[nam8macs]

Hey Head-Fi, I need some advice. Ive spent the last two or three days reading up on portable amps and I seem to find a lot of contradicting opinions on whether the 580s need an amp or not. I ordered a pair of HFI 580s a week ago, and while they haven't come in yet, Im a bit worried that an unamped 160gb iPod Classic / HP Laptop won't power them properly.
 
Asthetics aren't important to me, as long as its small/sleek enough to carry around on the bus/train/walking. As far as my musical preference goes, I mostly listen to rock and electronica, but not exclusively. I am willing to spend up to $160 US Dollars, or somewhere in that region.
 
Does anyone have any good recommendations?
 
Thanks again, and sorry for being such a noob

 

[nam8macs]

I'm looking at the Ibasso T3 but I have no idea if thats a good choice or not

 

[jd4091]

Hey Head-Fi, I need some advice. Ive spent the last two or three days reading up on portable amps and I seem to find a lot of contradicting opinions on whether the 580s need an amp or not. I ordered a pair of HFI 580s a week ago, and while they haven't come in yet, Im a bit worried that an unamped 160gb iPod Classic / HP Laptop won't power them properly.
 
Asthetics aren't important to me, as long as its small/sleek enough to carry around on the bus/train/walking. As far as my musical preference goes, I mostly listen to rock and electronica, but not exclusively. I am willing to spend up to $160 US Dollars, or somewhere in that region.
 
Does anyone have any good recommendations?
 
Thanks again, and sorry for being such a noob

 

 

[jd4091]

In my experience, (I'm listening with my HD580s through an ipod classic 80gb and a total bithead as I type), The ipod alone drives the HD580s to an acceptable level, but the ipod volume is nearly maxed out.  The Total Bithead improves things quite a bit. Plenty of power to drive the 580's. I'm also pleased with the TB as a DAC/amp though my run of the mill Acer laptop (Vista).  I run the ipod through it's line out to the TB and run the TB on it's batteries when running it from the laptop. You can run the TB from the computer's usb supplied power, albeit at a slightly lower voltage. Don't know about the basshead part, but I suppose one could eq the ipod to their preference. The eq on my ipod is flat and I hear a nice full, balanced sound. Sure, there's bigger, badder portable amps out there, but for the current Headroom price of $129, it works great for me. 
 

 

[Lex]

I use an iBasso D2+ with my HFI-580 and it's an excellent combination, powers the bottom-end in a way that most portable players alone cannot.

 

[nam8macs]

Thanks guys, I ended up just following the forum advice for noobs and jumping in without worrying, so I didn't see your replies before purchase, but I ended up with the iBasso D2 + BOA in green, and it just arrived today. Headphones are still a day out but the amp already makes my Sennheiser 212 Pros sound muuuch better. I'm looking forward to the burn in process and trying to spot the differences...
 
Still pretty new to all the audiophile terminology but I'm working on it

hahahahaha
 
I ordered it from iBasso.com, and while it got here very fast, Mozilla Firefox seems to think that iBasso.com is some virus attack site, so potential warnings to other customers out there, I'm not sure. Haven't seen any fraudulent card charges at least... Anyways, I also didn't recieve my owners manual with it, so that's the only complaint I have. Quick shipping.
 
EDIT: Upon running a couple different antivirus/anti-malware programs, my computer has so far come up clean. Chances are Firefox was just being finnicky. Also, you can download the manual on their site, on the same page where you order the model you want.