Portable amp with HIFIMAN players : is it necessary ?

I have the HM-602 and the Headstage Arrow 12HE 3G amp. The SQ of the HO is the same on the two.

However, the Arrow has much more power (drives full size headphones with more authority in the bass), has impedance tweaks (for oversensitive IEMs and for tweaking the sound), bass boost and crossfeed. So - since I got the Arrow I haven't used the HO of the HM-602.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris13 

Hello all, I'm going to Jaben store, Singapore, in a few days to buy a hifiman player : don't know again if it will be HM-601 or HM-801. Given your experiences, would it be a good idea (in term of SQ improvement) to add a good portable amp to the players? Are the default HIFIMAN amps already good enough compared to Meier or RSA amps? Thanks

I have HM-602 and Millet Portable, Move, D10, Supermicro. I use HM-602 is straight unamped even with HD650. Amps break the balance of SQ / Size.

iPod is another story, amp is must for HD650.

And, yes, I may be more useful if you tell me your cans.

I do not use an external amp with either the HM801 nor the HM602.

i use ittransportable, i want the top quality DAC to be juiced up by the best portable amps.but if u dont have the $$$ there's no hurry, sounds great without a portable amp too, I saved up for it bcause I wanted the best. I have tried HM-602, amped touch but they didn't please me, so it has been a long cycle back to the 801

with my HM-601 and IEMs, amping seems not necessary except to fine-tune the volume control (I feel maxed at 3). with full-size headphones and the HM-601, I do use an amp (duh), but then again, it's not the most likely set-up since I got the HM-601 for hi-rez portability, and use my full-size cans while sitting at computers that have DAC-amp combos. - so, as others already pointed out, it depends on what you want to use with your hifiman.