ALO Audio RXMKIII Balanced Portable Amplifier Impressions - Page 16

Sorta getting a little OT, but @Kremer930, could you care to elaborate why those? Are there many other portable balanced amps that use Hirose? I only know if iBasso. Whereas at least the RSA/Kobiconn is used by RSA and (now) ALO.

The Hirose or Lemo are suggested as they spring lock together and are not too big or heavy. The Kobicon are plastic and due to the right angle plug would not join nicely.

I am prett confident that Moon audio could do the plugs and adaptors that you need.

I went Hirose as I have the iBasso Pb2 and it means that I have one amp covered without needing an adaptor but the Lemo is the more stylish and more expensive option.

How to connect the DX100 to the iBass DB2?  I use the coax cable output of the DX100 into DB2 as shown here only here I am using the optical cable.  This is when I had the Fostex HP-P1.  This is a special optical cable made just to keep the cabling down.  The same cable that I used above for single ended input I can use for the digital input to the DB2.  Then I need a second cable, the one shown above in a previous post to connect the DB2 to the Mk3.

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Thanks slwiser for sharing the pics. Do you think the addition of the DB2 is worth it considering the bulk of the setup? And is the balanced input really make a big difference? I am really enjoying the balanced output from the RX Mk3 with my LCD2 and hope to bring it to another level with the balanced input. Look forward to your advice.

I do not feel the need to use the balanced DB2 output into my Mk3 when using the single ended line out of the DX100.  My opinion is that the internal dac of the DX100 is superior to the balanced DB2 dac.

 

But your mileage may vary.

Hmm, to get the HE-500 with the Mk3 or to get HE-6 with the Mk3 ....That, is the question...

 

The HE-6 is an absolute power hungry beast of a headphone that people connect up to speaker amps (so Ive just been told recently )  so you may really want to consider whether the HE-6 is going to be run at anywhere near full potential off a portable amp. 

When I plug in and unplug the headphone connector from my RXIII, I can feel the circuit board is not firmly fastened to the enclosure compartment.  The movement is not of a big magnitude, but is very obvious that I can feel it.  Anyone has similar situation?

Not me..

Holy crap that's massive!

The HE6 needs more than 4watts per channel at 50 ohms. Even the Lyr can do with more oomph to properly drive the HE6. I have tested the Rx3 with my HE6 and it did sound better than I expected but it doesn't give it's best. If you are planning a serious amp like a Dark star or the Schiit Moljnir or Statement amp then yes, go for the HE6. If not then the HE500 should give you better results.

Never felt for it nor noticed it. Should the board be attached to the enclosure? I would have guessed only to the end plates. Never really thought about it.

 

Hmm... Yea, for home use with the HE-6 I'd ofcourse use the adapter and a speaker amp, but what made me really consider it, was Headfonia's description of the Rx Mk3 with the HE-6...

I haven't spent much time running them together but since I have the right adaptors I may as well give them a better listen. Will let you know more over the next couple of days. Unless of course someone else is able to chime in.

These are excerpts from the Headfonia review of the mk3:

"The balanced configuration in the Mk3-B yields very powerful results, and the Mk3-B not only drives both the Hifiman HE-500 and HE-6 better than RSA’s SR-71B and Ibasso’s PB-2 portable amps (both balanced models), or Triad Audio’s gigantic L3 amplifier, but also better than a lot of mid-fi desktop amplifiers, and better than most high-end tube desktop amplifiers. It still doesn’t kick like a good speaker amp with the HE-6, but it’s really a good combination and one of the best amps that I’ve heard the HE-6 with.

I admit that I’m a big proponent of bigger is better, and so I’ve always been a big fan of humongous sized desktop amplifiers. How the Mk3-B is able to drive the HE-6 with very good results, frankly speaking, still puzzles me. I’ve always told people that the HE-6 is best used with true speaker amps, because the reality is that the HE-6 is the hardest headphone to drive today, exceeding even the speaker-like AKG K1000. So I talked to the guys at ALO about how they were able to do this. They mentioned the use of the same op-amps as on the Mk2 and Mk1, but in bigger quantities. Other than that, the input and output sections are different than on the Mk2 and Mk1."

"The real magic happens with the Hifiman HE-6. Not only does I have no problem getting enough loudness on the medium gain level, but the amp also has a really good synergy with the HE-6. I’ve always been a bigger fan of the HE-500, but that’s probably due to the fact that most amps I review can’t drive the HE-6 right. The HE-500 is much easier to drive than the HE-6, but in this case, I can see why the HE-6 remains the flagship model, it’s just far more impressive on the Mk3-B."