[tseliottt]

 
For the next year or so, I will be traveling frequently so I wanted to create a relatively transportable rig with HD600s and my laptop. I will be using the setup to listen to music of course, and also to produce music. Therefore I'm looking for a a very transparent setup with little coloration. When I say transportable, I'm looking for as few components as possible that could be easily packed and moved when needed. Preferably rugged. It doesn't have to be "portable" however. I won't be moving the rig everyday. 
 
So far I've come up with a few possibilities:

1. DACport with an O2 amp

The DACport/O2 combination is particularly small and portable, and should cost about $500. Would the DACport(amp)  alone be powerful enough to drive the HD600s? Because the added flexibility would be a huge plus.

1. HRT Music Streamer with a Sheer Audio Dynalo

​This combination would no doubt be the least transportable, but the Dynalo's SQ is renowned, and it would be the cheapest set up at about $400.

1. Burson HA160DS

The Burson is by far the most expensive set up at about $800. It seems really compact though, and the fact that it's only one component is an attractive feature. Speaking of attractive, the amp is rather good looking. Which is a good thing.
 
Has anybody that has listened to these components able to compare them?
 
Also, I know nothing about wire connections, but would an analog out be compatible with an aux input and vise versa? Like would the HRT be able to connect to the O2? Or the DAC port to the Dynalo?
 
Any other suggestions? Thanks.
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

If you wont' go with battery powered units you'll have to consider the ones with more flexible voltage requirements in case you have to go to another country/continent. Generally the ones with outboard PSUs would be safest, even if the bundled PSU doesn't have the same voltage you can just get another one. Although I think the Sheer Audio has a switchable input voltage setting. Other options:

1) NuForce Icon HD - $349
 
2) Meier Audio amps (Jazz - $385) + a good USB DAC ($100+)
 
Battery:
3) Ibasso PB2+DB2 - $650
 
Fixed voltage:
4) NFB-5 - $315 (assuming you won't need switchable input voltage)

 

[tseliottt]

I hadn't thought of that, thanks. I will be going to Japan soon so I should definitely consider that. I've also heard really good things about the Meier amps, so I'll definitely look into the Jazz.
 
Any other suggestions?

 

[mikeaj]

I've not heard it, but Stereophile looked at and tested the DACPort.
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/centrance-dacport-usb-headphone-amplifier-measurements
 
There should be no problems handling HD 600 off of the internal amp.  It outputs about 3V rms max, enough for HD 600 at a loud level, about 112 dB SPL max for sine wave.  You can see the results above; there are listening impressions with 300 ohms (nominal) Sennheisers there as well.
 
No need to mess with a larger setup or different power plugs.

 

[tseliottt]

Awesome. So hooking it up to the O2 wouldn't result in a cleaner amplification with better frequency separation?

 

[tseliottt]

Curious: Does aux to RCA hinder SQ?

 

[tseliottt]

Bump?

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

Awesome. So hooking it up to the O2 wouldn't result in a cleaner amplification with better frequency separation?

 
"Cleaner" should depend on the headphones and how loud you're listening.  But generally, at least according to publicly-available test data, the O2 shouldn't be an audible improvement unless you need more power (O2 goes up to about 7V output voltage whereas the DACPort is limited to 3V) or you have IEMs that may not take kindly to the DACPort's 10 ohms output impedance.  Both parts should be non-issues with the HD 600 unless you listen to very quiet music very loudly.
 
Quote:

Curious: Does aux to RCA hinder SQ?

 
No, unless you're talking about some kind of fringe concocted example or the usual extremely small (undetectable without expensive lab instrumentation) losses and issues with interconnects in general.  It's just conductors carrying audio-frequency signals at short distances, so there are much fewer effects to consider than for RF circuits or cross-country power line distribution.  There's not much to mess up unless you intentionally want to make it bad.  With the TRS jack/connector on any aux connection, the ground terminal is shared between L and R signal paths, so there may be some very small crosstalk contributed as a result.

 

[fabio-fi]

Have the dacport and the 160Ds. 
 
The dacport could make the HD600's go loud enough, it have details and clean sound (which is not bad for a small unit). While the Ds is muscle power, sounds more lively with a nice bass response. It justifies its price tag..a nice amp/dac unit for around $800.