[Agent Cooper]

Last year I picked up a pair of the Cad Audio MH510 but was very underwhelmed by their sound, even compared to my old Monoprice 8323's. I was considering getting a new set of headphones but an user on here was in the exact same position as me but found the Cad Audio's were greatly improved with an amp, in his case a Fiio A1 (see thread here). So I figure before relegating the CadAudio's to the rubbish heap it makes sense to give an amp a go, I meant to try an amp with them months ago but never got around to it. I don't want to spend much though, no more than £40, which seems to limit me to portable amps even though I can't see myself ever using it outside my home.

I'm obviously considering the Fiio A1 since I know that works well with the Cad's but from some brief research the Topping NX1S seems to have better reviews both on here and elsewhere. Headphone amps specs are like double dutch to me so if there anything the A1 can do that the NX1S can't?

The Behringer HA400, Creative Sound Blaster E1 and Fiio K1 are all in my price point too, would I be any better off with any of them?

 

[Agent Cooper]

So I have whittle down my choice to either the Topping NX1s or the Fiio K1.

I like the fact the K1 has no battery, plus it's also a DAC but the NX1s seem to have slightly more positive feed back online, but I'm not sure if that is partly because the K1 is being compared to a higher class of product like dragonflys etc, a considerable amount of criticism also seems to focus on the difficulty in getting the K1 to work on android devices - I will be using it in conjunction with a PC exclusively so that's not a concern. The NX1s also has a bass and gain switches but I don't know if that should be a major consideration or not, this review on soundphile does says the bass switch makes an noticeable difference though.

The specs of both products (K1 specs, NX1s specs) are broadly the same from what I can tell, with the most significant difference being the NX1s seems to have considerable more output voltage/current, again I don't have a clue if that should be a significant consideration but I have noticed that even the Fiio A1 has more output voltage/current than the K1.

Does anyone have any experiences with one or both of these products?