here's a question, which item is more important or has a bigger impact on sound qaulity - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiteki 

 

Well I don't really know anything about portable amps, but it's the best one I've heard so far that's for sure.

 

I take it Gwarmi has experience with a cheaper portable amp that sounds better, my guess is that Furutech something...

 

 

 Well the Fostex is a better portable DAC in my opinion than amp, the head amp just feels a little compromised in my opinion.

 Yes, not as nice as this little favorite the Furutech Cruise  Pics are from today, quite a bit bulkier than the E11 though.

 Circuitry is very, very clean.

I say headphones too. Amps and DACs if there's extra cash, which in most cases never happens.

Where are all the heterodox audiophiles who would yell cables first, dacs second, amp third, music file forth and headphones last?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingpage 

I say headphones too. Amps and DACs if there's extra cash, which in most cases never happens.

 

Where are all the heterodox audiophiles who would yell cables first, dacs second, amp third, music file forth and headphones last?

 Come on ~ power conditioning!! and even before that, everyone knows you start with one of these!@

Cables first, dacs second, amp third, music file forth and headphones last. Exactly in that order!

If it was me, I'd go for the headphones first and foremost. They are the most important ingredient IMO. Second, I'd look at the source to see if it's decent enough - I wouldn't i.e. buy a $600 headphone to go with a $5 portable radio that you have to change batteries every 30 mins and that only works when you have excellent weather conditions. However, I'd rate your iPod as decent. For portable use, just make sure it has a good DAC. Personally I notice more improvements with a DAC than an Amp as long as the opamp in whatever system you have is decent. But as you can see, I don't really own "hard-to-drive" headphones either.

As for the lossless/bitrate debate: my take is that it is more dependant on the recording/mastering itself than the bitrate. I actually have several records at 128 kbps that outshines some of my FLAC records. How is that possible? I blame it on superior mastering/recording technique while in the studio. So I'm not convinced that lossless is always better. If the mastering of a record is **** to begin with, no lossless compression will make it better.

Yeah if you listen to a good recording quality like this (just an example) www.avisonensemble.com in 192kbps, it will still sound 3 times better than a band from the 90's that made their albums on a cassette tape walkman in a garage, in FLAC.

Pretty much what Coq De Combat said.

Headphones, source, amp, and DAC, in that order.

The headphones ultimately decide what you hear and how you hear it in the end with their own little colorations and presentations, though some of them need amps to sound proper (or even function at all, if we're talking electrostatics).

The source...well, that should be obvious. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

The DAC? As long as I'm not hearing any hissing or buzzing that obviously shouldn't be there (like with integrated motherboard audio or front-panel audio jacks), I'm fine. At least, I don't see the benefit for paying hundreds more over an X-Fi Titanium HD right now when those same hundreds of dollars could be used to buy better Stax gear...

DAC/sound-card is more important than amp, *in my current experience.