[exsomnis]

idsd nano is well praised and cheaper, could it be a better choice than the built in dac ??

 
It's better to my ears - more refinement and substance to the highs, better imaging and a natural sound in comparison.  I find the ODAC to be superior to the onboard dac too. 

 

[TontonJoK]

Is it worth to get the nano or micro knowing I won't be using the amp section

 

[koolas]

Received mine today, and honestly right out of the box I can hear that is a great unit, this is even without the burn in of the tubes that had been ordered on top of the stock at ALOaudio. I was a little worried about losing clarity and some of the nuances that I have heard with my M-stage upgraded with the LME4990x2 in there. Because that is a killer solid state, and I will say even with out some actualy burn in it has some authority. I used both my HD600s and my ER4PT IEMs on low gain, both being dead silent between the music. I am very happy with that. Now I just have to let these NOS french tubes burn in, and then give as go with some tube rolling. I wonder anyone and everyone if you had one pair of tubes that you could use with this unit...what would they be? 

The DAC is quite good I would say on a level with the CDAC+ that I use to have, and loved, and that is a relief honestly. Because some all in one units sacrifice one and or the other DAC and Amp.
SO  far this seems to have focused on making a great unit all around,and the only real thing for me that I would of added would be RCA output to use a solid state amp if wanted, because I bet this would have been an even bigger hit.

Again anyone and or everyone, one set of tubes you could use with this unit what would it be?

When you buy Pan Am you pay for it being tube amp and not DAC. I don't see any need for RCA outputs from built-in DAC. If you want DAC don't spend $600 on Pan Am, just spend $250 on iDSD and use it with decent AMP like M-Stage. (IMHO) Pan Am builtin DAC is not worth more than $150.

With Pan Am the clarity of sound depends on tubes you use. Stock tubes are lacking detail a lot. The Voskhods (people keep recommending here) are (IMHO) also very undetailed. I agree that Mullards give great detail, but (IMHO) Sylvania is even better, though people keep complaining about low amount of bass. I use Pan Am on Sylvanias with Alpha Dogs (known for neutral sound), and I don't complain on bass (even though I love EDM) - I just boost it a bit (+3dB) with TB_EQ, and effect is great. If you use Mad Dogs I believe you would be very happy without without using EQ. If you are big fan of Rock music then Mullards are bulls-eye. They give this metallic sound to electric guitars and drums.

 

[koolas]

Is it worth to get the nano or micro knowing I won't be using the amp section

If you are interested in portability, then iDSD Nano is a great choice. I grab mine together with Pan Am and Alphas everyday to work. But for that I use shoulder bag, and that limits a bit my flexibility. If I were to just use pocket in my jacket the iDSD would do great, and I wouldn't complain for small power, as I would probably be carrying IEMs and not Alphas anyways. The Pan Am on the other hand can't be placed in the pocket, even if your pocket is very big there are these tubes sticking out. So for carrying Pan Am you definitely need a bag. If you decide to carry a bag, then you can have more good stuff in it, like big headphones and additional DAC.

So, it all depends on your uses. If you are looking for desktop DAC with neat headphone AMP then NAD D1050 is better choice (I have auditioned it and my jaw dropped) than both iDSD and Pan Am, and (I haven't compared to that) even if they work in chain. If you are looking for something pocket-portable then iDSD is nobrainer.

 

[exsomnis]

Is it worth to get the nano or micro knowing I won't be using the amp section

 
I don't miss my nano iDSD amp section.  It doesn't do my LCD 2s justice.  Useful for when I bring just the iDSD along with my IEMs.
 
I don't know about the micro iDSD's amp section but people are reporting that it's decent with full size cans that are harder to drive.  So you may end up choosing one over the other there.  
 
If you're on a tight budget an ODAC will do just fine.  

 

[JoeDoe]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/734697/alo-audio-pan-am-stack

 

[MrWong]

Perhaps not the forum but I was recommended the Micro iDSD for my Alpha Dogs. But I've also considered the Pan Am.

Seeing as you have both amps what would you recommend as a all-in-one option? Keeping in mind this is my 'portable' set. Haha

 

[MrWong]

Sorry I tried to tag Noobmachine in my prior post. Clearly wasn't successful!

 

[TontonJoK]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/734697/alo-audio-pan-am-stack

123 traders feedback is not enough

 

[TontonJoK]

Perhaps not the forum but I was recommended the Micro iDSD for my Alpha Dogs. But I've also considered the Pan Am.

Seeing as you have both amps what would you recommend as a all-in-one option? Keeping in mind this is my 'portable' set. Haha

solid state vs tubes

The idsd micro is easier to bring around than pan am

Don't know how sounds the micro idsd but what I can say for sure is the pan am is really sounding great

The dac from the idsd is better but the amp section from pan am seems even better

hard choice

 

[Noobmachine]

The iDSD micro is plenty capable of driving the AD, the amp section is very powerful.

 

[MrWong]

  The iDSD micro is plenty capable of driving the AD, the amp section is very powerful.

Has anyone compared the iDSD to the Centrance Hifi M8 by any chance?

 

[koolas]

Has anyone compared the iDSD to the Centrance Hifi M8 by any chance?

Hifi M8 is way more expensive, so what should we compare. M8 will be better I guess, but it costs arm and leg. If I were to pay 1k I would rather go for AK120. It has two shinny Cirrus Logics and some say it has enough power to drive anything, and it's tiny, and it's All-in-one DAC, Amp and Transport as well - what else could you possibly want! Personally I am fan of CL house sound.

 

[koolas]

solid state vs tubes

The idsd micro is easier to bring around than pan am

Don't know how sounds the micro idsd but what I can say for sure is the pan am is really sounding great

The dac from the idsd is better but the amp section from pan am seems even better

hard choice

Normally I use at work Nano iDSD -> Pan Am -> Alpha Dogs, but sometimes Passport runs out of energy, and I have to switch to: iDSD -> Alpha Dogs. The difference is huge. iDSD does not have power to drive bass, so at louder volumes mids get exaggerated. However the problem is not that annoying if you take into account that iDSD is very small box, and Passport just ran out of power...

 

[Noobmachine]

Normally I use at work Nano iDSD -> Pan Am -> Alpha Dogs, but sometimes Passport runs out of energy, and I have to switch to: iDSD -> Alpha Dogs. The difference is huge. iDSD does not have power to drive bass, so at louder volumes mids get exaggerated. However the problem is not that annoying if you take into account that iDSD is very small box, and Passport just ran out of power...

Not the iDSD nano, but the newer micro, the micro has the power the run pretty much any headphone, with 1200mw per channel... I haven't tested but I'm entirely sure they can power the AD, especially since they can power things like the HE-500/HE-6.