Cheap amp for Portable (i suppose) setup

[N4P0L30N]

Well, It seems like I am getting the Sen HD600 for $178 on amazon, and i am probally getting a 20GB zen (the old big one) for really cheap, and i was wondering if there were any 1/2 decent cheap portable amps that i could use with the zen, and with my pc too.

I know nothing about amps, but i heard that mint/cmoy/govibe were pretty good for the price. Any ideas recomendations? I really dont wanna spend that much.

 

[crazyfrenchman27]

How would you define cheap?

 

[Gigabomber]

if napoleon will allow me to put words in his mouth: he didn't even want to buy an amp initially so i take it that entry level or as cheap as possible is probably applicable.

 

[daveh]

It would be a bit of a waste to couple a poor amp to such good headphones. I have gradually worked my way through a number of portable amps and my views are as follows (driving Etymotic ER4Ps with a Sony MZ-NH900 minidisc using ATRAC3 compression at 256 kbit/s):-

sub $80.00

CMOY in-a-tin The one that I bought was cheap, smelled of the original contents and the build quality was awful. However, it was cheap. Worked ok and gave some improvement over the "no-amp" situation.
Xenos X0HA - good quality plastic box, very professionally finished with screen printing etc, soft touch volume control with intergral switch. You cant look into the insides without voiding the warranty so I dont know how it is constructed. Very nice look and feel - I like this one a lot. Sound quality was much better than the CMOY in a tin.
Electric Avenues PA2V2: Good build quality, no screen printing. Nice look and feel. Internal batteries can be charged via a socket. To my listening it was noticeably better than the Xenos - better frequency response. It needed a bit of eq bass lift with Etymotic ER6s but not ER4Ps. Bass stereo is extremely well located so phase issues at low frequencies have been sorted. Interesting website.

nearly $200.00
Portaphile v2. Metal enclosure, just fantastic to handle and looks the part. I originally ordered it with too low a gain. I had it increased to a gain of 11. It uses Black Gate capacitors and these definitely need a period of use to return optimum performance. After about 15 hrs I did not notice any further improvement but apparently there will be some up to at least 30 hrs use. The sound quality is by far and away the best of the bunch. You really do discover things on the recording that you never heard before. To my ears, the Portaphile v2 with the ER-4Ps beats my home Rotel stack driving Stax electrostatics. This amp is quite a bit more expensive than the others but worth every penny.

over $200.00
Shellbrook MaxiMoy - on order; communications with Drew have been excellent.

I would also say that I have had extremely positive experiences dealing with the designers and builders of all of these amps. Cesar, who manufactures the Portaphile was especially accommodating about my returning the amp to have the gain pumped up, and Gary of Electric Avenues was great about keeping me informed about the progress of my order etc.

 

[N4P0L30N]

Electric Avenues PA2V2 seems pretty good for my needs. Anyone else got any opinions about it?

 

[aseltzer144]

The Electric Avenues Pocket Amp 2 was the first amp I picked up and one I will continue to use. I use it with Shure E2s and Ety ER6s and it really brings out the highs and lows at the musical extremes. It may even be accurate to say that it brings out the virtues of both 'phones and also brings them closer to delivering a similar sound quality, but that may be a bit of an oversimplification.

Sound quality aside, the PA2 has some other aspects going for it. It uses rechargeable AAs and recharges them in the amp with the included wall wart. The wall wart also allows for using the amp on ac power when not on-the-go, a feature found generally in only more expensive amps, often as a cost added option. Some say that wall wart operation adds some noise, but in the relatively small amount of time I have had the amp plugged in, I have not detected any such problem. The PA2 is also one of the smallest amps on the market, so it is truly portable. Finally, Gary of Electric Avenue is extremely responsive and welcomes any and all questions on his design.

I can also recommend the Go-Vibe as a very comparable alternative. I picked one of those up just recently out of curiousity more than necessity, and it is truly a high quality, caringly designed product. The Go Vibe seems to be derived from the cmoy specification, though modified in to its own identity whereas the PA2 relies on a different topology. In either case, I recommend these as more professional, quality assured alternative to the cmoys. While I am certain there are some excellent cmoys, it is difficult for a non-DIYer like myself to discern amongst them and I felt that the slightly higher cost of the PA2 or Go-Vibe was justified. They both have a professional level of build quality and represent very noticeable sonic improvement relative to the unamped experience.

 

[EdipisReks]

the Go-Vibe and the Pocketamp2 are likely suspects. personally, however, i would just go ahead and spend the money on a portaphile2. if i wasn't saving for a DAC and a set of Ultimate Ears UE5c's, the portaphile2 would be in my pocket right now.

 

[kramer5150]

I have the electric avenues PA2. I bought it used of the FS forum and its a very good sounding little amp. Noticeably less noise than either of my 2 cmoys and low impedence cans. Note that it CAN exhibit a noisy soundfloor with my e2c, but thats with the gain turned up to over ~60%. This is the first budget amp I have used that does not need an impedence adapter when mated with the e2c. You have to fiddle with te gain knob and your players output level... But that takes ~10 minutes and you find the sweet spot.

IMHO the e2c needs an amp to bring out its best stuff. With the PA2, bass has more impact and depth/resonance/clarity. Midrange and treble are not as conjested too. There is still the characteristic treble recession but the added clarity across the spectrum makes the treble recession less aparent. I still use my creative Muvo EQ to boost 16khz by 4 db and 4khz by 2 db. The bass improvement though is the biggest advantage.

Same can be said with my KSC75. More / better everything. Increased clarity across the spectrum. The bass resonance is the biggest difference.

The KSC75 and e2c are pretty conjested IMHO. Clearing up either of these 2 is no easy feat for a budget amp. The PA2 does it with ease.

Final note, I got my PA2 used for $45. At that price its an absolute steal. The cheapest cmoys go for $50, unless you DIY yours, than its ~$35. Surf the FS forums and ebay, they spring up. Even at the $70 new price its a great bargain.

Havent tried it yet with my DT770-80 or MDRV6....