[Andrea]

and I'm excited.

Pity for today's hot weather. Headphones and stuff will have to wait for the twilight breeze

 

[Andrea]

In the meantime, you take the pic

It's so cute. Dare I say, beautiful.

Certainly much more gracious than my Portaphile X^3 whose looks I've never been fond of.

It's my theory (and has been proved by experience) that form and function are always in a, though not necessarily easy to grasp, relation of mutual correspondence - even in these things!

[size=xx-small]Actually it's more an extension of Rimbaud's pensée than something truly mine [/size]

 

[gmoffatt]

This amp really caught my interest, particularly since it has a crossfeed circuit which most in this price range lack. I knew you had it on order and I was waiting to see what you thought of it, but my lack of patience got the better of me and I ordered a LDM+.

There's not too much out there on this one though and I'm still looking forward to hearing your impressions. Particularly on the stock innards, since it seems you're a bit of an amp tweaker!

Cheers,
Greg

 

[Andrea]

You can't go wrong, the LDM+ is worth every penny.


But this little amp is inspiring. I somehow already feel that - with the stock amplifier chip even - it could overshadow a few others at my court.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrea You can't go wrong, the LDM+ is worth every penny. But this little amp is inspiring. I somehow already feel that - with the stock amplifier chip even - it could overshadow a few others at my court.

I am looking forward to your impressions. I had one for a while and I thought it was a great amp. I returned it because I already had 3 other portable amps.

 

[kramer5150]

eagerly awaiting your impressions

and OP amp rolling results.
Can you test it with an OPA2107?
Can you evaluate its S/N with a low impedence headphone?... even an OEM junk ear-bud or the likes? From what Ive found, most portable amps have a very hard time (cleanly) driving low impedence headphones and canalphones.

Thanks!!
Garrett

 

[Asr]

Crazy portable amp collector in this thread!

I'm looking forward to a four-way review sometime, how about it?

 

[Andrea]

Crazy may be, but... sensibly. At least they didn't cost me $350 each

About the XM3.

WOW!!! Great! Even though...

So far I've listened to it for only an hour, un-burned-in, and powered with the "industrial" alkaline 9V battery that comes with the amp. Listened mostly to Tom Waits, Closing Time, an album that I love and that, secondarily, serves for me as a "revelator" of overall timbral & midrange quality, & of fine detail resolution. In it there are some wonderful acoustic guitar (the famous title track alone speaks for it), some beautiful sounding woodwind instrument (trumpet?), a greatly recorded Tom's voice, and even some very articulate low bass kicks in a few songs.

With the usual HD650, the XM3 delivers the best (to my taste 'course) performance with this album that I've heard so far from any (portable, OK) amp. Timbre is very musical, rich and instantly involving, never cool nor flat. This is already quite an unusual achievement in my experience, as this album really is critical in this respect. Detail resolution is equally impressive. Certain very subtle micro-details in guitar plucks emerge like I'd hardly heard. Tom's voice is really cathartic, full of shades, 'airy', evocative. Lastly the bass kicks are as rythmical and articulate as I've heard - here I really didn't expect this much from an OPA2134. This little amp obviously shines with acoustic music. In short, it makes this record sheer joy to listen to

 

[Andrea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kramer5150 Can you test it with an OPA2107?

They canceled my sample order

Quote:

Can you evaluate its S/N with a low impedence headphone?... even an OEM junk ear-bud or the likes? From what Ive found, most portable amps have a very hard time (cleanly) driving low impedence headphones and canalphones. Thanks!! Garrett

Incredibly I've not even a pair of earbuds here at this moment.

But see here

http://www.practicaldevices.com/xm3/...testreport.htm

The actual signal to noise ratio is very good at 97.4 dB. There exist op-amps that would bring it a bit higher still.

 

[mrarroyo]

Your impressions match mine. At the time I wrote that the "big boys" (The Hornet, Supermacro, AE-1, etc) had stiff competion for an amp costing 40% of their prices.

 

[drivel]

Any chance we could get a pic of the inside?

you certainly have sparked my interest

 

[Andrea]

As good as it sounds, I don't see myself tinkering with op-amps & co. too soon.


But you can see all you want here

http://www.practicaldevices.com/xm3/xm3_pictures.htm

 

[dr.morton]

It would be nice to see how good the amp sounds compared to the "leaders" in the field.
I saw the XM3 on ebay and the description sounded promising but also "hyped". And they also have this very, very, very ugly home page.
So I ended up buying a Larocco PRII.

 

[Andrea]

Who am I to blame you.

 

[Andrea]

My (paid) LM6172 samples are here! When (and if) the honeymoon with the OPA2134 will end, they're my first upgrade (?) candidates to try.