered V4 and a fine tuned V8… You are going the same speed in both cars… Both cars can go faster so have more headroom on tap…. But the V8 has this deep power reserve that you can feel in the gas pedal and in the weight and way it carries you down the road. It has this gravitational MOMENTUM that translates into a deeper and more powerful sonic foundation. 
 
The C5 is hamstrung here by design… The iFi, National, E10, and every other portable unit I’ve ever listened to suffers the same fate when going head to head with big iron and linear class A power and tower upon tower of capacitors for deep reserves. The small boxes and their battery power limit the DEPTH at which these portable boxes can play.
 
This inordinate design difference sounds like weight… Even though the notes are the same, the tone is the same and the acoustics the same... Each note seems to spring up from a inky blackness with more gravity/ energy from the big rig and likewise the inky blackness from which the notes springs seems like its deeper, bottomless, infused with it's own energy that makes music more immersive. The depth of the stereo image deepens and players in a band play their parts with larger clearer points of separation and big black resonating spaces between them.
 
This phenomena is the main reason I default to integrated amplifiers for listening... Like the C5 can't keep pace with the Philips/ Stello deck, so also the Stello deck pales when stacked up against my collection of integrated amps at home. 
 
So the C5 won’t cut it as a desktop replacement kit for me, but there is still a lot to like here.
 
It plays music naturally and without the high res gymnastics that often leave me fatigued by up sampling high res, super magnifying gears.
 
Physically there are some issues… and hopefully Cayin will look at the issues spelled out in all these review papers and make the needed changes to casework and ditch the plastic cap. But Cayin achieves the fundamental mission of providing a very good sounding amplifier and also do the neat trick of playing welcoming partner to full size cans.
 
My HD800 simply doesn’t like portable units. Using it with my iDSD everything is too bright and it begins to grate on my nerves relatively quickly…. Likewise the ALO National seems a touch to clean (Sterile) when coupled to the HD800 and most of the substantive stuff in music that captures our emotions and takes us on a sonic journey seems to get stripped away when playing these two partners together.
 
The C5 however sounds just lovely with the HD800. It has enough refinement to hold up under the HD800 brutal resolution spotlight and plays well to the HD800’s strengths. And in that odd situation where music is compressed and dry and unwelcoming, the C5’s bass boost sonically enriches the signal allowing you to keep listening.
 
So the C5 is not perfect…. But in my circumstances it sonically kicked the proverbial ass of a piece of kit that is both highly touted and regarded in the audiophile community and twice the price. What is just as important to me, it is voiced very well to offer long term listening on the go with the HD800… An option I had thought, up until now, just wasn’t out there.
 
So between these two I think the C5 Dac sounds best out of its headphone jack. As a unit tethered to an iOS device with headphones, the C5 is a better gear. The iDSD is a more sophisticated decoder, that would be outstanding as a desktop decoder and can hold its own with dac into the $1000 mark, but as a stand alone unit connected to an iOS device using headphones. I think it gets fatiguing on a listener relatively quickly.
 
So If you are just geeking high-res as a consumer and care as much about format, bit depth and bit rate as you do which artist and what album, then the C5 still works, but may not be the strongest choice.
 
However if you are looking to connect flagships like the LCD2, HD800 or T1 to a portable and love listening to music, the C5 earns my highest recommendation. Sweep aside internal conflicts about its low price, and Chinese origin and quality... If it is music you crave, this one will give it to you proper.
Consider that it is priced just north of $200 a gift… a gift that you can take to the record store and buy more music with.
 
Peace Out!
 
PS UPDATE: I PUT MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS AND BOUGHT A C5 DAC.

INTRO
Full disclosure here, I was contacted by Noontec asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their new flagship headphone the Hammo which I agreed to. They subsequently sent me a pair of Zoro HD 2’s instead. Wait! Zoro? This headphone has actually received a fair amount of praise from the likes of Grandpa Headphone himself, Tyll Hertsen at Inner Fidelity, and Steve Guttenberg of Audiophiliac fame. To be fair though, Guttenberg likes everything, (except Pono), so we’ll have to take his praise with a grain of salt.

 

INFO

 

While the phones were in transit I perused the Noontec website to see what the company is about. A few clicks in and I found that Noontec was founded in Australia (that’s a surprise!) and they have some other interesting products as well. A NAS streamer for video and audio, a number of USB power banks for smartphone and tablet charging on the go and also have a noise cancelling headphone along with a couple different dynamic in-ear monitors. All good stuff so far. Then I got to the headphone section of their website and was left a bit dismayed…. Fashion headphones… Wait Wha?

 

Noontec markets their Zoro and Hammo headphones as “Fashion” headphones to excite your ear. Also a little nit here but multiple words on their website are misspelled. Being that your website is your global storefront and your front door to the rest of the world, Noontec’s website seems just a bit… off? Half baked? I am not sure I can pin down what it is, but it seems to lack the spit and polish of a finalized product that is ready for prime time.

 

Noontec calls their headphones ‘Fashion Hi-Fi’ (ugh!) and call out some interesting proprietary technical innovations. Like their SCCB “Surround Closed Cavity Body” which appears to be a convoluted way of calling it a closed back headphone. They also employ Votrik HD400 drivers. I found a few gamer tags for online role playing games when I search the name Votrik, so the Votrik driver and SCCB tech are likely clever if a little disingenuous ways that Noontec is seeking to differentiate themselves in a crowded headphone market. But how does the saying go?

 

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game!

 

IN HAND

 



 

 
The Zoro 2 HD arrived (henceforth referred to as Zoro) and like I said I was taken back a bit since it wasn’t the Hammo I’d been expecting… Mike from Noontec said they decided otherwise last minute. OK… BTW I don’t do packaging reviews, if you need that angle, go to YouTube and watch an unboxing or something like that. I will say the Zoro is packaged like a retail class product ready to stock the shelves of you average big box store.  In the hand the Zoro II HD are clearly an attempt to mimic the Beats by Dre aesthetic for significantly less spend. They have the same colorful plastic housing and large logos emblazoned on the cups. Maybe not as many premium finishes or materials in the build but still they evoke a Beats by Dre aura at a glance. While this was obviously their intent, I don’t know that I am a fan.

 

For one, I am not all that crazy about Beats so a company mimicking their design doesn’t strike a chord with me. As far back as Tyll’s original review I’ve always dismissed these headphones as pretenders, despite Tyll’s claim that they sounded excellent. As far as I was concerned a headphone purposefully copying the appearance of another headphone to garner attention was just an indicator that it wasn’t a serious product on its own. I clearly had a ‘prejudice’ against this headphone, and this whole train of thought revealed itself during the review period and it took some consideration on my part to call it what it was… I was being an audio snob.

 

In the box, sundries are minimal but get you going. They include a velour storage bag and a single color matched ribbon cable with smartphone mic and volume controls. The cable is relatively short but on point with the design intent (smartphone/ MP3 player). One trouble area I had was with the headband fully extended I could barely get the headphones to sit properly on my head. I wear a 7 5/8 hat so my head is on the larger side, even so an extra ¼” of travel would be nice. I often felt like I needed to readjust to get them to sit properly. To be fair though, I have taken them on multiple 3 and 4 mile jogs and they seem to work perfectly fine.

 

HEY HO LETS GO!

After running the headphones in for the weekend on my vintage rig I plugged them into my desktop setup first (portable impressions later) which is an April Music/ Stello HP100 MK2 with iFi iDSD Micro handling D/A Conversion from an HP Envy laptop running JRiver.

 

Obscene as it is, I compared the Noontec Zoro II HD to my daily desktop headphones… My Sennheiser HD800 and Audeze LCD2. I know, I know, and while it isn’t fair it gives me a good understanding of the Noontec’s strengths and weaknesses against the greater landscape. I will stack it up against my Porta Pros and my daughter’s Creative Labs Aurvana while rolling portable to drill down on how the Noontec performs within its own segment and intended use but for now sonic performance writ large.

 

So to start off at the end… Is this headphone any good? Yes… It is better than I expected.

 

I didn’t want to like it, and if I was going to let myself like it I was going to put a bunch of qualifiers on it like: It’s good for a ‘hundred dollar closed headphone’ but still isn’t a something I would be interested in…. pisha pisha! I mean for a hundred bucks you could have a Sony MDR-7506, Grado SR80 or AKG K240. But that snooty predisposition didn’t hold up. The Zoro bucks a modern trend in consumer grade headphones towards bloated bass, sucked out midrange and spiky treble, otherwise known as a V shape or ‘Fun’ sound. Instead the Zoro has a remarkably even handed and linear presentation that has enough meat on the bone to play very well with most modern genres.

 

Against the HD800 and LCD2 it has obvious acoustic limitations. The closed back design creates a dramatically more close up, closed in and crowded stereo image that lacks air, width, and depth of an open back let alone $1k+ flagships. The HD800 and LCD2 can offer a presence and depth of field that energizes the space around your head. The Zoro sounds narrow and crowded by a large margin.

 

I then set up 3 way listening session to parse out sonic deltas between the Zoro, my Porta Pro and Creative Labs Aurvana using the iFi iDSD Micro, ALO Audio National and a couple different Apple devices. All music was 16/44 Rips of CD’s from the Golden Silvers, The Strokes, The Clash, Daft Punk, Lorde, The Ramones, Blur, Amy Winehouse and a few others.  

 

First off in terms of acoustics, the Zoro plays the same song with the Aurvana and Porta-Pro that it did with the HD800 and LCD2. Only difference is that the margin of victory was not nearly as great this time. The Aurvana and Porta Pro both offer more natural and open presentation against the Zoro, the Porta Pro especially, being an open design. However once you move past imaging and acoustics and dig into tone and sonics the Zoro starts gaining ground fast.

 

The Zoro is very natural and balanced…. I was actually taken aback by it a little when I first listened to it. It appears to be fairly linear across the frequency range and it’s only clear sonic deficiency is a somewhat early roll off point in the low bass and similar roll off in the high treble.

 

The Creative Labs Aurvana has too much mid bass. Vocals sound hollow or canned like the singer is singing through a tube and it doesn’t resolve as well as the Zoro. Listening to both side by side there were these distortive artifacts or spots of poor resolution in the Aurvana where music and vocals had grain and grit and crunchy static where the the Zoro presented things cleanly and clearly. And the Aurvana had this gaping chasm in the midrange making vocals muffled and hollow. The Aurvana has always sounded OK on its own but against the Zoro it suddenly sounds bloated, grainy and sloppy.

 

Against the Porta Pro the Zoro lacks the open sense of space that the Porta Pro provides while sonically they are pretty similar… Neither lacks mid range and neither over cooks bass… The Zoro is darker by design and also has less shimmer and illumination because of the roll off point of the treble coupled with the closed design. And the Porta Pro doesn’t not suffer the same low end roll off so gives you that lowest octave bass power that the Zoro lacks. But the Zoro plays it more forward and has a sense of immediacy and presence that the Porta Pro lacks. The Porta Pro also has faint little artifacts that detract from the experience. The Zoro doesn’t break form like this. Everything that it does do, it does well. Also the Zoro feels better on your head. Yes it is heavier but it doesn’t pull your hair, has soft ear pads with a padded headband and doesn’t feel so fragile.

 

The Zoro is not a bass heavy or bass-head can per se. As I said it has an early rolling off point at the lowest octave of bass which is only obvious when compared against other headphones, but this frequency level isn’t where you find bass lines, and drums hammering away at your ear drums. This is more about acoustic feedback, venue resonance, etc… It’s the frequency that explosions happen on in movies, not the frequency that bass drums kick at on a Roland 808 or 909 drum machine. Those are still on tap.   

 

LET ME BE CLEAR! I know that the words “EARLY ROLL OFF OF BASS” is like giving a headphone the kiss of death…. Oh Hell No. I need my bass!

 

You don’t lose bass like Hip Hop or electronic drum beats… There is plenty of that punchy subwoofin goodness on tap. But that deep explosion, jet engine, earthquake bass from movies and video games is beneath the roll off point so even though it is heard, the impact is less dramatic and clearly non-linear when taking into account the fullness of tone above 100hz.  

 

Mind you, this is not a lifeless, anemic, or thin sounding headphone. This is a rounded, nourishing, fulsome headphone that happens to do a lot of things really well. If you wanted to parse details on a DSD track, the Zoro won’t give you that unnatural level of magnification power. But those who want a headphone to play naturally without invoking frequency driven fatigue will find a lot to like here. It gives you a natural mid-range presentation, a good helping of bass and a softer treble. All three of these are good qualities (especially with smartphone use) and are also presented in a forward and engaging way with plenty of body and weight making it a satisfying experience at the price point.

 

It sounds very good for the price and I am using it daily for my workouts and sometimes during my drive home because the closed design coupled with the smartphone mic makes it a good headphone for taking phone calls on the road.

 

That said, I still don’t like the physical design and am uncertain about its durability. I think the copycat aesthetic detracts from the headphones inherent value. If Noontec were to develop their own design from scratch and couple that to their sonic successes, I think I would take it more seriously and Noontec’s reputation would track along the same path as Master and Dynamic. As it stands though, I think there is a LOT of competition in the $100 headphone market and given what I said earlier about the competition in this market… I can’t say the Noontec is a slam dunk. Realistically with $100 bucks in hand you can buy the Sony MDR7506, Grado SR80, AKG K240 or K142, Audio Technica ATHM40 or A700x, VModa Crossfade LP,  Sennheiser Momentum (On Ear), Philips L2, etc… With all those choices would I spend my money on a Zoro? I don’t know.

 

I think it will provide outstanding sound quality for the spend… If that is all you are looking for, then it is up to the challenge. It is a “fashion headphone” with an audiophile soul. But there are other places that people ascribe value to a product. I don’t know that the Zoro ticks all these other boxes.

 

But… Big But! If you are comfortable with or even find the Zoro’s design attractive then have no fear about sound quality, you can proceed with full confidence. 

The praise that has been heaped upon the Sennheiser HD650 headphone is something that probably every headphone OEM envies. The HD-650 is nearly a decade old and yet is still viewed by many as a top tier dynamic, worthy flagship, and is the benchmark that many measure price to performance ratio against.
 
I personally was cruising along quite happy with my set up… Running almost exclusively between Denon D5000’s and Ultrasone Pro900’s. I felt I had the best of both worlds. Since I love the visceral impact of good bass in my music, these two pieces seemed to be perfectly tailored to my listening habits.
 
The Denon gave me a little more reasonable treble energy and a little less sibilance when I needed it for something more complex and diverse. While the Pro 900 gave me that sub woofer for your ear feel that just flat out slams your ear drums. With a decent DAC/ desktop amp set up I am usually able to apply a 6kHz to 8kHz cut to smoothly equalizes the sound to eliminate that “ESSS” sounding ear razor that the Pro900 is so infamous for.
 
However somewhere along the way the constant gushing over the Sennheiser HD650 got to me. Specifically Mike from Headfonia repeatedly claiming that it was the ultimate king of bass impact…. He never said king of bass quality, quantity…. He always spoke of the HD650 in terms of “Impact”.This should get just about any hard core and well funded bass head’s juices flowing and so I began looking at the viable options for acquiring this apparent low frequency giant. And so after parting ways with most of my portable equipment, I was flush enough with cash to purchase my own set of the venerable HD650.
 
I will start out by saying that because of all the talk of the ‘luscious mids’, smooth highs and world class low frequencies my expectations with this headphone were near off the chart…. I have since done the same thing with my first attempt at the  Audeze LCD2. The LCD2 albeit a very good headphone, was so overblown in my mind that by the time I actually listened to it, I was disappointed. That had far more to do with my overblown expectations than anything... because second time around... being aware of how much darker the LCD2 was than its Hifiman counterparts.... I have found a place for the LCD2 in my stable.
 
But by the time the Sennheiser headphone had finally arrived, it was competing with dare I say unrealistic and extreme expectations and was pretty much behind the 8 Ball from the start.
 
Build & Design
 
The Sennheiser HD650 is certainly a dated design. There are dozens of headphones on the market in the same price point that are better dressed. Most $500 headphones have premium materials such as aluminum, leather and wood worked into the build. The Sennheiser headphone is almost exclusively plastic. It is a shiny, cheap feeling plastic on virtually every exterior surface sans the grill, ear pads, retainer ring and bottom of the headband. Detail items like the "Left" and "Right" indicators are simply cast into the grey plastic.... This build quality seems unfit for a legacy flagship.... Obviously its been a long time since this headphone was brought to market and Sennheiser was working in the pre-Beats era, long before headphones were valued as a fashion accessory and long before OEM's thought they could bring flaghips to market with price tags north of $1000. Sennheiser's HD800 and HD700 show they clearly can design a top tier headphone both in sonic character and design quality, but the HD650 is still asking $500 USD and doesn't give you a warm and fuzzy out of the box once you've got it in your hands, at least it didn't for me.
 
The headphone is extremely light. Many in the community would give it points for this and they are certainly entitled to their opinion. However I personally see this as a demerit. Speaking strictly in terms of assessing an items value from a subjective/ aesthetic viewpoint, the Sennheiser headphone appears to be made of cheaper, less durable materials. I am not going to strain my neck if a headphone is north of 400 grams. The Hifiman HE400 weighs in at a hefty 440 grams and is perfectly comfortable to me, the Denon D5k weighs in around 360 and is probably the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn. If one is spending $75.00 on a beater set of portable cans, an expendable gamer headset or a cheapie like Superlux or Porta Pros (of which I am a fan)  then by all means they should be and can be as light as a feather and made almost exclusively out of plastic without raising eyebrows. But at $500 out the door for a would be flagship headphone that was intended for listening at home or in a studio through a serious system... I don’t know.... I expected something more substantial.
 
The crux of this featherweight value is that in order to keep it properly seated on the listeners head, Sennheiser had to crank up the clamping force. Otherwise the light weight construction leaves it prone to moving too easily as it has little resistive value on its own. The clamping force is something that many have commented through the years as a supposed 'death grip'... Once again just like the HE400 won't snap my neck, the clamping force on the HD650 is not going to crush my skull. It is certainly wound a bit tighter than most, but I personally believing the clamping force has been measured perfectly to counteract the lightweight construction's tendency towards moving easily. It is a goldilocks value.... not too much, not too little... Just right. This is a nod to the design engineers.
 
Right off the bat my delusions of grandeur were dispelled. It is certainly nicer looking than its faux marble clad brother the 600 however as a supposed flagship headphone of such universal praise, I was underwhelmed by the look and build quality. Those who think this is immaterial are kidding themselves.... Aesthetics have value to the consuming public and audiophiles are most certainly not immune... The hifi world is littered with glitzy machined aluminum tone arms, satin metal surrounds for tweeters, anodized aluminum face plates with machine metal knobs, high gloss enamel finishes, lustrous wood side panels, frosted glass.. etc....etc...
 
The die-hard says that this is simply an indicator that they chose to pour all their cash into sound quality. OK maybe this is true.... lets see. 
 
Hook It Up! And Wait.
 
I did not want to be hasty with a plug and play attitude as I had heard that the out of the box, plug and play sound of the HD650 was disappointing (I heard this about 10 hours after I purchased it sadly) but that a 100 hours of burn in would get you a somewhat matured sounding headphone, so onto the vintage Realistic 64B it went. This older vintage rig is hooked up in a file cabinet at work and so can burn in a headphone out of site and outta mind while I still enjoy music on my main headphone rig…. A Violectric V100 tethered to a Laptop running JRiver via my Rega DAC with a Wyred 4 Sound uLink handling conversion duties to SPDIF. 
 
100 Hours - Impressions
 
After it had burned half the day on Thursday and all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday by the time I got in to work on Monday the 650 had clocked roughly 96 hours of burn in time. I plugged it into the Violectric V100 and listened to some newer redbook CD rips. Muse 2nd Law, Foo Fighters Wasting Light, and Gaslight Anthem The 59 Sound. 
 
The HD650 is not a bass head can. That is my first impression. Where the hell is this supposed ultimate bass weight?
 
A couple of local Head-Fiers down here in the Southland told me the 650 was really amp picky and that I would do better with a tube amp like a Woo WA6 or Bottlehead Crack. However my headphone amp is a Violectric amp which is what Sennheiser uses in their “Hall of Fame” set up and is one of Sennheiser’s Senior Project Manager Axel Grell's favorite amps for his own listening. A couple others mentioned changing the cable to a Cardas one, and one guy said I might need a different DAC to get the most out of it.
 
So in order to get the Sennheiser HD650 to sound good what I needed to do was:
 

1. Get a different amp
2. Get a different cable
3. Get a different DAC

​
Maybe I should get a different source, different interconnects, a new power conditioner and stop using CD's while I am at it eh? Mind you I do see where some could see this headphone as all they need and build out their entire system around it.... searching for another .5% of improvement with each piece of the puzzle... but I have already built my system(s) and am not really inclined to do a whole lot of kit rolling in order to optimize the synergy with this lone headphone when I have a half dozen others that sound fantastic through the rigs as is. 
 
So my immediate disappointment with the bass could’ve derailed this whole review. I was expecting Pro900 bass or Denon D5k bass without the 7khz ear razors or recessed mids... What I got was an all too polite rendition of EVERYTHING.
 
The low frequencies are extended, there is textural information galore, you can really hear the stick or the tom on the drum skins, the full decay of bass strings, mid range is sweet and smooth, and there is plenty, and I mean plenty, of high frequency detail and sonic information. Anyone who says the HD650 does not have enough treble energy or detail is, to these ears, not hearing straight.
 
But that ultimate bass weight, that Mike implicates all the time, it is not here IMHO.
 
The low frequency, midrange and treble are all recessed quite a bit. They do not hit you in the side of the head with impact. They don't even touch you. If this is what people are speaking of when they say the 650 is veiled then yes, it is veiled, but not in the sense that a certain portion of the frequency range is somewhat blurry or hidden.... Its more about air pressure that makes a headphone felt as well as heard. Open architecture does limit this but I've heard better open backs at giving you punch. 
 
I will hop on my soap box right here and say that one part of a headphone experience that is vital to me, is the overall weight of a headphones tone. I am not specifically talking about bass extension or articulation or even the bass frequencies in particular. What I am saying is that headphones with a tonal density to them…. A robust acoustic mass that move some air pressure to bring the music more to life…. That is critical for enjoying music in my book. Otherwise it sounds like music but doesn't feel like it.
 
It may not be critical for monitoring, mixing or mastering in a studio, or DJing or even for being an audiophile who wants to sample 24/192 and DSD audio tracks like they are a damn 10 year old Pinot Noir… but for the average Joe like myself who wants to simply strap on a set of headphones, cue up an album, hit play, sit back and enjoy some music…. The overall presentation doesn’t need to be “forward” but it needs to be felt as well as heard.
 
Oldies like Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, and Bob Marley all have strong drums and bass rhythm that is presented most natural when the full weight of the instruments is presented... the kick drum and bass line at the opening of Dock of the Bay sets a strong foundation for Otis and the guitar to build off of. Alternative music like Smashing Pumpkins,  The Pixies, Jawbreaker, Dirtbombs, and Blur all have bass and drums that need punch. Punk rock and other guitar driven music like Social D, Operation Ivy, Van Halen, Bad Religion, The Ramones, Rancid, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, Weezer, Gaslight Anthem.... they all have rhythm sections, and natural timbre that is presented best when it is presented with a fully developed full bodied sound.
 
Most people would rather listen to music through a great set of speakers because the music can be felt in your bones and people go to concerts because the live performance trumps every other experience. I saw Muse at Staples Center a month ago and the bass and drums absolutely rattled my bones.... Just vibrating you right down to your soul. And that is why 50,000 pack stadiums every night to see performances. Because the music overwhelms your senses. I saw the Ramones in Santa Barbara in the early 90's and it was the loudest show I've ever been to... Large Marshall double stack cabinets for both Dee Dee and Johnny and Marky's drums were mic... all in a small club (The Anaconda for anyone who cares) and the Ramones play tight so it was just a full on sonic assault.... transcendental to a young kid and still the best show I ever saw. 
 
To me, listening at home through a set of headphones should be a tamed extension of that experience. Obviously headphones can't give you what a live concert can... nor can they give you what well crafted speakers can, and speakers can't give you what amps and guitars and mic'd up drums can.... but each should have a measure of the other. The HD650, although tonally sweet and smooth and carrying some weight in its tone is similar but a bit more recessed than the Audeze LCD2, it just holds you too far back from the music FOR MY TASTE. It left me wanting for something more!
 
The HD650 often gets the compliment that "I could fall asleep with these on" and that to me sums up the HD650 perfectly.... It's kinda boring.
 
The HE400/ HD650 issue.
 
I’ve had a few people ask me which I prefer. The HE400 has a little more low end punch and the extra growl and mid range power makes it a better choice for my taste. Speaking strictly in audiophile terms the HD650 has the better acoustic chops. Its professionally damped driver fills out more evenly and more linearly but this linearity is still comes out anemic compared to the more live sounding Hifiman. . 
 
At lower listening levels the HE400 is a far better choice. It gives you a tad more flesh to sink your teeth into. A bit more punch in the low end and a live wire mid range that’s tipped up just enough to make rock music sound amazing. But as we travel up the volume ladder the Sennheiser becomes more stable and stout in its presentation, everything fills in evenly. The lows get stronger as the mids get sweeter etc... The HE400 although good to a point, can get crispy and its budget level planar membrane can start smearing tones and blurring separation on complex electronic fare where 100 or more different sounds are sometimes dubbed over the top of each other. The Senn is more resolving and surefooted through big sonic waves but like said, anemic... I could live with either, but if I could only have one, it’d be the 400. Even though it tends to get a little distorted when it is under powered and doesn't have that furthest reach of resolution. It's rock and roll presentation is more enjoyable.
 
Johnny Come Lately – The X1 P
 
Phillips open back X1 is priced a hundred short of the 650. But there are obvious similarities. Open back design, midrange price point. But one would assume that its beautiful aluminum cups, velvet ear pads, and leather headband come at a sonic price.
 
The X1 is a gorgeous looking headphone. Along with my D5000 and LCD2 it is one of my most sartorially minded. People like to contrast it against the Sennheiser Momentum…. No, the Momentum looks flimsy build and doesn’t hold a candle.
 
Next to the X1 the 650 looks very dated. The plastic finish is a glaring shortcoming up front for a headphone asking $200 more. The 650 is the technically superior headphone. For the same reasons the HE400 can't play this game the X1 can’t either… It doesn’t have that same surefootedness and linearity that the Sennheiser does, nor does it scale as well. But the X1 has a more rich and nourishing tone that will appeal to music lovers and bass heads alike. Its bass slams harder, it's musical vibe is just funner. It can also get a little crispy and sibilant in the upper register when volumes start creeping up whereas the 650 never breaks form. The Sennheiser is still the “better” headphone. But for a music lover like me I am not sure how important that is. Lately the X1 has been getting a ton of head time and that speaks to its engaging tone. It gives me that 'felt as well as heard' sound that I crave.
 
VS. My Favorites
 
Against both of my closed back favorites, the Sennheiser plays the same song. It is linear, well engineered, accurate and anemic. The Denon D5k and JVC DX700 are simply more dynamic more emotionally engaging, and immerse you in the music. They surround you in an envelope of tone.
 
The punch is there with both, but the JVC DX700 ups the ante by giving a sound stage worthy of an open back phone and providing not quite as linear but still fairly linear sound as things get louder and louder. I would choose the Denon and the JVC DX700 over the 650 every time. It simply doesn't give you as much of the song as they do. It is truncated in its presentation it sounds thin and lifeless compared to the two Japanese headphones. They are just too well rounded, dynamic and potent for the 650 (IMHO). They don't give anything away.  
 
Contrasting against the Japanese duo, the Sennheiser strikes me as the stuffy middle aged guy rocking a corporate polo, khakis and cheap patent leather shoes. He presents well enough in professional circles but doesn't really have the personality to charm. The 650 is the middle aged, mid level cog in the machine. The D5k and DX700 are sharp dressed 20 somethings from Tokyo with Italian cut suits and crepe sole oxfords. Their resume may not be as thick and they may not have the same number of professional accolades but they are dynamic, engaging and charismatic. They offer excitement and future glory that you will not find with the hum drum late 40's something sitting with his shoulders slouched in the lobby.
 
WRAP IT UP!
 
In closing the Sennheiser is by most normal youthful standards a little light in the ass. Some would call that a veil or laid back but it’s not laid back to me… That denotes a mellow, relaxing sound and a veil sounds like the treble is shelved down or certain parts are blurry. No this is about sound pressure levels. Air being moved by transducers. This is about 2 dimensional accuracy vs. 3 dimensional involvement. 
 
The caveat to that would be in a full size stereo rig.... In those scenarios the 650 sounds a lot better than most modern 32 ohm headphones.... The only 2 in my collection that best it on the integrated amp scene are my planar headphones... both of which have flat phase response and so don't do the poorly damped thing.... But in a typical dedicated headphone setting.... to me, the 650 is a bit boring. You are held back just a bit too far from the song to truly enjoy it. I dare say that the hype may be a bit overblown….. at the very least it does not line up very well with my taste. 
 
Mind you I didn't write this review to deride anyone who loves the HD650.... and I'm sure those of you that are fans of it will continue to enjoy it. But I do think there are a lot of people running around this site looking for answers, not wanting to spend their hard earned cash poorly.... and most people use this site to inform their future purchases. Because of some of the descriptive words I have heard people use, I think someone could get the wrong idea about the sound of the 650... when people call it dark, warm and full bodied.... I don't know that these words do the phones tone justice. At least not without building your entire system around the HD650. Contrasted against the greater landscape it is a bit light and lacking in body. Someone needs to say that. 
 
So I hope I do not get flamed but I think that someone out there deserves to get a little objectivity on this headphone rather than just more gushing about "greatest ever". No I am not a Beyer or AKG fan boy going subterfuge.. I am just an average consumer with average taste and listening habits trying to give others like me some reasonable perspective. 
 
I suppose if you dedicate all your resources to just this one headphone, you can make it sound spectacular.... But to the average head-fier who has the same low riding, subwoofin tendencies that I do. Who listens to Muse, Foo, the Black Keys, Gaslight Anthem, The Strokes.... modern music.... this may not be such a strong fit. 
 
Just saying.

When I originally got into this hobby some 2 years ago, my first run of purchases included Sennheiser HD650's, Denon D5000 and Ultrasone Pro900's. I also had a couple beaters from Koss laying around like the Porta Pros (which I LIKE!). So upon purchasing my first true head amp (a Fiio E10) I thought my journey was over.... I had an amazing closed headphone, an amazing open headphone, a decent amp/dac... nuff said. Lets close the book on this consumer business and listen to some music.
 
From there I focused a good amount of my energy on (A) fixing up my 54 Lincoln and (B) mechanical watches..... I was in the throws of said watch obsession waiting for Steinhart to fill inventory on the Ocean 44 dive watch when I saw an episode of "How It's Made" on TV at the AKG factory in Austria where they take you through the steps of construction on one of the K702's.
 
Headphones!.... OH I LIKE THOSE
 
Since Steinhart was pushing their restock date back to August... maybe I can spend some of that money that is burning a hole in my pocket on a pair of Headphones.
 
And so the bug bit again.... But this time reading through forums, websites and reviews the kiss of death was bestowed on the K701 and 702 (which were my knee jerk target purchase after watching the show) but words like: lacking bass, thin sounding, airy and very NEUTRAL were intertwined into descriptions of their sound.... meh! I cannot handle thin sounding anything.
I've been to too many live shows to be able to pass off a thin sound as accurate.
 
Also (to me) the word "Neutral" conjures up images of a lifeless two dimensional sound that is lacking pace rhythm& and attack. Neutral is about as exciting as FLAT
I cannot imagine an OEM that would enjoy reading a review of their products, headphones, speakers or otherwise as "very flat and neutral".
 
So after jettisoning the 702 notion on its face, further Headfi forum reading of 'this vs that' impressions and product reviews and general chatter brought forth numerous mentions of a new player in the game... A company out of China called Hifiman who's entire line up of headphones consisted of planar magnetic drivers and open back designs. Even though the company hails from the PRC, they have a presence on US Soil that is comprised of a technical support staff and New York based distribution.The more I read about the Hifiman planar magnetic headphones, the more they starting working their way to the top of my list.
 
My pops raised me on a steady diet of vinyl with big power wars era receivers and massive floorstanding dynamic speakers but I remember spending time at my Uncle Johns in the summer where he had 2 big Magneplanar speakers set up in his game room. I don't remember a whole heck of a lot from back then but I do remember that I wanted my Uncles system.... So it became clearer and clearer to me that Hifiman was going to benefit from my next purchase. About the time I started my hunt, the HE400 model had been on the streets long enough to get through Rev 1.... and long enough for a couple of reviews to make it onto the street.
 
An article from Headfonia gave it a restrained thumbs up but Steve Guttenberg of CNet Audiophilliac fame gave it a gushing review. So as an impressionable young mark (er man) these last two votes of confidence were enough for me to pull the trigger. And so about 10 days after purchasing the headphones from Amazon for $399, they arrived at my doorstep. However upon taking delivery of the box there were obvious signs of having shipped direct from China and markings on the box gave me the impression they were shipped from a Chinese retail outlet as an in store demo. When I opened the box I was even more dismayed. There was no fancy case like had been shown in the literature and early reviews... Just a simple retail class cardboard box. I opened the box to find a pair of what looked to be a pair of blue HE400 but they were covered with a white dust and seemed to have been haphazardly packaged into the box.
 
"Is this some damn knock off or something?" was my original thought... 
 
The sticker on the exterior of the box seemed to imply that this was some demo model... yet I paid full price.... What!
 
Needless to say the Hifiman HE400 and I did not have a very good introduction... no love at first sight here.... I was on high alert once I saw that the package had made its way from China and because the way it was boxed with the headphone crookedly placed in the box, it did not seem to be packaged with the type of professional polish one would expect to find from a relatively high cost consumer product targeted for retail sales. I was therefore a bit miffed from the start. Then I plugged them in and pushed play and that is where all the hand wringing fell away.
 
Up until this point all of my headphones were on the warm and/or bass heavy side.... Denon D5K's, Ultrasone Pro900's, Porta Pro's and Klipsch Image Ones that I once heard described on Headfi as "bass fart cannons".... so my predisposition of what a good headphone sounded like was a bit tilted to the basshead side.... With all the hype I expected something similar but different (you dig?) But plugging in the HE400's I was taken back initially.... They were clear, very clear and very crisp.... the bass was there but certainly not up with the D5ks or Pro900s... Its not a basshead can. But as I listened and listened I had that "AHA!" moment.... These things sound good... very good!
 
The HE400 sound is not lush or warm or thick like many dynamic offerings.... It is smooth but hangs its hat more on clarity and providing a balanced presentation of the music. Some have called it a bass heavy can but I don't see or hear that at all. Comparing it to the Pro900 and the Denon D5K its sound is much lighter and fast.... If the sound of the Pro900 is overly thick and bassy.... audio maple syrup.... then the HE400 is distilled water... faster, refreshing, clearer but it doesn't lack for musicality.... What one does discover listening to this planar magnetic headphone is that despite having a super clean and clear treble, the slightly more forward and engaging mid range gives it a very "LIVE" presentation. It does not have that heavy full bodied pulsating rhythmic drive of similarly priced dynamic cohorts, but that livewire midrange provides this growling power to guitar driven rock that makes you want to listen to music. That is good enough for me!
 
Shortly after this I purchased the planar magnetic darling of Headfi, the Audeze LCD2. I was originally assuming that the HIFIMan can would lose its luster after the LCD2 arrived but this was not so.... Mind you the LCD2 has a lovely way about it... a beautifully resolving sound and penchant for low volume listening... the ease/ effortlessness with which the LCD2 can play the most complex and formidable low frequency passages is amazing.... I give credit to its lightning fast planar membrane.... It sounds wonderful with jazz, oldies, and classic rock.... but what I discovered after weeks and weeks of comparing the runt of the Hifiman planar line with the Audeze cohort more than twice its price is that with more up tempo guitar driven music the HE400 actually provides just a bit more impact to bass (especially with less than reference sources) and there is this "LIVE" factor to the mid range that gives it a more realistic sound with guitars.
 
Now I am splitting hairs here to draw differences but I saw the LCD2 as sounding more like listening to music at home while the HE400 was more like being at a show. Saying that is a very stern criticism of the LCD2... I am trying to paint a very thin line (a very small deficiency) with broad strokes but I heard it so what am I to do. That ever so slightly tipped up mid range response on the HE400 makes it just a bit more involving and immersive. The LCD2 holds you back ever so slightly from the music and thus can cause disengagement with mid range focused guitar rock.... Considering the better part of my library is punk, rock, and alternative... the HE400 is actually the better all rounder of the two.... What is more is that while the LCD2 can give you ridiculously well resolved low frequencies, I mean it mines the depths of a song to absolutely subterranean levels with perfect texture and resolution, the HE400 actually provides a bit more punch and impact to its low end despite being a bit less confident in its resolve. The HE400 is prone to get a little tizzy on some heavy low end stuff where the LCD2 holds crystal clear.... but the HE400 makes up for its slightly messy presentation with more punch and dynamic weight.... you can hear it with the Audeze but you can feel it with the Hifiman. This desire to meet you halfway is what makes the HE400 so special.... It is not as euphonic and lush as the HD650... but it does sound similar in a lot of ways, in that its presentation is on the polite side of things compared to very forward and bass heavy cans like the Denons and Ultrasones. However in terms of accuracy vs. impact it has found an amazingly intoxicating balance that stays fun while never getting fatiguing. The LCD2 offers you resolution and clarity in spades.... Its technical speed is unmatched by the HE400 (which is how it ought to be) but the LCD does take maybe a few step further away from the stage and this slight recess strips away enough of the emotive experience that the HE400 has a justified place in my collection.
 
It is certainly not the last word in headphones but considering its price and the competition in the $400 +/- market it is an amazing performer. In the right setting with enough current feeding its drivers, it is an outstanding all rounder.
 
HAND WRINGING
 
I have one maybe two gripes with this headphone and they have ZERO to do with its sound quality. One is the weird reverse polarity coaxial connectors used to connect the cables to the cans.... The connectors are actually a pro television and radio fitting for antenna connections so it is an odd choice.... and very difficult to source. More importantly is that twisting the cable over and over to connect and release the cables is bound to eventually cause a short or some other form of damage in the cable.... My particular model came with a 6 foot Canare quad OFC cable and after connecting and disconnecting a few dozen times the collar on the cable side of the connector actually pushed through the back of the stem and fell off.... rendering the cable dead.... Hifiman was quick to send out a new replacement cable to me (Hat tip to Vince at Head Direct!) but if there was one thing I would change it would be that. Another line of defense that I may likely pursue is Toxic Cables adapters. If you buy a cable from him with say mini XLR terminations for Audeze cans he can build a set of adapters for Hifiman connectors so you can bypass the twist connector all together. You'd have a couple of odd little earrings dangling off the bottom of them when not connected to the cable but... This should only bother the most retentive of people in the hobby. The other mild nuisance is that the logo and markings are all painted on the headphones..... Thus after a few short months of handling them, the L & R designating which side is which have all but rubbed off.... The headphones appear to be perfectly symmetrical in build so I don't know that it changes anything to wear them either way but I opted to tag the stems with red and black sharpie to keep track. However it'd be nice if they could find a more permanent solution for marking the sides.... and the brand.... I've got to believe that eventually the "Hifiman HE-400" marking on the blocks will go to the wayside as well. Beyond these minor grievances I am superbly happy with this headphone.... It is a worthy adversary in the $400 realm and beats the snot out of its similarly price AKG, Beats and Grado adversaries... The HE400 is an opportunity to get some of the planar magnetic sound for significantly cheaper spend than normal. It is worth every penny. You will not regret it.

I bought both of the ALO Continental/ National family members around June/ July of 2012 when the second wave of V2 Continentals hit the market. I got the bug bad at the time and was worried it was going to sell out... I was worried that I was going to miss my chance to own a collectors piece.... A portable tube amp... a one of the kind piece of kit.... Yeah I had gotten bitten by some consumer dementia and was quickly losing site of reality.
 
The Marantz 8b is a collectors piece... a McIntosh 275 is a collectors piece, a Levinson #33 or a Dynaco Stereo 70 is a collectors piece.... The Continental.... eh not quite.
 
However despite having become a bit unhinged from reality in my desire to get this not so itsy bitsy little amp.... Once I got it and plugged it in one would think that it could do no wrong in my subjectively blind ears. However this was not the case. The over arching sense of happiness one gets when one scores a piece of kit that you feel far surpasses your expectations was... elusive.
What was there was an unsure feeling...  "I guess it sounds okay!"... I mean its louder.... it's really big... but it is louder than my iPod.
 
The Continental adds just a slight dose of sweetness to the sound. If you are buying a portable amp like the Continental assuming it is going to give you the rich harmonics, warmth and so called Honeytone of a bonafied tube amp (i.e. an EL84 type design) you won't find what you are looking for here. The hybrid circuit tube adds just a tint of color to the picture without causing the sound to become syrupy. This touch of sweetness is what the Continental has going for it... that tiny little tube glowing inside the vents... was dropping just a dose of honey into the sound.  
 
But for a full $265.00 less, you get The National. Based on ALO's own marketing the National is supposed to provide an inexhaustable solid state derivative of the Continental that is not dependent on a finite supply of NOS 6111 tubes from Raytheon. The National is centered around the very cheap but highly capable NE5532 opamp and listening to both side by side I must admit to not being able to really hear much of a difference.  
 
Switching back and forth from iPod Video, to Continental to National there are obvious differences between the amp stage of the iPod and the two ALO amps.... but very little to find between the two amps themselves. The sound from the iPod's headphone jack sounds crowded and closed in.... the singer of the band stands right in your face making it very difficult to appreciate the song as a whole. Switch over to the National and the singer takes 6 steps back, the band takes a couple steps forward and a more natural stage is set.... Likewise for the Continental. 
 
Many reviewers have stated that the Continental is far less grainy and has a clear spotless sound.... I don't know that I hear that.... maybe the subjective viewpoint that a 'glass' tube somehow provides a clean, clear harmonic tone is biasing their viewpoint but both amps sound equally grainy.... What is more is that the National seems to have just a little more horsepower to wrestle with difficult loads like ortho dynamic headphones. Both my HE400 and LCD2 were out and out too much for the Continental.... In complex passages with multiple layers of low frequency action (like bass strings and bass drums) the Continental seemed to get a bit more tizzy and hashy sounding.... Electronic trash started tainting the lowest register and the transient edges seemed to get injected with static. however with the National though it does max out its volume pot on the LCD2 while still operating inside of "comfortable" listening volume it doesn't seem to lose as much forms. Admittedly it does show signs of insecurity with the loads.... There is a level of electrical hash in the upper register and a crunchy blurring together of low frequency passages on more complex numbers.... It still does not show quite the bad form that it's premium dual triode packing brother displays.
 
The Continental and National are pretty, yes, they are unique and sublime in their design aesthete. The Continental more so with its hybrid tube design, certainly, it is a gorgeous looking piece of kit, however in regard to its most basic function.... the skill set upon which all its other talents should be founded..... it is in my application, a sub par performer. The National is more confident (to a degree) more propulsive and dynamic.... It's slam slams harder and its bass booms bigger... but it suffers the same fate as it's slightly more tricked out big brother. When the going gets complex, loud or both.... the National and Continental both get spooked.... start showing speed wobbles... and are far from confident and authoritative amplifiers. They are a step up from the nervous spastic tendencies of an iPod at max volume.... a tad cleaner and with better sound staging but that is not really a great compliment.
 
I actually sold my first set of Audeze LCD2's because the sound was so "unremarkable" through the ALO Audio retro styled duo that is seemed foolish to own a $1000 headphone that sounded so sub par. I eventually came back around to a second set of LCD2's long after the Continental had been returned to ALO Audio for a refund. With just the National playing portable amp duties and with as much as 300 hours of playing time, the National seems to a bit more stable in its presentation.... Mind you it still maxes out its pot at comfortable listening levels but seems to have gotten its legs under it to an extent. 
 
So contrasting against the Continental.... it truly is a no brainer. The National sounds nearly identical in tone, is near a full inch shorter (right in line with the length of an iPod) seems to have more horsepower and offers a more punchy bass and costs over $250 less.
 
Ken Ball and company seem passionate about this culture and he has made a name for himself by putting forward very sublime products with a very classy aesthetic value. The ALO amps are beautiful looking and are built like tanks.... I truly do love the Marshall Amp type aesthetic that they utilize for this line and enjoy the look of all of Ken's products... I am not a big believer in cables but do acknowledge that the ALO cables are very handsome and at the very least add some nice aesthetic value to portable rigs.... the price seems prohibitive and counter intuitive to me... but if I had the cash to burn... I'd probably bite just for the look alone. 
 
And I think that is the blessing and the problem with these products... They look damn good. Ken, his engineers, his team (whoever is involved in their creative process) designs aesthetically pleasing products... However they seem to be lacking design chops in the most important place AMPS!. The National is the better price/ performance value to me and so gets 3.5 stars for that. However compared to other non-portable amps.... shows why the state of portable hifi has not quite reached full maturity... It is a last resort for music listening for me... and I chose it because it's qualities compared to its nearly $600 sibling were nearly indiscernable... yes there was that drop of sweetness in the Continental... but were talking a drop in a barrel here..... Beyond that the two sound nearly identical.... so for less than half... I'll forgo honey and use a faster harder hitting saccharine.  
 
They are better than an iPod.... but far worse than nearly any desktop source that I have utilized.... I have not tried power monsters like the Lisa 3 or SR71 Blackbird or even ALO's own RX Mark III but I do think that portable amps in the main, have a ways to go before they will be single source solutions for big time headphones like LCD2's.... Quite simply a National or Continental amp is not worthy of an Audeze LCD2 and seem better suited to your mid fi headphones like M-50's or Pro900's.
 
May not be what some people want to hear.... but it's how I see it.
But I do think that the National at $299 is a no brainer if one must have the ALO Audio experience.... Otherwise though it isn't half as sexy, I think the FiiO E12 or E17 is a much better route to go.

Firestone Audio Spitfire Mark II
 
DAC reviews always seem a bit like a crap shoot to me.... At least like trying to draw broad stroke differences between two items with very minor changes in sound. However in regard to my last two DAC's the Firestone Audio people have put forth a product that I can draw some distinct and clear differences from.
 
The Spitfire MKII sells for anywhere from $200 to $260 USD. Right now there are a couple different vendors selling on Amazon for around $206.00 however most audio focused vendors seem to be selling them closer to the MSRP $260.00 price point. The Spitfire comes in a relatively decent package. The cardboard box is probably somewhere between retail and wholesale class. It's not exactly the type of packaging that is going to catch your eye at a retail outlet like say the ALO Audio amplifier packaging but then again I don't particularly care too much about the card board they wrap audio products in. I will concur that the ALO Audio National & Continental boxes that my portable rigs came in serve as cord storage for my desktop system because their Marshall Amp/ Retro aesthetic are nice enough looking that I will keep them out on the desktop, but the fact that Firestone didn't put more into their packaging is a far cry from a deal breaker. Opening the box you'll find a warranty card, a small quick start users manual, a small wall wart power supply, a USB 2.0 cable and a thick though cheap looking RCA cable. 
 
 

 
The Spitfire MKII adds a USB 2.0 input, where the first run Spitfires were limited to optical and coaxial.  The USB 2.0 input has to run through a USB 2.0 plug in your laptop or computer. If you plug it into a Super-Speed or power boost USB hub... you will be met with some nasty static and feedback in your signal chain that will not be so overt that it will be obvious... It'll will scratch and crack at the edge of transients... which drives deep fear into the music lover that their new piece of kit is either crappy or exposing their itunes library for a bunch of compressed junk... Take heart, simply move the cable into a proper USB 2.0 and you're all good. The Firestone USB 2.0 does not play well with USB 3.0 so make sure you're using the correct USB hub without "SS" markings or a lightning bolt.... Its one of those things that seems obvious, but could cause some unnecessary grief for people who aren't aware of the class of their USB inputs. It's also not a cut and dry thing since I can use my little laptop stalwart Fiio DAC through the SS and powered hub without a problem.... The Spitfire, for whatever reason, is not so forgiving.
 
The only real knock I have on this device is that the RCA jacks on the Spitfire do not inspire confidence. They seem very fragile and should I connect cable to brusquely or without taking care, are likely to snap of whatever connectors hold them in place. I cannot say for certain that they will fail, but seem likely to fail if one were to be pulling and re-connecting RCA lines constantly. Based on the uneasy feeling I got connecting it to my desktop amp, it is not the type of DAC you want to include in a semi portable set up that you are going to be breaking down each evening to throw in your bag. My own impression is that these jacks won't hold up. Rather than tempt fate, I've opted to just buy a pair of RCA cables specifically for the Spitfire so if I need to connect or disconnect another DAC or swap amps, I just pull the wires on the other side of the chain.
 
Intel of the Inside
 

 
The Spitfire uses a Burr Brown PCM 2704 USB Receiver chip to a DIR9001 digital audio interface on to a Burr Brown PCM 1793 DAC chip with 24/96hz capability. The PCM 1793 is a solid DAC chip though not quite a super desirable chip in view of the audiophile elite.... However implementations matter and I dare say Firestone has gotten as much out of this 1793 as most will get out of the much higher regarded 1794. Final output buffering is done by a socketed LM4562 opamp which can be rolled to affect the sound.
 
The USB input is limited to 16/44 but considering I won't be running anything other than iTunes through USB it's perfectly fine for me.... It won't be upsampling my music and to me that is all good. Many place a DAC's value in the so called resolution that it is capable of and see anything lower than 24/96 as primitive. I don't see (hear) much difference between 16/44 and 24/96 myself.... but I understand that I may be in the minority here. 
 
For the sake of stirring the pot I'll just say that most if not all of the audible spectrum (key word there is audible!) can be captured in a 16/44 playback and certainly in 24/96... the freak or two out there that can hear beyond a -8db noise floor or wants to destroy their ears with 130 db onslaughts..... or happens to be able to hear beyond normal human range of 20khz well I guess they'll have to take exception to this rig. By all means they can spend more for 24 or even 32/192hz to capture sonic frequencies only a bat or dog can make out.
 
I understand. The fact that such resolutions are used by and called "studio master" quality is tantalizing... a mite bit misleading on its face but tantalizing nonetheless. Ultimately if it makes someone happy, I am all for that... happiness is a good thing.
 
But for my purposes. 16/44 will do fine.
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
Build Quality
 
Besides the big question mark I have regarding the durability of the RCA jacks, this really is a nicely executed device. I've done some more fiddling with the RCA jacks and though I see why I may have been initially pensive about their durability.... the more I look at them the more I am inclined to believe they are up to snuff. Because the overall build is somewhat dainty, I may have been expecting a bit too much. 
 
The Spitfire is much smaller than I had envisioned as it measures a mere 4" long x 3" wide x 2" tall, however it is still a very nice looking little box. An array of LED lights along the front face display, power, signal lock, playback status, and USB connection status.... The black anodized aluminum face is roughly 10mm thick with a small grain blasted finish and the "SPITFIRE MKII" print on the face is printed with white paint.
 
 

 
The sides and back are anodized aluminum with a very fine grain blasted finish and ribbing along both sides. It's not exactly saying "LOOK AT ME" like some of the more handsome components in my collection, but it is a "cute" form factor. It doesn't scream high end, but it is well done for the price point it sits in. Also if I opted to build out my computer audio set up exclusively with Firestone Audio components, they are all shipped in identically sized enclosures so you can stack amps, PSU's and DAC's into a neat 4" x 3" tower without taking up much desktop space. I actually have the separate "Supplier" power unit coming so we'll see (A) if it adds anything to the sound and (B) just how cute these little boxes look stacked.
 
 

 
The Sound
 
Mind you I don't have extensive experience with DAC's. I've used some older NOS Chinese cheapies with my Stereo setup but usually played these out of speakers. I assume my Krell dock system has an internal DAC but they are pretty tight lipped if not silent about conversion technology in the Krell Papa Dock/ Kid system.... hell they even go to the length of explaining that there is nothing of use or serviceable inside... with the understanding that there is No Reason to Open it. If it didn't cost a total of $5K I would pull out the wrenches/ screwdrivers right now, but I don't want to tempt fate.
 
That said after listening to the Firestone Audio DAC I don't see any need to upgrade or keep searching for my DAC. I have found it.
 
I did some switching from my Carver receiver, my Pioneer vintage rig my laptop staple Fiio E10 and the Firestone and the one thing that stood out with headphones (I did not test it through speakers) was the extra weight that Firestone brought to the fight. It sounds more dense, has more impact and is full bodied. I love the little Fiio E10 with iTunes using the little bass boost switch as it made a number of tracks pretty close to the tonal density I like and seemed to add some extra oomph and weight to the full spectrum of sound, but the Firestone out does it in every regard. The bass and mid range on the Firestone are strong, robust and hard hitting. But they are not overpowering even with bass heavy cans like my Denon D5000's. The bass is big and weight and thick but does not get boomy to where it starts impeding on the quality of mid range sound. I actually was so surprised when I heard it that I went scrolling through my settings on my computer to see if I had the bass enhancer on in the Sound settings or a weird EQ set up in my iTunes presets.... nope. The Firestone people have done good.
 
What is more is that the Spitfire is able to mine down deep into the lower frequencies to get all the meat out of the song without forgetting about the quality of the upper-mids and treble. Transients like cymbal crashes, and the constant snap of the high hat have a more analog quality... The Spitfire provides a clear and clean upper mid range and treble. Some of my "hotter" recordings are older punk albums recorded in small studios with likely some sub par gear. In the wrong setting, with the wrong cans and the wrong volume level I can hit a note or two every once in a while that will scorch my ears let alone my nerves with white hot treble.... kinda like that little knee buckling zinger you'll get every once in a while at your dentist. With the Spitfire in charge of laying everything down, there is none of the high harsh sibilance or brightness that moves beyond enjoyable.... The treble is there, but it sounds like a cymbal being hit on a drum kit not a screeching hiss coming out of my headphones to claw at my ear drums.
 
The treble is detailed and its is present but it has a very smoothed out quality to it, especially when I contrast it to my Fiio and older NOS Chinese Valab knock off with its 40 some odd 1543 Phillips chips (kidding).
 
I imagine it sounds how it did when the band played it.
 
I guess the best compliment I can give this little device is that it made me excited about my music library again. I haven't been spending a lot of time with my iTunes library recently. With this little device tethered to the laptop I am excited to go back through my library and enjoy tracks that I hadn't for a while. If Operation Ivy sounds this good, how is Jawbreaker going to sound?
 
The Spitfire isn't exactly audiophile grade device. If only because it's Chinese heritage and diminutive form factor make it a non-starter for many a stodgy audiophile. However for the more common folk like myself who are interested in getting big gains in sound quality without breaking the bank and who simply want to enjoy their music library with a set it and forget device, the Spitfire deserves consideration. It has earned big scores from big shots reviewers and in my experience, it deserves it. It will give you huge improvements over your on board computer and leaves the budget grade DAC's in the dust. It makes inherently hot iTunes music sound much more analog and live. 
 
It's an awesome little DAC.
Try it, you'll like it.
 

The Violectric V series amps are consumer/ audiophile grade products from German pro audio house Lake People.
Fried Reim, CEO and head designer at Lake People/ Violectric, has recently released a Lake People branded line of consumer grade headphone amps as well. The new Lake People G series line will include both balanced and unbalanced configurations.... The G103S (Single Ended) G103P (Pro - Balanced), G109S and G109P.
 
When looking for my desktop amplifier solution, I had initially focused on the G109S (after wringing my hands over Burson, Apex, Woo and Schiit options) however in a last minute change of heart opted for the runt of the litter in the Violectric line. The V90 shares a good portion of its design traits with the G109 and so my decision was largely one of aesthetics.... I opted to pay an extra $15USD for the Violectric logo laser engraved across the face plate. 
 
I placed the order by email through Fried's sales office (whom were tremendously helpful and courteous through the process), and the amp arrived two business days later. Out here in California I did have to pay UPS a $30.00 import duty fee to take delivery of the amp from UPS. I mentioned this to another Head-fi'er who had recently purchased a Lake People amp but he did not have any import duty on his parcel which made its way to Utah. I have to believe its either something associated with the Local Port of Long Beach or California... The State of California loves itself some fees and taxes so this does not come as a complete surprise. That said if you are in California, you should recognize that this will likely need to be included in your budget.  
 
The Amp came well protected in an egg crate foam lined box with a simple 10 page owners manual, power cord and the amp itself.
 
Physical Appearance
 

 
The V90 is the entry level Violectric amp and as such is not adorned with the same jewelry as his older siblings. Where the V100, V181 and V200 showcase the brands iconic gold chassis feet, the V90 makes do with simple smallish but chunky black rubber feet. Where the V100, V181 and V200 have 8mm thick aluminum face plates with beveled edges and beveled insets at the headphone jacks and power buttons.... The V90 has a simple flat face plate with headphone jacks and power button surface mounted. 
 
It does have the same Violectric logo and model number laser etched into the face plate along the top and left edge, the same suede like Nextel coating around the remaining chassis, the same textured aluminum knob and the same deep blue LED below the power switch. But for nearly $200 less than the V100 and at nearly half the price of the V181 and V200 costs have to be cut somewhere.... I've gotta believe I am in the majority when I say I'd rather they cut corners on bling than components that affect the sound quality.
 
However even without the other pretty little bells and whistles, with the laser etched logo, model number and the grey suede coating, it is still a very handsome and well built amp. Sitting along side my headphones and laptop, it is still the prettiest looking piece of kit in the bunch.... black feet and all. 
 
 

 
 
 
As far as measurements, the V90 is  a full 4 inches shorter than his older brothers but measures the same in width and height. As far as how it matches up spec wise.... I'll leave that to you. If you are interested in the model by model breakdown, here is a link to the technical spec sheet for all 4 amps on Lake People's site:
 
http://www.violectric.de/Pages/en/technical-data.php
 
What is worth noting is the current delivery these amps provide. The V90 is the smallest of the Violectric line and yet it kicks 1300mw into a 32ohm load & 2300mw into a 100ohm load. And for what it is worth the V90 also scores of the highest of all Violectric models with 730mw into a 600 ohm load... This high current delivery means the Violectric can and does exert masterful control of headphones.
 
Intel of the Inside
 
 

 
 
Opening up the case the path to sonic nirvana is paved with op-amps and monolithic IC's. I don't have enough technical knowledge to tell you the how and what regarding the circuit topology but the amp essentially applies AC voltage through an 3.5VA Alfamag transformer with 22 volt secondaries i.e. 32 volts rail to rail. The V90 is running  NE5532 opamps at the back of the case which I believe is an input buffer because Fried commented that the socketed opamps handled low level signal duties when people pressed him about swapping those opamps. There are 2 three 3 legged critters which I believe are the rectifiers from AC to DC and 2 Burr Brown/ Texas Instruments OPA551 integrated circuits. Obviously the parts count is a lot higher than a gainclone but it is a chip amp nonetheless. The major improvement the V90 sees over its G109s sibling is the inclusion of thru hole metal film resistors and capacitors. The pro version of the G109 also includes thru-hole parts but the single ended output G109s gets by with tiny smd mount resistors and caps. An ALPS RK14 pot handles volume and headphones plug in through silver plated Neutrik 1/4" headphone jacks.... The dual jacks is a real nice benefit however I have noticed that I can't really keep different headphones plugged in both to do swaps unless I have two sets of cans with relatively close impedance and sensitivity. Setting my Denon D5000's on one and the Hifiman HE400's on the other proved dangerous as I turned the dial to twelve to get a good volume out of the HE400's.... the Denon's were being pushed to near their limit and when I went to switch back to the Denon's realized just how painfully loud they were.
 
If you do plug two in at the same time you can here an audible little scratch when connecting however there is no drop off in volume. 
 
A few other things to note is that there is a ground lift jumper inside to lift the component ground for pro audio ground loops. Pro audio habits die hard I guess, but it also is an option for removing hum. I personally don't use XLR cables so keep the ground grounded. 
 
So what does it sound like?
 
The first couple listening sessions I was staggered by just how good my Hifiman headphones sounded. I had been playing them through an ALO Audio portable amp (Continental and National) and thought they had some serious limitations on them because I tended to hear distortion and frayed edges coming into play whenever I took the HE400 above a certain volume. There is none of that slop with the V90. It's high levels of current bear obvious sonic fruit as it takes authoritative control over the mini transducers in both my planar magnetic and dynamic headphones and does exactly what it is supposed to do.... amplify the signal.
 
The amp is not colored.... I would call it neutral but I don't like this word because neutral is different from person to person and the word neutral itself is such an inert and lifeless descriptive word in the first place. It short changes people like myself who are looking for terms like "lush" "warm" and "smooth". Trust me when I say the amp does not lack for musicality. It doesn't sterilize the music. Although to be honest, I've never really heard an amp that did such a number as to sterilize music. Music is music for God's sake, of course it has musicality.
 
However using a word like warm, lush, or musical will triggers thoughts from others that the sound is too congealed and syrupy. There is none of that here. No with the V90 there is no part of the frequency range that I see as tipped up or down either way. The amp itself seems essentially linear in its response.... that is not to say that music is not warm, lush and smooth through it.... it is.... because music is friggin musical. But it has more to do with the guitars, voices, drums etc... sounding warm, smooth, rich and full than the amp... the amp is very good but it doesn't denote a "house sound". A wire with gain. 
 
Bass is powerful and well driven, highs are clear and crisp, mids and full and live sounding... but none of it seems to be intrinsic to the amp itself... the amp seems to make good music, louder... A good signal amplified to a bigger good signal... but doesn't exact its own price tag on the music for passing through it's circuits. 
 
What is remarkable to me about this amp is the benefit one gets from its higher than normal power rating.... Because it pushes such a strong level of current and controls headphones so authoritatively... it seems to be immune to distortion, low frequency fuzz and other transient hash that plagues so many under powered portables that I have heard.... It seems confident and sure footed... I have not been able to get this amp to break form at even the highest volume levels I can endure. 
 
It reminds me of the feeling one gets driving a BMW for the first time... that anchored to the road feeling.... that sensation that makes you unmistakably aware that this car was engineered to drive on the autobahn at 140 MPH... 
 
Moving from low impedance cans, to orthos to 300 ohm Sennheisers was a snap. A quick flip of the switches on the back and the amp was optimized for multiple configurations. I was able to use IEM's, 32 ohm portable cans, 40 ohm ortho-dynamics and 300 ohm pro audio cans without any lack of synergy... The Violectric does it all very very well.
 
Compared to a similarly priced portable amp.... it flat out leaves it in the dust. The portable simply doesn't have the horses to keep up and starts getting wobbly and breaks up.... The Violectric smashes ahead violently fast but without losing so much as an inch of form.... locked onto the highway... It's confident and sure footed as it flies down the roadway to audio nirvana.
 
I am certain there are qualities in the upper range of this line that justify their significantly higher price tag.... but for the money... a scant $440.00 + shipping, I cannot think of a better amp to pair with planar magnetic headphones.
 
Little brother maybe.... but a bad ass nonetheless.