Leaving portable hifi - it's too silly - Page 10

Hey everyone, I have been reading this thread with interest. I agree that the gear you get for the price you pay for it is not worth it in portable head-fi. That does not mean that I am not satisfied with my portable rigw hich i have now, it just means I indeed think i paid too much for it. I also think there should be more innovation in the portable amp market/that more diyers should enter the scene. I think they really can (and already do infact in some cases) make a difference.
I am now using the 5.5g imod +alo lod cable+alo recabled edition 9 with their new gxc cable. And yes you can totally use the ed9s in public, no need for bohtersome and unnatural sounding (to me at least) iems. (iems isolate better though). I am considering getting a portable vcap dock and different interconnects for my imod and see how that goes. I think everyone should go through their own journey and I think indeed everyone hears differently. I also think though that oftentimes on headfi difference in sound are made bigger then what they are in actuallity and it all of course depends on where you are coming from and what equipment you have used in the past.
What I am m ore disenchanted with however at this momen tis my home rig. I have a headroom maxed desktop amp+dac which i use with my computer an kimber usb cable. But it does not sound THAT much better then my imod rig +sr71a and the seem ehadphones. Sure the fullsize rig sound s bit better, more soundstage (wide and deep) a bit bette rbass and clarity but it is certainly not night and day. And htis is quite disturbing to me since I paid 1800 euro for that amp+dac+power supply alone...
It might be the ed9s because I have heard they do not react that much to different sources/dont scale that well but it still worries me...
It could of course be my ears...
please continue the great posts
Greetings, Anouk,

nicely written, I enjoyed that..
But, I have a worry; I'm waiting on my tomahawk and really can't hold on much longer! I am gonna be in your position and resent it?
:O scared now

What more do you want from the DIY community? They give out freely how to make cables, the cmoy, the mini-3, the LISA III (surprised? Its been that way, though very few went that route), and much more. If you explore those, I think you very well may find that those amps are the top in their price range in sound quality. I have heard from others nothing but great things about all of those amps.

As for what you heard about the Ed. 9, I can only say that I have also heard some of that same thing. Many people love them to death, its mostly been stories of love/hate relationships from owners. Trust your own ears.

Well I took delivery of my first headphone amp a couple of weeks ago, and I know that having listened to my music through the SR-71A there is no way I am going back. I am quite happy to take the SR-71A with me wherever I go - I consider it to be portable.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it gets more than a little annoying when I am being told that I am foolish for buying what I believe suits my lifestyle perfectly.

Don't be scared, I have no doubts that you will love the Tomahawk, it's a great amp.

Besides, Ray offers a 30 day money back guarantee so this takes any worry out of the purchase.

Well I'm using then with SE530s and I've heard gleaming tings

But yeah, i really really hope it makes a big difference, To be honest the state I'm in any difference is great.. God I'm ill (quality that is)

And jeez, the amount of people who already call me stupid ("friends") :P

Is that a condom wearing a headphone in your avatar?

And there you go.

This is why a good portable amp provides great value. It can take you close to home rig performance, and you can take it with you.

The incredible interest in portable amps is no fluke.

its a conspiracy; all but my first post disappeared I cant be bothered stating it all again; I like my amp+cables. if you don't then dont use them. I did enjoy our little exchange last night though manox

It wasn't a conspiracy, it was server issue. Jude explains it in a sticky at the top of each section of the forums.

It starts with this:


A Message From Jude About This Last Outage
Dear Friends,

You may have noticed that some of your posts are missing, so, for that, I apologize. We had to restore from our last backup--a backup made about 10 or 11 hours ago, so I estimate a loss of approximately 600 to 700 posts, as most of that time was off-peak. Nevertheless, that's a substantial loss, and, again, I'm very sorry.

Was Apple banned just because he quoted an extra long (but obviously very well written and topical) post, or are there other things going on?

Other things. I like him but he pissed off the wrong people.

can you spell facetious? of course it wasn't a conspiracy did you really think I was serious

luminette I really don't know what your trying to achieve with this thread; its a circular argument and based on matters of opinion. What's worth the money to me, may not be worth it to you. Your stance of telling other people that they shouldn't be enjoying their setups, because in your opinion they're a rip off is confusing to me.. Portable systems were never designed to compete with home systems; they're in a different league altogether. they are there to fill a gap, so that people that love great sound are able to get as close as possible to what they may have at home while out on the road or if they dont have the money/space to have a home system. Now if you are arguing that they (amps, LOD's etc.) dont make a difference at all, then you must have malformed ears. Some people are willing to pay for the extra 10% and I actually find it to be quite portable still. Remember boomboxes were portable stereo's once, are you going to complain about the size when you think about that. All technology/objects in the top tier ARE expensive thats just the way it is, whether its computers, beef, jeans. poodles etc etc. now I do disagree with some of the tripe night and day differences that are posted on here sometimes; but the thing is it's all subjective. There is just as much crapola in the home hi-fi market; in fact maybe more; it certainly costs a LOT more for high end. and the length of cables that you need for hi-fi means that they cost heaps more for high end. i'm not going to argue about it any more since most of my argument was lost last night; but please leave it up to us to decide whats best for us. It may not be for you (I dont know what you were expecting) but that doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't have they're own journey. Its posible that at the end of this I will end up in the same position as you, but its very unlikely because I have reasonable expectations of what an amp the smaller than the size of a pack of cards can do; which apparently you dont.

chill out will ya; just enjoy the music

I hate to say it but Luminette has got several good points that are quite valid not only in portable hi-fi but with hi-fi in general.

However what one must remember is that in terms of all hi-fi, headphones are the best value. The miniaturisation of parts found in portable takes R & D (which costs $$) and to actually build them requires greater work resulting in lower economies of scale. Same really goes for speakers with the enlargement of parts. Headphones fits firmly in the middle. Headphones are really just the most economical to make.

I agree with that fact that well, portable setups can't even get close to decent home setups really. That said though, the space taken by home setups = bigger more complex circuits which not surprisingly results in higher SQ. One's got to take into account portability and space when making circuits for portable amps. That sacrifices more complex circuits (unless you want your costs to skyrocket) which sacrifices SQ.

I came across wild kiwi in China. I found out they are actually native there and not other countries as many believe. There are many varieties.

On a portable not getting close to a good home amp, I do not agree. If you are feeding a very good portable from a good source the sound can be excellent. I use my Woo 6 quite often here at home and my modded 6 has been compared to some very fine home amps and come out very well. In comparing the 71A (broken in) I find the 71A is not banished and scorned. It holds up surprisingly well when using the same source.