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Originally Posted by PANGES /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Ohh ok. I was under the impression that I needed a bass-lite amp that had a brighter sound to it to help balance my IE8's, since to me, it seemed that the treble seemed a bit veiled and the bass was just right (to me, because I LOVE bass), but your explanation makes sense. I'll take a look into the Vivid V1 and the Nuforce some more. Did you run the amps out of the headphone jack of the ipod/iphone, or did you buy a Line Out Adaptor to bypass the ipod/iphone amp as well?
Thanks alot for the info, HeadphoneAddict! One comment about your amp review/comparison thread is that it has ruined my life, because I didn't start looking into buying an amp until that thread and now my wife is onto me about my evil plans, which she is very unhappy about after I just spent $300 on the IE8's. LOL.
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Yeah, neither Amphora, V1 or Nuforce are bass-lite amps. I run them via USB DAC or line-out from iMod.
The V1 and Nuforce are a little colored sounding, but no more than other $99 amps. Both do brighten up the IE8 and both have more forward mids than some other amps, which make them less enjoyable with Grados for me. I felt the V1 was a little better with IE8 and HD600, but the Nuforce was better with Denon D2000 and Edition 9. Both worked well with ESW10 and a variety of IEM.
I have no idea why the Amphora is such a better match for IE8, because it's also good with a wide variety of very different sounding full size phones like Grado RS-1/HF-2, Denon D2000 and D7000, Ultrasone Edition 9 and Sennheiser HD600/800. With the Amphora there was one day that I forgot I was listening to my IE8 and I thought I was listening to my ES3X for a few minutes. That surprised me very much. They actually didn't sound exactly alike, but the way the IE8 became so engaging and vivid and detailed took me by surprise.
The T3 is good with HD600 surprisingly if you don't like to blast them too loud, and also JH13Pro, UE11Pro and ES3X, but I didn't have it before I sold the IE8 so I couldn't try the IE8 on it. I'd still bet the T3 is better with IE8 than the T4, but I can only guess about it. I've been using the T3 with my 5G Nano and custom IEM for mobile, as I think it is more portable than all my other amps and fits well in my pants pocket. I wish I could have tried IE8 with it so that I could advise people about the combo - a good reason why I hate selling stuff.