Review: Portable amp roundup! 56 portable amps reviewed and compared - FINAL update 12-20-10 added RSA SR-71B
Jun 16, 2009 at 12:43 PM Post #2,401 of 3,234
For Classical and female vocals, I would go with the LT1. It is a little lusher in the midrange, which will be better for those musical styles.
 
Jun 16, 2009 at 3:17 PM Post #2,402 of 3,234
An enormous thanks to Skylab for the great work. Your advice/experience has been a lot of fun to read and learn from. Now my question is down to the final two: 3 Move vs. Mustang.

I take it the Mustang does not have a DAC so the 3 Move comes out ahead here. It's li-ion rechargeable batteries correct?

Thoughts on the 3 Move vs. Mustang ($100.00 price difference) with : AKG K701, Sennheiser HD 600, AKG 271K Studio, Audio Technica AD 700 and even Koss Porta Pro. Around the house it's the 701s & Audio Technicas mostly. Travelling it's the 271 Studios and Koss Porta Pros? All kinds of music-classical to rock. Folky rock & blues is a favorite.

Thanks for the help-I know this get's pretty murky. Yes, I do have a home amp (Glow tube) to more properly drive these phones.

Thanks again.
 
Jun 16, 2009 at 3:32 PM Post #2,403 of 3,234
Hi c-record - thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately, I do not own any of the headphones you listed, and so cannot really help you there.

The 3Move uses a standard user-replaceable 9V battery. I do not believe it has any charging facility so if you wanted to use a rechargeable you would need to have an external charger.
 
Jun 16, 2009 at 5:27 PM Post #2,404 of 3,234
With all the hype around the D10 I feel like my 3Move is out of the loop and old/behind the curve. Maybe I should not take such heft with reviews by enthusiasts especially those who don't have much to compare to. You and HeadphoneAddicts reviews are the best thanks for all your hard work!
 
Jun 16, 2009 at 5:36 PM Post #2,405 of 3,234
Thank you!
 
Jun 18, 2009 at 3:57 PM Post #2,406 of 3,234
Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Hi c-record - thanks f or the kind words. Unfortunately, I do not own any of the headphones you listed, and so cannot really help you there.

The 3Move uses a standard user-replaceable 9V batery. I do not believe it has any charging facility so if you wanted to use a rechargeable you would need to have an external charger.



You were just supposed to tell me which amp and then I would have gone on in satisfied bliss. Based on your review of the Mustang - midrange excellence etc., I may have to plan for the extra $100.00 over the Meier. I do like that RSA is US for support.
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 12:58 AM Post #2,407 of 3,234
Quote:

Originally Posted by DoYouRight /img/forum/go_quote.gif
With all the hype around the D10 I feel like my 3Move is out of the loop and old/behind the curve. Maybe I should not take such heft with reviews by enthusiasts especially those who don't have much to compare to. You and HeadphoneAddicts reviews are the best thanks for all your hard work!


I hope you get the opportunity to listen to the D10, specially w/ a TopKit by HiFlight. The D10 is a fantastic unit which competes with many home units IMO.
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 3:56 AM Post #2,408 of 3,234
Move and Pico are both 3 what is your oppinion on the differences Skylab?
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 4:37 AM Post #2,409 of 3,234
Quote:

Originally Posted by DoYouRight /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Move and Pico are both 3 what is your oppinion on the differences Skylab?


I'll toss my hat in the ring - to me the biggest difference - 3MOVE is richer more forward sounding, while Pico is more spacious and open sounding but a little more distant and a little less rich sounding. For example the 3MOVE's mids work especially better for my Denon D2000 headphones, but the Pico seems to work better with many of my IEM to keep the mids from drilling into my head.

Second level of differences - - the Pico DAC is superior to the 3MOVE DAC, which is no slouch either.

Third level of difference - Pico is slightly smoother in the highs than 3MOVE.

Fourth level of difference - both with a lot of power, but 3MOVE seems to have more power for driving HD600 and 600 ohm K240M, but little difference with lower impedance phones.

Final level of differences - 3MOVE is slightly bass'ier than Pico, which does not lack in bass at all.
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 12:22 PM Post #2,410 of 3,234
I agree with all of that (thanks Larry!), although I didn't really think the Pico was "smoother" in the highs, exactly - I think it was slightly more extended in the highs than the 3Move, but just slightly.
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 2:11 PM Post #2,411 of 3,234
Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif
TESTING METHODOLOGY:

For the review I used the following headphones:

•Sennheiser HD25-1 (primarily)
•2005 Beyerdynamic DT770/32 ohm
•2005 Beyerdynamic DT880/250 ohm
•In later reviews, Denon D5000, AT-ESW9, Ultrasone HFI-780


I listened to some with Shure E500’s, but that was not part of the “formal” test.

Music used for the review:

•Patricia Barber – “All or Nothing at All”, Nightclub
•Holly Cole, “Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night”, Temptation
•Crash Test Dummies, “In the Days of the Caveman”, God Shuffled His Feet
•Dave Matthews, “Oh”, Some Devil
•Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, “Handle With Care”, Rabbit Fur Coat.

Listening was done with the levels matched to within 1db using a RS SPL meter, so that the listening volume level was identical with each amp. Source was a RedWineAudio iMod iPod, connected with an RnB Audio interconnect.

No attempt is going to be made here to completely describe each amp – this has been done plenty of places on this site. Rather, I scored the amps based my listening in the areas of midrange, treble, and bass performance, transparency, neutrality, soundstaging, build quality, and other pertinent comments. I used an academic grading scale, but as in most academics, the lowest grade any of these amps got was a B-, since they were all pretty good.

At the end I will rank each of them, but to start they are listen in alphabetical order. Also, in case there is any question, I purchased all of these amps with my own hard-earned money, and they are the stock amplifiers – no mods of any kind were done. Where there was a bass boost function, it wasn’t used.



Hello Skylab, thank you for the review.

I'm curious why you didn't make use of the beatiful Victor JVC DX-1000? too much wood? I would really like to hear about this, well for moi, a fantasy headphone at the moment. I am quite stunned by what I read about from AudioCubes wrt the construction. BTW the reason I am so very smitten is that I just recently acquired the Victor HP-FX500 wood dome and housing IEM, and that has supplanted my entire IEM collection on every level. I can only imagine what the bigger boys are like... Im Qrious.
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 2:38 PM Post #2,412 of 3,234
The JVC DX1000, are, IMHO, not a logical pairing with a portable amp, and this is the main reason that I do not use them.

But thank you for reminding me that the "headphones used" part of the Testing section needs updating
wink.gif
 
Jun 19, 2009 at 9:00 PM Post #2,414 of 3,234
Dane, that's awesome!
 

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