[Dencake]

Hello!

I recently bought my first IEM, the Noble X, and I'm now looking for a music player or DAC/Amp to go with it.
Hopefully it won't be too expensive (I'm looking for upto $300 and under), and also hopefully something that can still be enjoyable when/if I upgrade!
Also, would it be fine to use with the Fiio E10k when I'm home? I heard iems need low output impedance.

On a separate note, I heard that people were pairing up a music player with an amp or an dac/amp (eg. fiio x5 + fiio A5 or AKG 70 with Chord Mojo), and I was quite puzzled, since I thought that the music player themselves contained both, but the Chord Mojo also contains them so is there any extra benefit to using a Chord Mojo with an expensive music player, instead of a cellphone?

Thank you very much!

 

[cossix]

FiiO makes good quality players for a good price! I use the X3 2nd gen

 

[Danger Mouse]

Can wholeheartedly recommend the Shanling M2s DAP, fantastic little player with great sound & features. I'm using mine with the FiiO A5 Portable Headphone Amplifier, it lowers the output resistance for my headphones, especially the IEMs but it also really sharpens up the sound, bass especially & really makes the music shine

I'm sat here with my DAP playing through my IEMs and controlling the songs I play through my mobile phone via Bluetooth, a great feature of the Shanling M2s

 

[buke9]

Hello!

I recently bought my first IEM, the Noble X, and I'm now looking for a music player or DAC/Amp to go with it.
Hopefully it won't be too expensive (I'm looking for upto $300 and under), and also hopefully something that can still be enjoyable when/if I upgrade!
Also, would it be fine to use with the Fiio E10k when I'm home? I heard iems need low output impedance.

On a separate note, I heard that people were pairing up a music player with an amp or an dac/amp (eg. fiio x5 + fiio A5 or AKG 70 with Chord Mojo), and I was quite puzzled, since I thought that the music player themselves contained both, but the Chord Mojo also contains them so is there any extra benefit to using a Chord Mojo with an expensive music player, instead of a cellphone?

Thank you very much!

Not for sure why others use a amp with some players. I do know why some use a Chord Mojo as it will outperform most players from a phone. Some use amps as they want to listen very loud others like the headroom but I can’t say why others do what they do.

 

[Oscar-HiFi]

Shanling M3s, it gives you the option to go balanced too.

 

[TYATYA]

Try shalling M2S. It doent waste you 10 minutes!

 

[vkalia]

On a separate note, I heard that people were pairing up a music player with an amp or an dac/amp (eg. fiio x5 + fiio A5 or AKG 70 with Chord Mojo), and I was quite puzzled, since I thought that the music player themselves contained both, but the Chord Mojo also contains them so is there any extra benefit to using a Chord Mojo with an expensive music player, instead of a cellphone?

Try to see if you can land a Sony Walkman DAP. Solid, clean sound and a sensible, bug-free interface, without any of the annoying foibles of some of the DAPs that are so popular here.

As for why people pair with a DAC/amp - with a phone and some players, it can come in handy, as it provides more power and cleaner sound, which is useful if you have hard to drive headphones. In other cases, I suspect some kind of reflexive response (I cannot think of any other reason one would buy an expensive DAP, pair it with a relatively inexpensive amp that likely has the same circuitry as in the DAP, and then use it to drive IEMs which require next to no power).