PROLOGUE When I got into this hobby back in 2010 my seminal purchase was a Klipsch Image One headphone. At the time it was the first headphone I had spent over $100 on and the first audio product I had purchased in a long time. I had owned countless numbers of beater Sony’s and Koss Porta Pros but the Klipsch headphone seemed like a step up to something more serious in my book. The problem was that it was a little too insensitive for my iPad and iPod. That lack of drive or ability to pump up the volume from my two Apple sources would be the...

In the wake of the great Portable Audio Player renaissance of the last two or three years, I have been bewildered by just how many manufacturers are now involved in the battle for market share. What initially seemed to be a cottage industry for a specialized niche market now has dozens of companies with serious engineering chops developing into a robust audio segment.   The first major sortie fired to announce this coming wave was fired by iRiver’s re-branded Astell & Kern players, which many claim has set a new gold standard for performance. And...

There has obviously been a number of reviews of Cayin’s C5 Dac recently, due in large part to Cayin’s recent product review tour that had its genesis here on Head-Fi. I was one of those who signed up for the tour  A.) because I was curious what a portable unit from Cayin is capable of, and B.) I am actually in the market for a new portable unit and thought that the Cayin may be worth consideration. Better than paying the cost of return shipping to Amazon again!   For at least a year, I have been searching and researching portable units that could...

INTRO Full disclosure here, I was contacted by Noontec asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their new flagship headphone the Hammo which I agreed to. They subsequently sent me a pair of Zoro HD 2’s instead. Wait! Zoro? This headphone has actually received a fair amount of praise from the likes of Grandpa Headphone himself, Tyll Hertsen at Inner Fidelity, and Steve Guttenberg of Audiophiliac fame. To be fair though, Guttenberg likes everything, (except Pono), so we’ll have to take his praise with a grain of salt.   INFO   While the phones...

The praise that has been heaped upon the Sennheiser HD650 headphone is something that probably every headphone OEM envies. The HD-650 is nearly a decade old and yet is still viewed by many as a top tier dynamic, worthy flagship, and is the benchmark that many measure price to performance ratio against.   I personally was cruising along quite happy with my set up… Running almost exclusively between Denon D5000’s and Ultrasone Pro900’s. I felt I had the best of both worlds. Since I love the visceral impact of good bass in my music, these two pieces...

When I originally got into this hobby some 2 years ago, my first run of purchases included Sennheiser HD650's, Denon D5000 and Ultrasone Pro900's. I also had a couple beaters from Koss laying around like the Porta Pros (which I LIKE!). So upon purchasing my first true head amp (a Fiio E10) I thought my journey was over.... I had an amazing closed headphone, an amazing open headphone, a decent amp/dac... nuff said. Lets close the book on this consumer business and listen to some music.   From there I focused a good amount of my energy on (A) fixing up...

I bought both of the ALO Continental/ National family members around June/ July of 2012 when the second wave of V2 Continentals hit the market. I got the bug bad at the time and was worried it was going to sell out... I was worried that I was going to miss my chance to own a collectors piece.... A portable tube amp... a one of the kind piece of kit.... Yeah I had gotten bitten by some consumer dementia and was quickly losing site of reality.   The Marantz 8b is a collectors piece... a McIntosh 275 is a collectors piece, a Levinson #33 or a Dynaco...

Firestone Audio Spitfire Mark II   DAC reviews always seem a bit like a crap shoot to me.... At least like trying to draw broad stroke differences between two items with very minor changes in sound. However in regard to my last two DAC's the Firestone Audio people have put forth a product that I can draw some distinct and clear differences from.   The Spitfire MKII sells for anywhere from $200 to $260 USD. Right now there are a couple different vendors selling on Amazon for around $206.00 however most audio focused vendors seem to be selling...

The Violectric V series amps are consumer/ audiophile grade products from German pro audio house Lake People. Fried Reim, CEO and head designer at Lake People/ Violectric, has recently released a Lake People branded line of consumer grade headphone amps as well. The new Lake People G series line will include both balanced and unbalanced configurations.... The G103S (Single Ended) G103P (Pro - Balanced), G109S and G109P.   When looking for my desktop amplifier solution, I had initially focused on the G109S (after wringing my hands over Burson...