[Philipp F]

Hey,
I hope this topic fits here.

While traveling quite a few hours every day, I like to listen to music through my Soundmagic E10 or various ZKs (all pretty low impedance) plugged into my iPhone 6 and I was pretty satisfied with what I got in terms of portable listening experience. Recently I have switched to an Oneplus 6 and was immediately disappointed with the sound I got, It didn't even occurred to me that I would be getting a downgrade in terms of sound, it sounds so weak.
I tried Viper4Android which lets me adjust the output gain, this helped a bit with some more volume but its still sounds very weak.

I was looking into external DACs, but the DAC in the Snapdragon 845 is supposed to be a WCD9341, which should be pretty okay.

I don't want to spend lots of money on portable gear, I just want my listening experience to be where it was before.
So Im thinking maybe a DIY solution?

I thought about building a quick CMoy or something small just to see if it helps...
But would a portable headphone amp even make sense? After all my IEM are all pretty low impedance...

Looking forward to hearing what you think.

 

[artpiggo]

Buy shanling m0. Connect LDAC. That's all

 

[Philipp F]

That seems like a good solution if nothing else works. Can anyone tell me if a headphone amplifier for the output of my phone would make any sense in fixing my problems even with low impedance IEMs?

 

[Pictograms]

A headphone amplifier will still probably help with your sound problems, I have been amazed recently with a desktop amp and low impedance iems...so I don’t see why a portable amp wouldn’t be better than the phone
But for the price of a M0 or earstudio es100 you will have more convenience

 

[Pictograms]

I have heard good thing about the Cmoy but for 50$ more having Bluetooth may be nice for you

 

[Philipp F]

I have heard good thing about the Cmoy but for 50$ more having Bluetooth may be nice for you

Yeah that's definitely true. I am probably going to get the M0, it's just so damn convenient and versatile.
But I will probably also slap together a CMoy or something similar just because I'm curious if it would help, also I like building stuff.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Pictograms]

It would be a cool project to build. If you do get both post if you think the Cmoy helps. I’m pretty curious if it helps a purpose built music player like the M0 is improved by a DIY amp

 

[Philipp F]

I can't imaging it would do any improvement on the M0 output, but I might as well try it just for fun.

 

[Pictograms]

Good luck! I hop you have fun