[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

So I've just ordered everything I need for my new portable rig:

Beyerdynamic DT990 Premium 2005 600Ω (ohm)

iBasso P3+ Portable Headphone Amp

Nationite S:Flo2 16gb

I'm hoping to provide a bit of info here for those that also are looking at building high performance portable rigs. Once I have received all the items that I bought above I will write a review in this thread as well. For now just an overview.

It took a lot of comparisons and reading to choose the above parts. A summary of my thought processes:

Headphones:
I was tossing up between:......SQ Bass Mids Treble Stage Balance Fun
Beyer DT990 05, 600Ω............A+ A A A A A A
Denon D5000.........................A A+ B+ B+ B+ B+ A+
Senn HD650..........................A+ A B B+ A A B+
Grado SR325i.........................A+ A A B+ B+ B+ A+
Shure SRH840........................B B+ B B B B+ B+
Beyer DT250..........................B+ B+ B+ B+ B A B+

Basically I regard all these phones Highly, however I feel that the 600ohm DT990 is just very well balanced and smooth yet energetic in sound. It is the most well rounded IMO, it doesn't lack in any area but doesn't best any either. It does have superb sound quality and detail rendition though. Isolation was not taken into account in the comparison. I also must emphasize that this review is only useful for looking at the 600 ohm model as the other DT990 32/250ohm models differ in many of the fields (eg not as balanced and smooth, have more bass and treble ect)

PS: I like my bass, this is why there are no AKG or Audio Technicas in the line up. Ultrasone while having great bass build very uncomfortable phones, so are unfit for a portable imo. All phones in the comparison are very comfy with the exception of the Grado and Shure which are average (but not uncomfy).

Amp:
I was basically looking at all the high end portable amps less than $500, I picked the best from each major brand to look at-

RSA Mustang P-51
Headamp Pico
Meier Audio 3MOVE
iBasso P3+

After first choosing the headphone I was to choose, it was easy to narrow down to amps that were able to drive the 600ohm beasts. From research and asking the manufactures questions I was able to determine that the iBasso P3+ would be able to provide the most power to the headphones by a fair margin to the others. My second concern was SQ, It seemed that in stock configuration, the SQ of the other three amps is better than the iBasso. However unique to iBasso is the ability to customize opamps and buffers. With this ability the iBasso can equal or indeed exceed(some people believe) the other amps in SQ. This and the fact that it is the cheapest amp in the bunch made it the obvious choice.

Source:
There are only a few high SQ portable sources around (that are affordable):
Nationite S:Flo2
Meizu M6

Basically the Nationite is a no brainer, it features an outstanding list of hardware (has to been seen to be believed) and has a dedicated line out!!! I could not find another player even in the same league to compare it too...

 

[NapalmK]

Interesting read. This is pretty helpful. Thanks for taking the time to do a write up. This will come in handy when I get enough money to fund a portable rig.