I second that. Especially with the balanced portables. The ones that have come out lately(from what I've read) make it possible to properly drive almost any full size can. Even the very difficult to drive orthos. I even read one poster commenting the ibasso even drove the k1000s to decent levels.
The Leckerton UHA-6S did a pretty stinking good job. Not the best I've ever heard, but still quite good. I could totally see someone using it as a desktop amp, despite it technically being portable.
For another $120 you could get the Meier corda Stepdance. Lorenz is pleased with it powering his 701's!
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/507835/meier-audio-stepdance-discussion-and-impressions-thread/285
Scroll down to post 287!
I am sending you a PM as well!
I was thinking of the iBasso Toucan, which seems to be a bit warmer and more bassy (the main thing you need to balance the k70x perfectly, IMO), and is 229$...Actually at first I was also thinking about the Fiio E7 (40$ plus shipping on ebay), but I don't think it could do a very good job, even though some reviews say so
I believe there is an old HeadRoom vide with their BitHead driving 7 AKG701s all at once. I know my BitHead can dang near turn my DT990s into speakers!
Just keep in mind, no matter how LOUD a portable amp can drive the K701, a good home amp can almost always drive it better. Another possibilty for you is the Fischer Audio Mystify.
I'm still skeptical about something as small as the P4 driving the K701 and its ilk to its full potential, but I havent heard it. I only know that my D4, at the time considered a reasonably powerful portable amp, just didnt have the cojones needed to drive my K601 properly. As previously mentioned, its not about volume - its about how much air your amp can inject between each note in your music. If something as small as the P4 can achieve that, its truly an engineering marvel.
^^ The older D4 and my Ibasso P3+ could do maximum 250 mW @ 32 ohms which is nothing when trying to drive a headphone like the K701. The newer P4 can do 1000 mW with the right combination of OPAMPs and Buffers which is far more than what the older P3+ and D4 could do.
And that, right there, is where we get ourselves into trouble. I dont think I have read a single thread on Head-F* which adequately explains why the HD70* is so hard to drive to its *optimum* level - you can quote all kinds of figures for various phones (my favourite being that all Grados have an impedance of 32 ohms, so who need a headphone amp, right ?) - none of it means anything until you get the 'right' amp. It may well be the P4 - I dont know - but its about more than impedance/sensitivity curves and HeadRoom graphs : if nothing else, the sheer size of the cans on the high-end AKGs is enormous.
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