moodyrn
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2008
- Posts
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Before we start knocking people for spending large amounts of money on portable devices, it really comes down to the gear you already have. Does it make sense to spend a ton of money to improve on the dac built into the ipod? Yes and no. If you have 200-300.00 cans, then no. 250.00 cans are going to sound like 250.00 cans no matter what you plug them into, and going to a high end portable setup isn't going to give you significant improvements in sound. For those, the ipod's dac is fine.
But if you have 1000.00 customs/cans which many(including myself) do, then yes it's worth it. My jh13's sound pretty darn good out of my ipod, and for me it's good enough. But on the other hand, out of any of my home setups, they surpass many 1000.00 flagship fullsize cans I've heard. They are just on a completely different level than played out my ipod with or without an external amp. High end cans are so resolving, that the dac used makes a pretty discernible difference. People who have cans/iems like these know what they are capable of and just can't get that type of sound out of an ipod, no matter what amp you use. The ipod internal dac is always going to be the bottle neck. I've chosen not to go the route of an idevice external dac with my ipod simply because the only time I use it is when I want to be ultra portable. For transportable or in the backyard listening, I use either my netbook+dac/amp combo or ipad+dac/amp combo.
But the bottom line is, people who spend a lot of money on an idevice dac, aren't doing it just for the sake of spending money. It's all about musical enjoyment, and the type of enjoyment they can't get strictly using the internal dac of an ipod. But the ipod does sound good for what it is, but it by no means going to give you the best you can get out of it, and this is coming from a "source last, amp first" type of guy.
But if you have 1000.00 customs/cans which many(including myself) do, then yes it's worth it. My jh13's sound pretty darn good out of my ipod, and for me it's good enough. But on the other hand, out of any of my home setups, they surpass many 1000.00 flagship fullsize cans I've heard. They are just on a completely different level than played out my ipod with or without an external amp. High end cans are so resolving, that the dac used makes a pretty discernible difference. People who have cans/iems like these know what they are capable of and just can't get that type of sound out of an ipod, no matter what amp you use. The ipod internal dac is always going to be the bottle neck. I've chosen not to go the route of an idevice external dac with my ipod simply because the only time I use it is when I want to be ultra portable. For transportable or in the backyard listening, I use either my netbook+dac/amp combo or ipad+dac/amp combo.
But the bottom line is, people who spend a lot of money on an idevice dac, aren't doing it just for the sake of spending money. It's all about musical enjoyment, and the type of enjoyment they can't get strictly using the internal dac of an ipod. But the ipod does sound good for what it is, but it by no means going to give you the best you can get out of it, and this is coming from a "source last, amp first" type of guy.
