Just curious...if I add a quality DAC like Cypher Labs or similar to my Classic, will it have a bigger impact than adding the amp or is it about the same?
If the iPod Classic is putting out sound at around a 50 on a scale of 100, where does the amp take the sound and where does the DAC take the sound?
Just curious how much of an upgrade you get with amp and with the amp+DAC.
The DAC will improve the sound of the ipod to near perfect 100 levels. A standalone amp will act as more of a "hardware equalizer", if you will. I'd say that if you are prepared and willing to pay for the Cypherlabs device, that is without question your best bet.
Personally, I would go with an amp because I am a poor college student and because I dont want to walk around with a bomb-looking brick as my "portable" rig
It all comes down to what you are looking for in sound and what you can hear and are using as far as cans. If you are using crappy low bit mp3 ie lower than 256 or 320 then the amp or dac will usually bring out the worst in the music. Even if you are using a good source file and great cans some people still cant tell the difference. For my ears and mu ue-11 pro I use an lod and amp. It does not only put more power to my phones without distortion, it opens the sound stage a bit and makes everything sound more crisp. Problem being even with loseless files this setup brings out the worst in badly recorded albums, but makes the well recorded ones shine and audio bliss. In my opinion I dont need anything more than an amp from my ipod. Now a dac from my pc would be a different story.
My suggestion would be head to a meet where you can hear many options and see for yourself what you can hear and need.
Or rather than wait for a meetup, if thats not possible in your area, just save up a couple grand and use it for buying, testing, and returning items. Preferably from a place that does free shipping.
The way I look at it is: I'm a broke college student.
When I finally get my Denon's d2000 I'll probably get either the E7, E6 or E11, or i'll just wait till I can biuld Mini3+X1 (once glassjar offers it as a kit). I'd obviously much prefer having CLAS or even HPP1, but that sort of rig isnt really feasable to me.
i'd buy portable because at home i listen to my laptop rig. I have an AMB Gamma 2 F++ at home that I plan on pairing with either one of the schiit's or with a diy tube amp. I'm looking up diy tube amp kits to save up for currently.
Portably, I use mainly my ipod. I could get a fiio E7 so I could use my laptop OR the ipod, or I could get a portable amp so I could use the ipod while on the go, but at home I have no use for the ipod (except lawnmowing and such, where sound quality is nowhere near as important as isolation due to ambient noise).
At home I also have Audioengine A5's coupled with the subwoofer from a Logitech Z5500 set. I am looking into building my own passive subwoofer and a tube amp for it, or maybe an active sub with line level input. I am going to be upgrading the A5's to something else. Probably a set of bigger bookshelf passive speakers, though I have done 0 research on what to get apart from Genelec's Studio Monitors.
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