[tenspeed]

What should I consider for a headphone amp to use with my XM radio. I travel a lot in an 18 wheeler so it could be powered by 12 volts. Battery power is ok too. XM radio doesn't have the best audio quality because of the nature of their compression. Just wondering what would be the point of no return on Dollars spent to obtain the best quality.

 

[kramer5150]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tenspeed What should I consider for a headphone amp to use with my XM radio. I travel a lot in an 18 wheeler so it could be powered by 12 volts. Battery power is ok too. XM radio doesn't have the best audio quality because of the nature of their compression. Just wondering what would be the point of no return on Dollars spent to obtain the best quality.

govibe if you want a open more spatious sound.
PA2 if you want bass slam and forward mids.
cmoys are great little buggers and can be built in a variety of ways to custom taylor your sounds. They will run off 12VDC.

IMHO a ~$70 amp should suffice unless youre using high impedence / low sensitivity cans.

BTW... what cans are you using?

thanks,
Garrett

 

[tenspeed]

what should I consider for headphones? I haven't even looked at that. Are there ones that are more compact than others but still have a good sound?

 

[cpw]

You might consider the Airhead or Total Airhead from Headroom (a Head-Fi sponsor). Depending which cans you decide on, there may be other recommendations that make sense too.
CPW

 

[mrarroyo]

The PAV2 is made by Gary at Electric Avenues. He will have an amp delivered for $60. You get a pair of rechargable batteries and go to town (lasts over 80 hours of continuous use).

Gary has a PAV2 he makes for motorcycles which is wired directly to the 12 volt power supply. That would be an option you can consider. That way you never have to get batteries or recharge them.

Good luck.

 

[ilikemonkeys]

Hey, maybe you could answer a question for me.

I heard that XM sounded like trash. The signal was compressed way too low and sounded hollow.......mind you that I've never heard it, only poor reviews.

Is it worth me checking out (silly question asking someone that already has it and seems to enjoy it) and.....is it worth amping if it is a poor quality at the source?

Thanks.

(Serious question here. I'm not trolling)

BILL

 

[swmtnbiker]

I subscribed to XM for a month and ended up canceling my account due to the (IMO) very poor sound quality. I was using it in my home system (Aragon Soundstage processor, Sherbourn 5/1500A amp, Onix Rocket RS750 speakers, SVS 25-31 PCi sub) and the deficiencies in XM's highly compressed audio streams were very, very apparent. To me most of their programming sounded comparable to 64K WMA audio. In other words, pretty bad.

I think that XM is OK for use in the car and their depth of programming is phenomenal. Amping the line-out from a SkyFi2 to a decent pair of cans is probably going to sound pretty crappy however, particularly if you're used to listening to a decent source. Garbage in, garbage out. IMO of course.