Originally Posted by
tdockweiler 
Anyone have a perfect portable setup for these? I mean to use around the house that's cheap.
Today was a major fail for me in trying to do this.
Whenever I tried it seemed that someone had taken my nice soundstage and smashed it all together into a big congested mess. Strangely enough the treble seemed to be lacking more than normal (portable method).
Severe loss of detail, kind of muffled and almost boring. Basically it felt that my HD-650 would have lost out to my poor DJ100 (not a fair match) in every area.
I tried all of these without much luck:
Sansa Clip+ to Total Airhead. Ok.
Clip+ to E11...awful
Ipod Touch by LOD to E11/Airhead. Even better.
Despite sounding fairly good, it sounds clearer straight from the Clip+. I get lots of crackling though sometimes.
I think this is the rare example where using the headphone out on the Clip+ to amp actually craps up the sound a bit. This occurs for me on like zero other headphones.
I spent about an hour trying to find my old Sansa Fuze so I can try it's Line Out. The idea of buying a Fuze+ makes me sick.
Best result I got was Ipod Classic 2G (B&W) to Airhead.
Switching from Airhead to the E9 or Headroom Micro is such a huge difference. It's clear that I'm getting enough volume, but the HD-650 is still complaining about something.
I guess expecting the sound of the ODAC+Micro Amp in a portable setup is asking too much. This is actually one of the best sounding headphones i've ever heard with that setup.
Crystal clear sounding, not too forgiving(!), quite detailed and still fatigue free mostly. Soundstage impresses me the most, but with a portable setup..not a chance.
Maybe I need a portable player that's even more powerful along with maybe a CMOY or something. You'd think the Airhead would be more than enough.
With the same setup my Q701 sounds better. On the main setup, they're pretty even so far. Just different signatures.
Man and I thought my DJ100 was picky about amps and DACs. It seems the HD-650 and Q701 are two headphones that really prefer a nice computer DAC and desktop amp.
The HD-650 might have the edge. I can't understand why the 580 sounds so amazing with the Airhead and the same players, but the 650 is so much worse. Very strange.
Note: still sounds good, but just not the same.
Oh yeah, I have a Cown Iaudio 7. Maybe i'll try that.
After using the ODAC, it's really hard to want to go back to ever using portable players. No I don't use my HD-650 in public, but it's kind of nice to use while wandering around the house.
I also just found a portable CD player with a line out. Should be interesting to try..
