Hi Everyone, Here is my review of the Go-Vibe Porta Tube.
This is my first time writing a "review" of an equipment. I hope you guys can find it helpful in your future gear purchases. This review was done with my Cowon J3, Audio Technica ATH-M50, and the amplifier. All of the tracks were in FLAC format. Before I start though I'd like to mention that because I only have the M50 that is already quite well driven with the J3, the amp was reviewed almost only as a tube buffer instead of an amplifer.
I will review by comparing how each track sounded different with and without the amp.
"The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson.
Going from without the amp to with the amp, first thing that's noticeable is the guitar string. If any of you guys play the guitar, I'm sure you are familiar with the sound when the string isn't fully pressed down to the fingerboard and the string vibrates on the frets. With the amp, this sound was less visible. Throughout the song, I felt the textures of the strummed guitar strings were more visible without the amp.
"What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
Again when I went from without to with the amp, I could hear the treble details being covered up. What's unique to this song, is that you can hear Israel's heavy breathing when he starts out playing the ukulele. I would agree that M50's treble is a little emphasized, but with the amp, it was too quiet. When looking at it in terms of faithful reproduction of music, and it wasn't quite the case. However, there was an aspect that I thought helped cover up M50's weakness, the upper mids (or very lower end of treble region.) The small amount of added upper mids made the ukulele sound reproduced more like it should have been when listened to M50 without the amp.
"The Elgar Concerto" by Jacqueline Du Pre.
In this track, I felt that everything just came together with the amp. The amp tuned down the white noise apparent in many old classical recordings (The texture details I talked about in the above two tracks was largely unaffected, since the white noise ate up most of the details without the amp anyway,) while the small bump in upper mids (I would describe it as the notes on the D string of the cello mostly) helped convey Du Pre's emotional play better. Going back to it without the amp, I felt the track didn't get me to that emotional state as it did.
Inception OST "Time"
The amp made the low bass on this track more bloated, making other instruments more difficult to hear.
Overall, the general characteristic of the amp was that while it cut away at the treble details, it's added upper mid bump made guitars and cellos sound more "musical." The bass sometimes was too bloated, making other part of the music difficult to hear.
This experience was a precious one. First, it helped me quench my curiosity on how a high-end, well designed gear sounded like as well as how much or little difference I should expect when purchasing a new gear. While the difference in sound with and without the amp was not as drastic as I thought it would be from reading the reviews, that didn't mean I didn't appreciate the changes. Afterall, I did have my revelatory experience with the Elgar Concerto. Moreover, this loaner program allowed me to get an idea of what audiophilia meant, the beauty of taking the effort and resources to get that small improvement that DID make a difference and brought you one step closer to heaven. I hope a day comes when money is no object to my enjoying music. Lastly, the program gave me the comfort of knowing that I didn't have to have expensive gears to enjoy music in a satisfactory level, which I guess is enough for a budget-bound college student like me.
Thank you so much to Josh and Jaben for the loaner program!
