Promising new portable headphone amp (Mobile Icon) from NuForce - Page 4

Thanks H/A

Your insight is very helpful as always.

Patience is not one of my virtues so I will be sure to give mine a proper torching. I will most likely leave it running from my SoundBlaster XFI card at my PC.or if I take my laptop to work.I like my portable rig to be very micro as I do a lot of footwork at the hospital and even though most of my shifts are alone at night I still need to move about my department. I usually listen to my C-3's from my 2nd gen shuffle (AAC) with my Travagans colors inline and Shure PTH. Everything hangs from my lapel so i'm not bogged down.

Can someone please post pics if possible. The pics on Nuforce's website are god-awful. I am trying to get an idea what this looks like as I am in the market for a new Amp/Dac and the price is right!

I will get pics up later today - the width and depth are almost the same as my iBasso D2 Boa, but the thickness is about half - so you could stack two of these and have the size of an iBasso D2 Boa.

It is about 1 cm narrower than my iPhone 3G and only about 2/3 as long, with about the same thickness.

That would be great. Thanks Larry!

What about the "optional iPod adapter"? Cost? Availability? With that thing if it is what it says it is, then you got something. Without it, it's just another Airhead.

If you value the opinion of a novice and you can wait a week or two, I'll let you know how they pair. After reading what seems like a thousand threads, I decided on the DT 770/80 Pro's, and I eventually decided to get this amp, despite how new it is. I'm out in Iraq, so it'll take a bit to ship. I'll post my ameteur thoughts on this combo once I actually get it.

I got mine today and so far it's just charging. One thing I noticed was that they are still building these things with no on/off switch. Didn't we tell them that we don't like that ???? The headphone jacks act as on/off switches but I like to leave me HF's plugged in. Aslo all of the jacks are on the top. Even the line in which means I need a longer LOD cable from my Ipod to the top of the Nuforce instead of the bottom. I could place it upside down but the the headphone jacks would be at the bottom.

It's about half the size of my Ipod
5th gen 80gb video. if you keep the same dimensions percentage wise.

It's apparently a brushed aluminum top with black plastic back and sides. with an anti-slip coating. The LED's are really small but can be seen.

I'll start burning it in as soon as I find my usb hub ( I'm at work and my laptop only has two USB1's.) and Mousy has dibs on one and the hard drive with my music has the other. (Orignal Vio) It even came with Window's ME.

The headphone jacks and input are on the same side next to each other, like 90% of my other headphone amps have been (Predator, Tomahawk, Pico, D1, D2, D3, Lyrix, Headsix, V1, Caffeine), so I am not sure what the problem is. Only my TTVJ portable Millett hybrid has the input on one end and the headphone out on the other, and that is the one think I dislike about it for portable use (but the one thing that makes it a good desktop amp replacement).

However, I am also not sure how I feel about the headphone jack turning the amp on when headphones are inserted, but I don't leave headphones plugged in so it doesn't affect me as much.

From NUFORCE on the iPod adapter that bypasses the crappy amp and bud jack..."Hi, The iPod adapter is not available for shipping yet and we haven't added it on the Amazon.com store. It should be available Dec 18. Thanks Jason "

I think this will be way cool and will make me want one of these amps if the listening SQ reports come back strong. I can't imaging NUFORCE making something that didn't approach high fidelity.

I'd like to hear some feedback regarding how they perform with Grados. I find that my Mini3 further emphasizes the typical fatiguing treble of the Grados, it'll be nice if the Nuforce can "tame" them somewhat.

Thanks for the help. I'm probably more of an amateur than most when it comes to this stuff.
I actually went ahead and got a CMOY from Ebay for my DT 770/80's, however that doesn't rule out me getting a Mobile Icon, if it proves to be a good product. Thanks again to everyone for the input.

i received my Mobile Icon in the mail today rather unexpectedly -- apparently my brother is even cooler than i give him credit for...

i imagined it would have more heft...it is surprisingly lightweight & feels almost as if it is hollow...

the cables aren't as ugly as they look in the pics -- but they're close...

size-wise, it's slightly longer/wider/taller than a Sansa Fuze...i'm going to try later to put the included band around the two to see if it'll hold both together securely (right now i have both plugged into the computer)...they both have the matte black rubbery backing, but the Icon's feels more like plastic...my plan is to have them back-to-back with the Icon upside-down so the connections will be on the same end...

anyhow, now that they've both had a charge, i'm gonna hit up some Rilo Kiley Live at Fingerprints FLACKY goodness...

i'll mess with the DAC at a later date...

Hmm, debating whether or not to get this amp/dac. I already ordered an e5 as my portable, but if this gets decent reviews I'll consider it due to its small size. I'm not sure how I feel about no on/off switch though. Seems like it could get a little annoying for me at times.

Anyone know if there would be a noticeable difference between the Mobile Icon's DAC and my Thinkpad r61's on board sound card? I think that will be the deciding factor for me. This might end up on my Christmas wish list.

Hi,
I have a Thinkpad T61 and any good USB audio device is clearly superior to the built-in sound card.

One Issue with the nuforce is that it by-passes your onboard soundcard in favor of it's own. When you plug the USB into your computer (PC) it recognizes it as a USB Sound Device and makes it the primary sound device while it remains plugged in. So you cannot do a side-by-side comparison because your onboard sound card is disabled as long as the NuForce dac is plugged into your computer. Also, although mine has not been burned in very long it still does not seem to have much amplification in DAC mode. The Onboard with a Fiio E3 amp or my Travagans Colors has almost twice the volume of the NuForce in DAC Mode. I have yet to pair it in non-Dac mode with my Ipod via 3.5mm Line -in to compare it to the Headroom Total Airhead. With just 30 hrs of Burn-in, the SQ to me is almost Identical to the Airhead. Very clean and reference quality with no "WOW" to it. So far it's a three way tie between with the Travagans Colors.and Total Airhead. I have excelent SQ from my onboard cards so the DAC May be unnecessary for me.
I would be interested in comparing this to the new Fiio E5. Next time we'll put it together with my Ipod 5th gen video and Siik 3.5mm/Firewire LOD.