ngkou
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2016
- Posts
- 52
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- 10
well, although i am a bit confused , I start leaning torwards the portable solution because:
My personal experience with the tiny 150gr Cayin C5 headphone amplifier ($200) is superior to my full size 7 kg Cambridge Audio 540 AV amplifier ($900) headphone out (i know this av amp does other jobs as well, but still couldnt they offer a decent head amp section?)
Looking at the internal circuit of the HA-200 , Burson, Lehman etc I see that the amplification circuit is very small and simple. The rest of the space is transformers and rectifying circuits which in fact are quite needless if you have a DC battery like the portable amplifiers. In addition to that , Mike s personal experience with the expensive desktop Oppo DAC/Amp ($1500) proves to be inferior to the small and cheaper Oppo HA-2. So , size seems not to matter !
Reading further reviews , people use the ifi micro iDSD which is also a powerful amplifier and say it is better that the expensive Burson :
iFi Micro iDSD was a really nice surprise. I never expected this quality at that price. I didn’t feel like I was listening to a portable unit at all. I felt like listening to a full blown desktop rig. Actually, I think it might beat a lot of more expensive and bigger desktop rigs.
Going to stretch my memory a little more and make another bold remark.
I think that iDSD might overall be better than Burson Conductor as well. The DAC section is clearly superior and the amplification section is more transparent, giving a more natural sound presentation. The amp in conductor is faster and has more impact, but overall, I think that iFi might be better.
http://headmania.org/2015/02/07/ifi-idsd-micro-review/
My personal experience with the tiny 150gr Cayin C5 headphone amplifier ($200) is superior to my full size 7 kg Cambridge Audio 540 AV amplifier ($900) headphone out (i know this av amp does other jobs as well, but still couldnt they offer a decent head amp section?)
Looking at the internal circuit of the HA-200 , Burson, Lehman etc I see that the amplification circuit is very small and simple. The rest of the space is transformers and rectifying circuits which in fact are quite needless if you have a DC battery like the portable amplifiers. In addition to that , Mike s personal experience with the expensive desktop Oppo DAC/Amp ($1500) proves to be inferior to the small and cheaper Oppo HA-2. So , size seems not to matter !
Reading further reviews , people use the ifi micro iDSD which is also a powerful amplifier and say it is better that the expensive Burson :
iFi Micro iDSD was a really nice surprise. I never expected this quality at that price. I didn’t feel like I was listening to a portable unit at all. I felt like listening to a full blown desktop rig. Actually, I think it might beat a lot of more expensive and bigger desktop rigs.
Going to stretch my memory a little more and make another bold remark.
I think that iDSD might overall be better than Burson Conductor as well. The DAC section is clearly superior and the amplification section is more transparent, giving a more natural sound presentation. The amp in conductor is faster and has more impact, but overall, I think that iFi might be better.
http://headmania.org/2015/02/07/ifi-idsd-micro-review/