new to these things. who can give me the full 101?

first off- in the market to buy, not make.

where to buy? anywhere besides ebay? is $40-50 a fair price for one of these and are they all about the same in quality/parts?

how good are they exactly? never had an amp before (waiting til feb for the 3 switch headphonia dac/amp) but i figure one of these would work swell with my ipod.

would one create much of a difference with sr60s or portapros?

really appreciate any feedback. searched the forum but had a tough time finding answers to all of my questions.

edit: one more question i forgot to add is how stable are they? is it pretty common to run into technical problems? it's a concern because i'm not at all a DIY person. i'd panic if i had to actually tinker with this stuff myself.

If you looking for something portable...then check out the sticky up above

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=103327

This is a review and thoughts of most of the portables out there.

You can click on the amp of choice and it should point you to a website that you can buy it from. If you cant find it that way, just search it in google. First you have to pick which you want.

I personally have a Go-Vibe v3 and love it. It cost me 40$ and i dropped another 12$ on a different opamp for it. Its great for the money, came in a hard metal case. Its MUCH stronger then a Altoids type tin.

There are many good choices for portables...if you just want a cheap CMOY, they Ebay is always good. I believe a Govibe, PA2V2, LDM+ are all CMOYs. I could be wrong on that...just guessing.

where can you pick up a govibe online? i've seen the name thrown around here a lot, tried googling but came up with a bunch of threads from random message boards. no stores selling them.

Quote:



http://www.go-vibe-headphoneamp.com/Order.html

yeah but this looks so cool though



so this just doesn't compare to what else is out there? not worth the $45?

I wouldnt say that at all. They are basically all the same thing. Depending on op amp used. Some are alittle better then others of course. Its really up to you.

In my opinion, any amp will help your music sound better, if not by a small amount. It is totally not necessary but nice if you have one.