Disturbing Trend - Page 7

edwood, this is not about that kinda stuff.

LOL; I remember you getting a decent mouthfull of cr@p for that one from Pico fanboy. Ouch!

I understand your point on portable gear, in fact I firmly agree on that point, though perhaps maybe to too much of an extreme. I don't personally think you can get great sound portably so I sold all my portable gear and now I just use ibuds. I guess I just don't understand why because of this thread, you put that statement in your signature. Maybe instead it should read, don't invest in portable gear with the thoughts it will best home gear.

Accuse away!

Bring your R10's to the SoFlo meet and hook em up to the Pico. They sound half-good. (see, I'm an optimist.)

-Ed

Please, Boomana. Think of newbies here. How else can they get new gear at a discount a month later on the FS forums?

Oh wait, wasn't I advocating that we should drive off newbies... Just say no, to FOTM!



-Edf

So communicate your knowledge. How are new members supposed to know that they really need a home amp if you don't tell them? Knowledge has to originate from somewhere.

By the way, the reason a lot of people go for portable amps is they don't have enough money to build both a home setup and portable setup (myself included). This is an expensive hobby, and it takes time to move up the ladder to expensive setups.

I agree with the OP that gear levels should be matched appropriately to get the best value for money and sound for a given gear setup. On the one hand, there are overall diminishing returns to money in the audiophile world. But on the other hand, there is also a great deal of complementarity. This is to say that a good pair of headphones without a good amp isn't a good pair of headphones. And I agree with this point.

But I'm not sure if I completely agree that we have a disturbing trend on our hands. I think the trend we are seeing is that more Head-Fiers are discussing portable amplifiers and are incorporating high-end headphones in this discussion. Indeed, even the amplifier manufacturers themselves include this in their marketing rhetoric. Are we to blame the manufacturers for claiming that their portables can drive high-end headphones? I don't think so.

I'm beginning to wonder what portable headphone amplifiers should be used for, if not to drive high-end cans. I'll use myself as an example. I purchased a Corda Headsix from Jan Meier for $150 to use with my laptop computer in a transportable setup. I usually plug my K240S or RP-21 into this amplifier, but why should I stop there? When I go home, I also plug my K701 into this amp to see what its limits are, and those limits are impressive indeed.

My point is that portable amps should be enjoyed for what they are, nothing more (as the OP emphasizes), but also nothing less.

I stopped being disturbed a long time ago

I am not disturbed any more about what everybody else is doing. I know I am doing what I am comfortable with. That said, I do have nothing but disdain for the ipod and all the associated junk that goes with it.

One of my favourite Simpsons quotes goes as follows:

Homer: Are you sure you don’t want to come? In a civil war re-enactment we need lots of Indians to shoot.
Apu: I don’t know what part of that sentence to correct first.

Apu's response is especially how I feel about your objection to portable amps and affinity to home amps.

I'd say some of us buy the budget stuff because life's expenses consist of much more than having expensive, proper-headphone-driving listening gear, eg. families, rent or mortgage payments, groceries, transportation, tuition, etc. At the same time, how many non-top-of-the-line products have you bought?

And how would you define what drives another piece of equipment well? Would everyone have just home setups because all portable amps are insufficient? Would those who wanted to listen to their HD650s and K701s on the go be forbidden to do so by good head-fi manners because portable amps can't drive them well? To suggest that only home amps can drive HD650s is not only ignorant and intolerant of the budget-fi portion of not only head-fi but in every realm of life, but it is also completely fallacious in itself. For example, the Grado RA-1 can be considered as a home amp. Incidentally it doubles as a portable amp as the various CMoys that often pop up. You would need to define what a home amp is, and inevitably your definition would either be too broad that it could contain amps such as the RA-1 or too narrow that it would exclude amps like the RA-1. Besides, who's to say that all home amps not only better portable amps in sound, but that they drive all headphones properly? I wouldn't check off your name in that ballot, no matter what gear listing you had.

Further, what do you have to say about Tyll Hertsens going the way of the desktop speaker setup? Clearly everyone here should "be interested in the qualities of reference headphones," including one of the premier sponsors and one of the foremen of the headphone amp movement.

With your minimalistic view of audio, meets would be pointless because there would be two clearly distinct groups: those with nothing good to listen to since they couldn't afford the rig that drives their headphones well and those that can, whose setups would have very little variation.

Not only did you fail in all the aforementioned aspects, but you fail to clarify whether any of these portable amp praisers have heard anything better. Are they just saying, "Hey, I like this amp with this headphone!" or are they saying, "Hey, this portable amp kills all home amps and is the end of the listening experience," the latter of which I would accept as the only credible objection raised in this thread.

I could go on...

I don't know what the issue is.

For my portable, I have a backpack gas powered generator feeding a voltage regulator and plugged into my amp that is deeply class A biased at > 60mA that is hung from my neck.

I have a 4TB RAID array full of FLAC with 4GB RAM buffers strapped to one leg. A "high end" DAC strapped to another. I look like a suicide bomber, and I can't get through airport security.

Portable is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm using a portable amp with HD650... I want to move a step up - I think Opera might do the job.
But wait, I also need a good source.

Between the two and the balanced cables, I'm expecting $2500 - $3000. That's not petty change for me.

So, I guess the reason why portables are main topic is because mid-hi stuff are not as accessible as the portable.
In other words, most people expect more even paying less.

I once googled Vcoheda's Meridian G8... damn that thing is expensive. I wonder how it sounds.

It's just takes time(and money) to climb up there... tyring many gears on the way...

I think this post makes a clear point. You always get what you pay for.

Hi-Fi = Hi-budget

I disagree.

Hi-Fi is personal. High budget doesn't always equate to better. In a vague and ambiguous area, there are those who take a stand and those who are sheep. There are snake oil salesman who prey on the sheep, as there are sheep who follow what others say.

Hi-Fi is where you stop hearing the difference. For each, it is an individual journey.

I was thinking the same thing, but joneeboi said it much better than I could say it myself. The rig that "drives their headphones well" is subjective and ill-defined. I understand that many people wish to draw a line on the ground and throw all the amplifiers that don't drive their headphones well on one side of the line, and keep all the others on their side of the line, within their consideration set. But this line is subjective, and can be erased and moved, depending on who is doing the deciding.

Drawing a line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" is just a simplification resulting from ease of communication. It is easier to say that this amp works with this headphone, but this other amp does not. But this is just what we say to make our point. The reality is that these amplifiers fall on a continuum of more and less, not just yes and no.