What DAP for JH-13 Pro/Pico Slim?

[fzman]

There's a lot going on here. People are in the hobby with different levels of experience, expectations, disposable income, and goals. These all matter.

there are also clear points of diminishing returns. Where one is on the performance/cost scale matters. if you are a professional racer, you might spend exponentially more money to get a very small increase in mph- much lower %-wise than the $$ spent. It may be a significant difference, though, in that you now win races that you would not otherwise have won. How important is that? Now there is a dis-analogy in that building a system for music-enjoyment should not be a competitive sport in the same way that car racing is. on the other hand, upgrading is, in one sense, racing against oneself.

people do often describe differences in somewhat exaggerated terms, but that does not mean differences are not audible, and depending on one's goals and expectations, can be qualitatively significant, even if quantitatively small.

does this mean that you cannot/should not enjoy music played on a mediocre set-up? Hell no! does it mean that because you enjoy it that nothing is better? ??????

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JarodL1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You should read your posts before you post them, because yours makes absolutely no sense. How would I know what the differences are between equipment without actually buying new equipment and trying it out for myself? My point was people tend to exaggerate the sound quality differences between headphones, cables, amps etc on this forum. I couldn't/didn't find that out until after I ordered new equipment and tried it out. Thankfully, the $1,500 worth of equipment is not a meaningful amount of money to me, and relatively small compared to what I have spent on my real stereo. I enjoy my 13 pros and don't regret the purchase, I just don't feel they are worth 4x the amount of money as a pair of Shures or TF10s.

while I understand your point of view. this post above is really quite silly IMO. you go about telling someone their post makes no sense and then you say this!!

since when, in any area of hifi or anything does spending more in the high end equate to the equivalent amount of improvement?
speakers, amps, headphones, cars, computers, wine, coffee etc etc etc. once you get to the upper levels of quality you NEVER get the equivalent amount of improvement. you claim to be right into your speakers and home hifi; either it is convenient for your argument to forget about this fact, or you are somewhat naive.

the difference between well ripped 256 and lossless is not huge, but on very revealing gear (and your JH13 with proper source are easily as revealing as speakers) it is not small either. 320kbs VBR and lossless is pretty hard depending on the music, but still with well recorded material of all genres there is still a small amount of difference in timbre and decay. I do agree the differences are often exaggerated in order for people to get their head-fi Epeen

with JH13 more so than amp, source should be first and it sounds like you have not got this sorted, iphone 3g/s is quite good as is the X series. the hifiman is probably the most resolving portable source as well the korg MR1. IMOD is also good, but I feel it is beaten by my iriver even with the most expensive caps (well above VCAP) in my film cap dock iriver->D10->Lisa III/ ibasso OEM(with discrete buffers)->silver cable->JH13 is pretty uber and I find myself using it this way more than my DIYMOD->Duelund copper foil 4.7uf->Lisa III/OEM

I own SE530 too and while they are pretty cool; they are really not in the same ballpark as JH13 if both are fed with a good source and an amp that copes well with the difficult load presented by JH13

 

[JarodL1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif while I understand your point of view. this post above is really quite silly IMO. you go about telling someone their post makes no sense and then you say this!! since when, in any area of hifi or anything does spending more in the high end equate to the equivalent amount of improvement? speakers, amps, headphones, cars, computers, wine, coffee etc etc etc. once you get to the upper levels of quality you NEVER get the equivalent amount of improvement. you claim to be right into your speakers and home hifi; either it is convenient for your argument to forget about this fact, or you are somewhat naive. the difference between well ripped 256 and lossless is not huge, but on very revealing gear (and your JH13 with proper source are easily as revealing as speakers) it is not small either. 320kbs VBR and lossless is pretty hard depending on the music, but still with well recorded material of all genres there is still a small amount of difference in timbre and decay. I do agree the differences are often exaggerated in order for people to get their head-fi Epeen with JH13 more so than amp, source should be first and it sounds like you have not got this sorted, iphone 3g/s is quite good as is the X series. the hifiman is probably the most resolving portable source as well the korg MR1. IMOD is also good, but I feel it is beaten by my iriver even with the most expensive caps (well above VCAP) in my film cap dock iriver->D10->Lisa III/ ibasso OEM(with discrete buffers)->silver cable->JH13 is pretty uber and I find myself using it this way more than my DIYMOD->Duelund copper foil 4.7uf->Lisa III/OEM I own SE530 too and while they are pretty cool; they are really not in the same ballpark as JH13 if both are fed with a good source and an amp that copes well with the difficult load presented by JH13

When I spend 4x the money on home stereo equipment I can easily hear/feel the difference. For instance, when going from JM Lab speakers to Wilson Watt Puppies, I couldn't even begin to compare the two speakers. The differences in home hi-fi don't begin to become marginal until you hit the $50k plus arena. The differences are very noticeable between a 15k and 50k speaker, same for amps, etc.

If people enjoy their portable setups, and are happy with the purchases, then good for them. Coming from hi-fi, I just think the portable equipment arena is exaggerated. Sponsors are always coming out with new amps/cables/widgets every 6-9 months, and a lot of people buy them thinking it is some groundbreaking new sonic improvement/size, etc.

Thanks for the response about actual source gear, I think it is the first in this thread. When you say the iPhone 3GS and X series are good, are you referring to the headphone out or through a LOD cable? Is there any difference between using an iPhone 3GS and a current gen nano if you are using a LOD cable?

 

[LeeMark]

I use the Shadow, similar to the slim, and have an imod and TWag cables and mini to mini and ALO female dock. I absolutely hear a difference between 256 and lossless. I like the convenience and usability of itunes and have stuck with the ipods. Any of the sources will work with your setup, but having not heard the non-ipod systems I can't comment specifically. I also come from a hi-fi setup but to increase my time for listening, I wanted a comparable portable setup which explains my setup now. Why not try a few ans ell what you don't like since you said the expense in and of itself is not an issue. Also, just for kicks get a few cds of music you have and rip them in lossless format and compare it to your itune files. Maybe with the JH13 you may hear some differences and then you can decide what to do. Just enjoy the music, but total dismiss other people's opinions as being stupid or not making sense, they are opinions and there really is no right or wrong, per se.

 

[hkimo]

I have a machine to recommend you.
KORG-MR1.

I have pre-order Pico slim and wait for this.
At meanwhile, I have try Kenwood D9EC,MGR-A7,PCM-D50,Imod 4G,IMPOD 5.5G with Iqube,IMOD with VACP and so on.

But, I found MR-1 bring me more surprise than all of this machine.
The sound from Phone out and Line out is totally different.
Maybe you can try this and wait for Slim.

Although You have suffer with low battery life and spend some money for SSD.

PS:Cable is good idea for JH 13 PRO,But it really hard to find the cable you want.
Unless you find someone have a lot of Cable.
Try it before you bought,or you will spend more on cable even more than headphone.

 

[JarodL1]

Can you use a portable amp with the Sony X series? Or more appropriately, does an amp increase sound quality on a Sony X series?

Is a sony x series really as good as an ipod/lod/amp combo?

 

[stang]

I have a Walkman X1060 with Westone UM3x. Also: Ipod Touch 32GB 3rd gen>Pure copper LOD> RSA P-51 Mustang amp>Westone UM3x. I really need to do some impressions lol. I may have to get back to you on this one