Hi guys, I've been the lucky recipient of Headfonia's recent giveaway and thought that I could perhaps share some of my thoughts about the Corda Rock. However, I wish to caveat that I'm rather new to the audiophile world and I lack the relevant technical knowledge but nonetheless, I would try my best to explain myself albeit in somewhat of an unsophisticated manner. Before the Corda Rock, my primary listening devices include the direct 3.5mm outputs of my Samsung S8 or my HP Envy 13 Laptop with the laptop being the preferred medium due to the availability of HeSuVi’s EQ on the Windows platform. A large part of my listening was done on Audeze’s iSINE 20 and a small part using Etymotic’s ER4SR.
First off, the packaging: The Corda Rock is simply packaged but well-protected. You get the Corda Rock with an instruction sheet and nothing else really. However, I believe the IEC power cord is easily obtainable at your local hardware shop and I would imagine it’s for sale at a rather affordable price too. As I already had the power cord lying around at home, all I had to purchase was the 6.3mm male to 3.5mm female adapter for usage with my IEMs. Again, this is an affordable purchase – costing me US$2 in total.
Moving on to the listening impressions: it’s safe to say that the output coming out of this Amp is vastly better compared to my laptop’s output. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the experience of listening to other Headphone Amps and could only use my laptop as the basis of comparison. When listening to Brand New’s Untitled track using my iSINEs, I have noticed several observations – all of which overlapping with each other to create a surreal experience. The separation of instruments and vocals is incredible. Instruments are played out of the right channel and vocals on the left. This aids in creating a very distinct imaging outside the confines of your head. There are several (deliberate) blocking and artifacts noises during the first half of the song and they has a very strong realism to them, it feels as if there is a physical force acting on your right ear-channel. All in all, it’s an experience to behold and I can’t seem to stop listening to this track over and over again.
Another observation that I noticed was the perceived increase in vividness and micro-detailedness when using the Corda Rock. When listening to Peste Noire’s J’avais reve du Nord track (starting from 3:20 to 6:55), I could hear the literal fingernail strumming of the guitars against a very quiet (pitch black?) background – really nice. Again, the separation of instruments come into play and you could tell the distinct positioning of instruments. Female vocals are rendered very beautifully on this segment and the Cello extends really low and there seems to be a greater presence of the bass region compared to my laptop’s output.
Something else that I noticed is that there seems to be a certain smoothness which helps to taper ever-so-gently Etymotic’s slightly high shrill (IMO). However, I can’t be sure. To my ears there seems to be an improved perception of clarity even with the slight smoothening – perhaps the smoothness only affects the treble region? Forgive me – my ears are not highly trained in recognizing the minor nuances of music.
Overall, I think the Corda Rock is a fantastic product. I’ve never really paid much attention to Amps and sources in general, thinking that the vast majority of improvement comes from the IEMs themselves – how wrong I was! I think it’s a worthwhile investment to get an amp to elevate your listening experience and I believe the Corda Rock is a great way to start. It’s listed as the cheapest Headphone Amp on Innerfidelity’s Wall of Fame so I don’t think you could go wrong in choosing this amp. Again, my listening was done on IEMs which may not be the intended purpose of this Headphone Amp. A headphone user may be perhaps better suited to harvest the full potential of this amp. In addition, my music is mostly in in the 256kbps AAC or 320kbps MP3 format – not the best bitrate. Your experience may vary from what I’ve experienced – hopefully for the better.