Portable Amplifier for Sony X series Walkman

Just a headds up, you are probably going to want to spend a lot on the portable amp. I owned a P-51 Mustang amp and it made no difference to my ears.

Quote:

Originally Posted by High_Q 

What portable amplifier do you guys think is a perfect match for Sony X series walkman?

maybe this has a better internal amp?

Well I'm using an X and with a PA2V2 there is no difference, that S-Master Digital Amplifier Sony put in it is pretty good, so I'm going higher go to the 38 amp round up thread, and look at the top of the tier 1 amps, that's what I'm getting 

I am using the X1050 together with the Headstage Arrow 12HE using a silver/copper LOD. 

It noticably improves SQ. The Arrow amp is extremely versatile with crossfeed, bass boost, impedance and gain adjustments and makes my Hifiman RE0 sing like never before. 

I'm running the Headstage Arrow 12HE as well, and agree with Negakinu about its improvements. Also, as others have wondered, the X does have a very good internal amplifier and therefore takes a top tier amp to really make a difference. I hardly noticed a difference with the Mustang, then had decent improvements with the Shadow and Rx, but settled on the Arrow after reading up on its flexibility. The Rx and Arrow provide about the same amount of SQ bump (although with slightly different sonic characteristics), but I prefer the Arrow's form factor and flexibility in features over the ALO. Search Ebay for the LOD cable to benefit the most from whatever amp you choose. 

Good luck.

I personally wouldn't use any portable amps for any of the Sony Walkman players unless you really need more gain for your headphones than what the internal amp provides (but do any portable headphones/IEM's really need that?), or if your player is hissy and you need to bypass it or something.  Sony players sound great on their own and that's their major selling point over here in the first place...

I can attest to the high caliber of the S master amplifier in the sony X1060 at least compared to some of the portable amps I tried. Despite its warmth, I actually preferred it to the ibasso D4, D10 and nuforce uDAC because it sounds more natural, shows a more vivid picture of air around and between instruments, had better treble extension and to me sounded more musical.

i use an ibasso D10 with my sony X, with an ALO line-out dock. the walkman's internal amp does provide a clean sound, but it doesn't have enough power to make my ultrasone pro 750's loud, even at max volume. i chose the d10 because it has a good DAC too that i use with my laptop. if i didn't need the DAC, i would probably have gone for a headstage arrow or pico slim.

a sidenote that may be of interest: when plugged into an amp from the line-out, the volume is disabled in the sony, but the sound processing effects and EQ still work. i'm assuming because the sony has a digital amp which modifies the sound before it gets transformed into an analog signal.

edit: the ibasso d10 also helps get rid of some hiss/noise that i notice when using my orto e-q7's straight from the headphone out.

I'm holding off on the T1's until the portacode comes out, perhaps you might want to look into it? www.triadaudio.net

hi have sony nwz-a826/828.do you reckon these are good without p/amp.was considering a h/stage arrow.headphones are sennheiser px100

Hey Madnanny1, 

I think you would do better in spending the cash on a better headphone. It's pretty useless to amp a $30, low-fi headphone with a $250 amp. :)