[03029174]

Hi Guys
About 6 months ago i sold my Imod - VCaps - IQube and Triple Fi portable rig to concentrate on my Desktop Rig. At Canjam i won some Monster Turbines and had no intention of going portable again so was going to sell them on, i stopped by at the Monster Vendor stand and was blown away by them through an Ipod nano 3rd Gen and a desktop amp. I still wasnt sure about going portable again so ive had them up for sale but no ones going for them so instead of dropping the price i think im going to build up a portable rig again. I dont want to spend the same kinda money i did before. I listened to the turbines out of the nano unamped and wasnt that impressed so amping is important. I have a cmoy RA-1 clone lying around, i wonder if that will be ok or should i look into the Pico / RSA amps?
Also shall i buy a Nano 3g and a LOD? I cant find any reviews on the Nano but i assume it must be quite good if Monster were using it to demo their earphones?
Im also interested in the SONY NWZ-A729 but it doesnt have an LOD like the Ipods and feel weary amping audio from the headphone out.
I've spent all day today looking into this and am non the wiser, does anyone know of any good deals that might help me out?

 

[Podtweaker]

My suggestion is to buy the DAP that sounds the best to you based on SQ regardless of whether or not you are going to amp it. It has been my experience that the amped non Ipod players that I've enjoyed have given up nothing to the LODed (non-modded)Ipods I've listenened to. Adding an LOD to an Ipod is definitely a sound improvement for an Ipod, but it does not automatically trump other amped portables not using this connection.