[music185]

Hello all new here.
 
My brother recently bought the headphones and is looking for a portable amplifier to get the most use out of it.  Have been helping him look for some and have looked in the For Sale forum, but at this point it seems the good ones are currently out of his price range (he will need to save a lot do get decent amps, I'm sure

) and also, there are too many to choose. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

 

[KyungMin]

I bought a E7 today ill let you know after I receive it!

for now I'm using a Audio GD sparrow desktop amp

 

[TheMiddleSky]

I don't think K701 can shine with portable amp, even mid-high end amp like RSA line-up.
 
anyway, you can get good desktop amp for less than $300, like Matrix M-Stage, which is powerfull to drive K701, and if you read about M-Stage, you can see that people here who ever tried K701+M-Stage also agree about how good this combination.

 

[music185]

Thanks for the replies. We're most likely going to have to purchase a desktop and a portable one. Gonna go with the upcoming iBasso P4 and then save up for a Matrix-M Stage. Any thoughts on the Matrix? What's another good desktop amp besides the Matrix but around the same price? Thanks for the help!

 

[dcpoor]

gilmore lite/dynalo, M^3

 

[Seamless Sounds]

Ditto. Just to note: Dynalo and M^3 are DIY amps. I'm building an M^3, and the amount of money I've saved via the DIY route is gob-smacking vs a commercial amp. YMMV. For portability, I'd say try the mini^3 which is also a DIY amp (they say it's the baby version of M^3).
 
Quote:

gilmore lite/dynalo, M^3

 

[qusp]

haha, DIY in general does NOT save money; in some cases it actually costs more especially if you take your time into account, not compared to the upper echelon of silly priced gear, you can do that sort of thing cheaper, but midfi the main advantage is getting exactly what you want IMO
 
i'm in no way discouraging it, I think diy is fantastic and i'm addicted, but to get into it to save money is a fools errand IMO
 
and to the OP, I w0ould also either recommend a mini^3 if you can find one used or DIY one, just because it fills a gap in the market at that end and sounds quite good. if you arent stuck on slick aesthetics its a great idea, or otherwise the ibasso line is the way to go, though I only know of a couple of amps that will do the K701 any kind of justice, I dont personally like it out of any amp, but they are quite challenging headphones; they mostly sound pretty lifeless underpowered.
 
so really for portable listening, my recommendation would be instead of buying an amp for them, buy a pair of headphones that are better suited to portable listening, K701 will not sound good o0ut of any but the most powerful and therefor expensive portables and are also horrible when it comes to isolation, so they will leak and let the world in, plus annoy anybody nearby

 

[KyungMin]

I got my E7 and there is a big difference in plugging it straight in but its nowhere near what my audio-gd sparrow can power the K701's at. but also the K701 is a hard headphone to drive.. my ATH M50's, MDR-V6 and SRH440's sound great on the E7. a good feature the E7 does have is the bass boost although which should be good for the average K701. but I have noticed my K701 aren't too bass lacking as people say.. I have a single 1000w 12" sub powered by a 1100w amp and 2 1200w 12" subs powered by a 1000w amp in another car(rms is lower than the single).. I don't find my K701 as bass lacking as other people..