AQUA Audio Amplifier Initial Impressions Many moons ago, I was at my very design-centric workspace and one of my fellow audio geeks asked if I’d seen the Kickstarter for that “tiny new audio amp.” Of course, upon seeing it, I absolutely had to try this thing. Instabuy! (Especially for the grand total of $80 US that it was going for… if it’s any improvement over the stock iPhone DAC, it’ll be worthwhile.) Since rumors have been flying in the meantime that the next gen iPhone might come without a headphone jack, this seems like an even better...

First off, my IEM taste might be a bit biased at this point -- I've been through a lot of IEMs in the past (and have a bunch left around for comparison listening), but I've been using Westone W60 IEMs for the past year, and that's a hard comparison for any IEM, let alone one that comes in at a fifth of the price (or a tenth if you were an Indiegogo supporter, like me). Also, after a few minutes of listening with the default white filters, I decided to go for the black (balanced) ones instead. (Side note: did anyone else have an almost impossible time...