Those types of setups are not portable, they are meant for you to sit in your house or somewhere and enjoy your music via your mp3 player instead of a system. To get the best out of it you likely to need an LOD and a good amp
for actual portable, get a cmoy bb 2.02 and enjoy? I enjoy it better than my python :\
I took the 801 with Westone 3, Westone 2 and Monster Turbine Pro Gold to lunch with Sherwood today, and we listened to it and enjoyed it. Seems portable to me.
And, I've heard a cmoy BB but this is on a whole new level above that. The built-in amp performs on the level of many other top tier portable amps.
Meh. I carry around an iPod Touch 2G, Fiio E1 amp and whatever easy to drive IEMs that strike my fancy on any particular day. It gets the job done and I'm plenty satisfied with that combo.
Previously known as Jack-Micca Member of the Trade: TekFX
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I am of the opinion that just because you can't obtain audio nirvana, doesn't mean you don't even try. People who spend money on a portable rig for many reasons, some just wants a noticeable better sounds than the bare DAP, some wants a specific feature, for some their portable rig is also their only rig. I've participated in many many hobbies where people chased after ever greater performance, and the "what's the point" argument comes out every now and then. The key has always been realizing that there is more than one way to enjoy xyz, one way may not be any more valid than the other, and the capability of the equipment is just a small aspect of the overall enjoyment derived from the hobby.
Um, you make very good points, but in your quest to make life easier for newbs to gain perspective ( a very nobile persuit ) i think you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Yes, I have listened to a full sized amp, a millett minimax, and it was a massive step up from just a portable source. I also have tried a couple of portable amps as well, a mini3 and a P-51. I sold the P-51 as i thought it did little to improve the sound of a good source (i have a sony X and a clip+) but it was a nice addition to the LOD of my secound gen touch. Just didn't seem to be worth the price tag, score one for your argument.
I do, however, love my mini3. It helps everything i use and i miss it when i forget to bring it. My personal favorate portable phones are a set of UM3X's, followed by my RE0's then my set of TF10's. Yea, these are all IEM's, and should require no amplification at all, but they all benifit. the RE0's benifit the most, for an IEM they seem to be quite hard to drive and really wake up with an amp. with the other two the benifit is more suptle but definatly there. with my favorate, the UM3X's the bass becomes much fuller, the mids become less muddled, and the highs seem to be more defined. I can enjoy better and fuller sound quality at lower volume levels with the amp.
Yea, some portable amps are rediculously expensive and may not offer a noticable increase in SQ from a budget ~$75 amp like the mini3, but a good source, good amp and good phones are leeps and bounds better than an "ok" source and a stock set of phones.
BTW the Koss prta pro's ($35) are on my list for portable head phones.
To me this whole discussion is analogous to high-end home theater systems. Where you could easily pay thousands on the best movie screens let alone the projection system, amps, speakers, etc. Meanwhile, somebody else is watching a film on his iPhone.
Regardless, where the money is being spent will be the segment with the largest likely gain in 'improvements' (even though that word is hard to define let alone for people to agree on). My quite limited guess is that the interest in products like the Pico Slim and Headstage Arrow 12HE 2G are examples of that playing out.
I had a good think a while back about what my listening requirements and preferences were and that made it quite easy to make up my mind about how my expenditure on audio gear would pan out in terms of priorities and value for money. For the home, I'd like a speaker-based rig as the primary thing, although current circumstances mean full-size floorstanders are a no-no, but things like the DAC and amp would be long-term (hopefully!) investments, with the ability to use headphones/IEMS being a secondary concern, since avoiding disturbing others only accounts for say, 10% of my listening time.
My portable needs therefore are fairly straightforward; 90% listening is done commuting or in non-silent environments. I don't want to wear cans, so essentially I'm aiming for a) quality IEMs, which as 3XO pointed out with his JH customs, are worth the investment due to scalability and can be used with other equipment (i.e. computer for games, TV late at night e.t.c.) and b) a good source.
The Hifiman was slightly out of my budget though and I wanted to see how that product line evolves, but currently I'm rocking an S:Flo2 I got on eBay for under £100, and I'd like a the Arrow amp to go with it (mainly for a cleaner, deeper bass-boost and bypassing the audible artefacts the firmware produces when using the HO, the dimensions perfect too). In terms of footprint, that's about the size of two iPhones stuck together.. still pocketable, and the total cost for source+amp would be around £250. That's less than some new DAPs (not even including the Hifiman!) and, by all accounts sounds great for a portable solution.
Ideally I'd like to see a DAP using flash memory in high capacity (like the new cards) because swapping microSD cards is annoying... but so are spinning HDDs which don't like getting bumped about, with 801 SQ and beyond, and I think that looks likely. After all, when this thread was first made, that huge iMod + vCaps + LOD + amp set up was seen as the bee's knees, but a relatively short time later and you have a couple of DAPs of smaller footprint out which are generally praised in having equal or better SQ, with several mainstream products offering good quality out of the box too. Let's hope the situation is even better in a year or two.
Yeah it had a SME IV arm on it but I sold it, I plan on buying a Trans-Fi T3 pro, but considering I recently spent 3k on portable gear, I will take a month or two to pace myself.
I remember a while back (sometime last year) I saw this thread and thought that I'd never be in the same boat. THen I only had the UM3Xs and Triple 10s. Lately though, I've been sinking all of my money into my home rig and after just selling my ER4Ps, I don't have any portable items left now. I have the T51 and PB1 (small amp) but I only have full sized cans now.
I really wish I could grab 300 to use on some top tier IEMs or something...
I am of the opinion that just because you can't obtain audio nirvana, doesn't mean you don't even try. People who spend money on a portable rig for many reasons, some just wants a noticeable better sounds than the bare DAP, some wants a specific feature, for some their portable rig is also their only rig. I've participated in many many hobbies where people chased after ever greater performance, and the "what's the point" argument comes out every now and then. The key has always been realizing that there is more than one way to enjoy xyz, one way may not be any more valid than the other, and the capability of the equipment is just a small aspect of the overall enjoyment derived from the hobby.
Great post and spot on in my opinion. I go through inevitable phases of buying and selling equipment. Adding items to the stable then thinning out the herd. At the end of the day its about enjoying the journey and listening to the music that really matters. It's a hobby, enjoy the ride.
Personally, I subscribe to the "whatever floats your boat" train of thought so where I decide to go in hifi doesn't at all have to coincide with the path taken by others...although the advice found here has, thus far, been very helpful for a newb. After I found this site, recently, I purchased some ATH-M50s which I absolutely adore and set out to build a cmoy using tangent's site as guidance. Well the cmoy worked and while it cost me $20 it also taught me a bit and refreshed soldering skills that I haven't used in over a decade. Now I've got the parts for a cmoy bb which came out to around $30 and while gadgets like the headstage arrow are extremely tempting to a guy like me, who had never heard of dedicated headphone amps a few months ago, I think I'll stop my portable setup with the cmoybb.
The OP's post makes a lot of sense for me, as a newb(which is his intended audience), when you consider the fact that I have no source other than my mac and an ipod...and yet the inexpensive M50's, Rockbox, and re-riping my cd's into flac has brought me to the point that I am enjoying my music in a way that I truly haven't since I was 16(which was a while back as I'm almost double that now). I think, as the author suggests, I will spend a couple of hundred on a minimax kit and pick up a pair of DT990s rather than spending that money on portable. This is all new to me and I have no doubt that listening to a dedicated home rig and headphones that cost more than a hundred dollars...for the first time...will blow my mind and certainly be worth more to me than portable.
For you guys that already have all the nice home gear and continue with portable audio, more power to you and I'm sure I'll read your posts about it and maybe even take part in a few years when my home setup comes to a point where I am somewhat satisfied. Oh, and thanks for the OP's insight which will save me some money in the short term, as I've already discovered the "sorry about your wallet" moniker wasn't a joke as I initially suspected.
didnt read all the replies, but read the initial post and I have to agree with a few things...the reality of the differences is probably minimal. It is the same in every hobby realm I have ever been in though. I have spent $300 on a car part that probably didnt make it any faster...but it was fun to do. I have paid money to swap video cards because it gave me some extra frames per second but probably didnt make the gameplay experience that different...but it was fun to do. The trick is, if you enjoy it, do it. If you have some other area you would rather spend your $$, do that. I know for a fact that my hearing isnt good enough to benefit from the high end stuff. Too many days as a stupid kid in a car that was way too loud. So now I just play around with finding comfort and something that sounds good enough to my ears. so far I havent found the need for an amp because i value the compact nature of protables...and for the same reason I will only use IEM for my portable. I still love it and enjoy the music.
didnt read all the replies, but read the initial post and I have to agree with a few things...the reality of the differences is probably minimal. It is the same in every hobby realm I have ever been in though. I have spent $300 on a car part that probably didnt make it any faster...but it was fun to do. I have paid money to swap video cards because it gave me some extra frames per second but probably didnt make the gameplay experience that different...but it was fun to do. The trick is, if you enjoy it, do it. If you have some other area you would rather spend your $$, do that. I know for a fact that my hearing isnt good enough to benefit from the high end stuff. Too many days as a stupid kid in a car that was way too loud. So now I just play around with finding comfort and something that sounds good enough to my ears. so far I havent found the need for an amp because i value the compact nature of protables...and for the same reason I will only use IEM for my portable. I still love it and enjoy the music.
I caution against one of your points, though.... upgrading video cards *DOES* give you very tangible, real and definitley measurable benefits if you go from a pair that is old and outdated to a new cutting edge card, and yes this does translate into a different and objectively better gameplay experience.
The same cannot necessarily be said of going from a $200 headphone to a $1000 one or adding a $500 amp into the chain.
I am the epitome of what most "audiophiles" abhor. I have a 32gb Zune HD and cmoy paired up to a set of Bose QC2's with the stock iBasso mini/mini. I am also a community based therapist who has carted this montage into several therapy sessions (tucked into my bag). On more than one occassion people have pointed to the *mint tin* and asked what it is. A 1 minute a/b comparison has helped to stimulate engaged dialogues and baselines for future interaction. For that reason, as well as my need for a quick refresh throughout the day, my *newbie* gear has become a mainstay in my bag. I have since added a D10 Cobra with mods, W3's, SE420's and pro 900's to the collection for woods walkabouts and other mobile needs. At the end of the day, while walking in the eastern hardwoods, I am "home" and listening to my egg/spam/velveeta sandwich equivalent. No plug-in-at-home unit could ever inspire the conversations that the mint tin with a blue light and a knob does. I'll stick with the Bose-mint-box combo and the possibility that dented and derelict amp inspires each and every day.
I am commuting everyday and needs some 'space', especially during rush/peak hours. My basic portable system always performs it's job. On train, I am listening to Sony Walkman X1000 + Unique Melody Mage (custom IEMs). At work, I hooks my iBasso D10 to MBP 15" using SDPIF/Toslink. I can have my 'private' space all the time... Before I sleep, I am using Phonak Audeo PFE 112v1 (custom tips) to my smartphone, Google Nexus One, and starts browsing internet and Youtube, until I fall asleep. Look, portable audio is part of my life already.
Upgrades? No need already. I am like simple things. Not need 'ultra grade' cables or interface. Just give me SPDiF, good DAC and good IEMs; and I will be happy enjoying every bit of my portable system.
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