Is a portable amplifier a waste of money?

Nov 3, 2016 at 9:33 PM Post #19 of 23
  The thing about amps or anything you are testing, unless you are 100% sure you are listening at the same decibels, louder can be perceived as better sound.

 
Exactly. Volume-matching is essential. What I usually do is just compare at all levels and approximate, since most of the time I don't need to test things more precisely than that.
 
Nov 3, 2016 at 9:40 PM Post #20 of 23
Something you could consider is buying a DAP -- that is, a digital player to use for music. Many aren't at all bad with full-sized headphones and many of them can be used as a DAC connected to your computer via USB. The cheaper ones don't have onboard memory, but even 128 GB cards are cheap now.
 
Nov 4, 2016 at 7:15 AM Post #21 of 23
  Something you could consider is buying a DAP -- that is, a digital player to use for music. Many aren't at all bad with full-sized headphones and many of them can be used as a DAC connected to your computer via USB. The cheaper ones don't have onboard memory, but even 128 GB cards are cheap now.

Thats actually a really interesting idea. That would probably give me decent amplification and dac, right? Can you use them with Tidal? Any recommendations would be appreciated.
 
Nov 4, 2016 at 8:01 AM Post #22 of 23
  Thats actually a really interesting idea. That would probably give me decent amplification and dac, right? Can you use them with Tidal? Any recommendations would be appreciated.

There are quite a few that will let you use Tidal.  There's a list at this link and a few more that have come out since then like the Cayin i5: http://www.head-fi.org/t/797001/portable-dap-for-tidal#post_12307440

Definitely double check those before purchasing though, I'm not totally sure if a couple of the ones he listed can actually install Tidal.
 
**edit** Finally stumbled upon the thread I was thinking of - http://www.head-fi.org/t/764349/best-android-dap/15
 
Nov 4, 2016 at 10:40 PM Post #23 of 23
What WhiteKnite said. I only have the FiiO X7 here, which only works as a DAC with what is beta firmware ATM and a very expensive AK that support TIDAL. I use the X7 as a transport with a Chord Mojo when I want to use TIDAL on the go (in offline mode).
 

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