[davidhunternyc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif I didn't realize you were using the headphone out to feed the iQube. I always say "garbage in, garbage out" - so always use your best source. There is also such a thing as synergy, and some surces and amps work better together than others, and it's possible one combo can amply flaws instead.

No, I think swelledhead was using the headphone out of the iPod to feed the Shure's. I think he was using the line out of the iPod to feed the iQube.

 

[davidhunternyc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hatethatgiraffe /img/forum/go_quote.gif true the shure could be driven from the headphone out but the iqube just adds that little bit extra! Midrange has more depth and everything just has that little bit extra! Particularly on lossless!

Does the iQube add "that little bit extra" or a lot extra? It better add more than just that little extra for its price and additional bulk as a portable rig. It seems the swelledhead thinks that the iQube doesn't add enough to justify its use with the iPod Classic and SE530's. With lossless, is the difference still just a little or a lot? Hmmm. Now I am wondering what ripping format swelledhead used for his comparisons. That could be one of the reasons he didn't hear much of a difference with the iQube or not.

 

[thejoneser]

Hi Curt,

As others have mentioned, excellent review! I really enjoyed it.

As an iQube owner I can only hope that you'll someday have the chance to hear other portable amps to compare against your iQube. I currently own four portable amps and would rate the iQube my third favorite due to its slightly recessed presentation. This is, of course, my own personal opinion. But I must say that my SE530s pair up even better with my Ray Samuels Hornet, an amp that I just acquired a few weeks back. The Hornet's slightly forward midrange combined with the 530s magic midrange puts me in the fourth row, where the iQube leaves me 20 rows back. Then there's the Pico which beats the iQube for tonal accuracy, but puts you "on stage" - a little too close to the performers for my taste. Again, this is just what I hear after comparing amps on a daily basis. But I will say one thing, it's a fun game to play and I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

Enjoy!

 

[BigTony]

Can I take it that the IQube works well with the 530's? How do they compare with the Klipsch Image?
I had the 530 on my list, turned down a good offer on a pair, and ever since then people have been saying great things about them again! I had replaced them on my list with Klipsh Image.
Seems the more we think and dither, the harder it is to get things done.

Cheers

BT

PS has only driven the HD 650's with this yet?

 

[trickywombat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigTony /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... I had the 530 on my list, turned down a good offer on a pair, and ever since then people have been saying great things about them again! I had replaced them on my list with Klipsh Image. Seems the more we think and dither, the harder it is to get things done.

If it sounds good to you, It sounds good.
If it sounds bad to your ears, it doesn't matter what other people say.

Sometimes, opinions/reviews are more informative for the pricing info. than indicative of how much you will enjoy the product.

In the absence of an audition but provided there's a good return policy, if it looks good - go for it. Return/sell it if you don't like it. Don't let other people's personal preference deny your wallet a rightful purge.

 

[Swelled Head]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidhunternyc /img/forum/go_quote.gif Does the iQube add "that little bit extra" or a lot extra? It better add more than just that little extra for its price and additional bulk as a portable rig. It seems the swelledhead thinks that the iQube doesn't add enough to justify its use with the iPod Classic and SE530's. With lossless, is the difference still just a little or a lot? Hmmm. Now I am wondering what ripping format swelledhead used for his comparisons. That could be one of the reasons he didn't hear much of a difference with the iQube or not.

I used CD's imported to iTunes using Apple's lossless coding, which saves about half the space of the original CD's files. And to make what I wrote clear, I originally compared the headphones using the Touch's headphone output, and then when I got the i-Qube, I tapped the Touch's DAC off the multi-connector at the bottom. When I got the iPod Classic, I also began by tapping off the DAC, and then switched to listening to the SE530s using the headphone output of the Classic. This tortured path to knowledge led to the meandering evaluations in my post and subsequent replies. It's been quite a lesson, unmatched by my experience with high end home systems. It's a truism that components interact with each other in complex ways, but still I was not prepared for the scale of differences between the headphone output of the iPod Touch vs. the iPod Classic. As a character in the film Under Siege said, assumptions are the mother of all screw ups.

I just returned from a trip, and will soon continue, mainly by comparing the SE530s with the UE Triple.fi Pros on the Classic's headphone out jack, and also focus more on how the UEs sound in various contexts. Also I plan to listen to the i-Qube at length on Sennheiser 650s, which probably require an amp more than those little earphones things whose delicacy and close coupling to the eardrum make them so easy to drive by portable gear.

As for the i-Qube, I liked it better using the Touch's DAC than the Classic's DAC. On the Classic, it seemed more bright. The profound limitation of evaluating equipment is one can't listen to anything by itself. You can't hear a recording without a playback system. You can't listen to any particular piece of equipment in the chain of a playback system without listening to a complete chain. Nobody's ever heard an amp, preamp, speaker, recording, CD, record, etc., but in the context of an array of all the rest. I am guilty of rushing to judgment by ignoring what I know about the complexities of subjective evaluation because I didn't anticipate the scale of the problem using iPods, which without really thinking about it, had me assuming their sonic qualities were more or less equivalent. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. I won't make that mistake again.

I still think the i-Qube is a fine piece of equipment. Question is, what's it really good for, and what is it not particularly good for. I can also compare the i-Qube with my custom built Dynahi headphone amp, built by Drew Baird at Moon Audio. So far, I've only listened to it on my Sennheisers. I never thought of driving those little earphones with it, but why not give it a try?

Thanks to all for your interest and useful comments.
Curt Raney (a.k.a. Swelled Head, a particularly apt moniker it seems.)

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SwelledHead Question is, what's it really good for, and what is it not particularly good for.

I'd say it's good for driving difficult headphones, like HD600/650, while away from your main rig - or to let you use a superior source if that source is a line out and needs a volume attenuator, like the touch line-out vs touch headphone out.

If the phones are easy enough to drive, and the source's headphone out is good enough, then the iQube becomes optional, as you found with your Classic.

 

[Swelled Head]

Back and forth, from iQube driven by Classic line out, to the Classic's headphone jack, listening mainly with Shure SC530 earbuds.

There are aspects to the tonality comparison that I can't find words to express. There's something smooth, almost earily smooth about the iQube, while the Classic headphone jack has the slightest sound of grain, or something not quite as smooth. What really got my attention was listening to Paul Simon's "Hearts and Bones." Simon mixes most of his albums on the warm, thick side, with lots of low midrange and midbass. It take a very good system to separate the instruments and voice in this range into the various sources. Mid-fi tends to lose the details and sound a little resonant or boomy in that region, chesty in the voice region. Well, the iQube is champ on this one. I've never heard the various ovelapping bass lines in Paul Simon's music so distinctly, as well as subtle overdubs in the background that I'd never noticed, either. Very impressive achievement for both the SC530s and the iQube.

A note on the UE triple.f1s. Want to get rid of the bassy, cluttered sound in that same region.... program the iPod for treble boost. I haven't tried to compare the triple.f1s against the SC530s on Simon's album yet, but I'm looking forward to the experience. I confess that I'm a lazy, half-hearted audiophile who went into remission years ago. Every once in a while I'm roused to revisit the condition, but it doesn't last long. I got into the iPod/iTunes thing mainly as a way of consolidating my music collection which had grown unmaginable, physically speaking. Now I've got all 1,500 albums on a single medium. I had to resort to AAC files, but a brief listen convinced me they are close enough to the real thing. That, alone, disqualifies me as a member of the audiophile tribe. Frankly, I don't even want to spend several hours or days confirming my first impressions on this issue. What do you guys out there think? Are the 256 kb/sec AAC files good enough?

Curt Raney

 

[hew]

I use WMP lossless and made same type of comparisons. The major difference I found was the loss of details such as resolution of ambient cues. But for convenience sake I am willing to live with that.

 

[SACD-Man]

For me, lossless at all times!! Especially when using the iQube and its resolution capabilities!

 

[Luminette]

Lossless for me, I also use an iQube

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I think for certain music like electronic, new age, rock, hip hop etc that the 256AAC should be good enough to enjoy. Heck, one of my best albums is a 180-190 kbps eMusic CD (Guinea Pig "Kool Cats"). If you ripped 1,500 CDs at 256AAC you are not missing out on a lot and I would never go back and re-rip them all higher, unless I was doing it to have perfect backups in case the CD were lost stolen or damaged. But to have them on an ipod and bring it all with you, you should be fine.

But for music with real instruments or live performances or where the ambience is vital to the transparency of the music, then lossless rips off a CD is my choice. The iQube should have no problem resolving the extra ambience and detail, if connected to the Line Out Dock with a good cable and headphones.

In my case, I now import my CDs as Apple Lossless which uses 200-350 mb hard drive per CD (like a zip file and lossless, not like a jpeg and lossy), and then I will have iTunes convert it to a smaller 256k bitrate file for iPod. So I often have two playlists for a CD, where one has ALAC and one has 256k, so I can know whether it goes on the 80gb iMod or the 8gb nano.

 

[Swelled Head]

A month or two after purchasing an iQube headphone amp, the volume control became noisy. Whenever I rotated it, it produced a scratchy sound in the earphones. Repeated rotations reduced the volume of the scratchy sounds, but never eliminated the problem. The next time, they were back at full, annoying volume.

After a while, I concluded that the problem wasn't going to go away. Fortunately, it was still under warranty. I contacted Drew Baird at Moon Audio, where I purchased the iQube. He referred me to Hans Oosterwaal, who asked me to return the amp to him for evaluation. He is one of the wizards behind the iQube. I wasn't too happy about having to send the unit to the Netherlands, but what else could I do?

Ten days later, Hans emailed me to report that he'd received the amp, and couldn't replicate the problem. I explained that I've sold and repaired audio equipment my entire adult life (not a professional technician, though), and felt certain that the volume control was noisy. I had no explanation for why he didn't hear the same scratchy sounds. I implored him to replace the volume control at my expense. He countered with an offer to send me a replacement amp at no charge, since the volume control couldn't be removed. Evidently it's cemented in place on the circuit board, or something like that.

As you might imagine, I was delighted! I can't recall the last time someone simply took me at my word in a business transaction. This was way above and beyond normal business practices. To make things even more delightful, Hans answered my email inquiries promptly and completely. I've never had such a rewarding experience with a manufacturer/distributor before.

I have the replacement in my possession now, and it is working perfectly. It was such a pleasure to put it back into service. I'd missed the for-all-intents-and-purposes "perfection" that little iQube produces. Since more than a month has gone by since I sent the defective unit back, I can't compare the replacement unit with the one I originally purchased, but my first impression was that something seemed more "right," than before. Maybe it's just the fresh bloom on the rose.

To all of you out there, I can't say enough nice words about Hans Oosterwaal. I wish everyone I purchased equipment from was as cooperative, trusting, responsive, and helpful. Maybe good people attract each other. In my previous dealings with Drew Baird, he too, has been an exemplar as a dealer and a human being. And honestly, folks, there's no quid pro quo involved here. I just feel moved to sing their praise.

As for the iQube, it's a honey. It's a first rate product that produces world class results—smoother than a baby's bottom, as my grandmother used to say. I'll be falling asleep many nights with it cradled in my arms.

Curt Raney

 

[drubrew]

Glad we could solve the issue for you. Happy Listenig

 

[dazzer1975]

I concur, hans really is one of the best people to do business with, supreme customer service and everything seems like such a pleasure for him too.