[ANDEROAN]

 
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lol @ ANDEROAN, at this point I don't even want to know what you're smoking, pretty scary stuff 

sticks and stones my friend, now now now, don't go getting personal, I don't make fun of your furry cute wittle face or your funny shiny hat, do I? no, lol, although I thought MizMoxie was our leader, but now I know that she is really your leader,
 
and well you all wish, like I've said before I've been there and done all of that, life and me are now getting along clean and sober, thank you very much! you may have me confused with ester and his bouts insobriety, lol, I should have been a writer, now I just indulge on Head-Fi at you alls expense, thanks for all of your kindly indugences, and don't go and get me started, hey lets hope your ZO shows up sooner than later, I'm very interested in reading about your comparisions! has Jesse Ventura called you yet by the way? he said he'd get to the bottom of all of this conspiracy theory business?
 

 

[XxAlterWavexX]

Would the ZO2 pair well with my ATH-M50 driven out of my iphone 4?

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

 
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Would the ZO2 pair well with my ATH-M50 driven out of my iphone 4?

I'm sure if some1 had tried this combo would reply but I don't see why it wouldn't, yea I saw your other thread that you would like to get a bit stronger bass and yea I don't see why not as running ampless out of iphone 4 won't give you that huge bass response with most headphones. M50 benefits quite a lot from amping basswise from my experience.

 

[mrAdrian]

As long as you desire more bass from your current setup, ZO will do the job right.

 

[XxAlterWavexX]

Thanks guys Yeah, I'm just anxious to know how it would pair... don't want to take a shot in the dark. Also, do you need a LOD for the iphone and zo2 pairing?

 

[kenman345]

I have never listened to the M50s myself, but that being said, from what I've read about the M50s, amping them would help bring out their potential, and from my ownership of the ZO2.3, it's a nice little amp for the money. I have tried the ZO2 with iBudz and other cheap headphones and it does a great job, as well as it does a great job with the Denon D2000's I have. I don't think their is any reason to fear that it would provide a bad combination at all. The M50s should and have not been reported to be hard to drive and the ZO2 will surely handle them. 
 
As for using an LOD with the ZO2, I highly suggest it, but it doesn't need to be. It will work quite fine without it, but if you try using the HO instead of a LOD, you may run into your fear, but if that is the case, the LOD should work for you to fix it. all in all, if you get the LOD from amazon (the FiiO ones are just fine), the m50s' with the coupon code on soundprofessionals, and the ZO2 from digiZoid, you're looking at somewhere in the ballpark of $250 or slightly less for a nice little setup. 
 
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Thanks guys

Yeah, I'm just anxious to know how it would pair... don't want to take a shot in the dark. Also, do you need a LOD for the iphone and zo2 pairing?

 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

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Thanks guys

Yeah, I'm just anxious to know how it would pair... don't want to take a shot in the dark. Also, do you need a LOD for the iphone and zo2 pairing?

ZO can work fine out of headphone jack on the source but a lot of people like to use LOD especially with the iPod/iPhones to bypass the internal amping but ZO2 can handle that just fine so I don't think the gain is huge. However using the built in volume control on ZO when used with LOD also gives a bit finer control of the volume so that is also a benefit.
 
EDIT: Looks like I might get the ZOv2.3 tomorrow, it has arrived in my country about an hr ago, finally. xD

 

[DannyBai]

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Would the ZO2 pair well with my ATH-M50 driven out of my iphone 4?

I use the ZO2 with an iphone 4 and it sounds great.  It does sound better using a LOD, so I'd suggest getting one.  

 

[XxAlterWavexX]

Thanks a bunch, guys. I've just been a tad disappointed with the overall performance of my M50 unamped :S I mean don't get me wrong, I think they sound awesome, but compared to how they sound from my laptop, well..... I reckon this oughta snap them into shape, getting some nicer bass and a funner sound while I'm at it again, thanks to all of you!

 

[estreeter]

The ZO2 should have enough juice to drive your M50s, no problem - note that there have been one or two who havent enjoyed what SmartVektor does to their music, but they are in the minority.

 

[XxAlterWavexX]

Yeah, I wasn't really worried about them not being able to drive the m50s, seeing as how they're low impedance cans, but rather how they would sound paired with the ZO2. I've heard reports of the ZO2 having a bit of a hiss when paired with sensitive headphones, so I thought maybe the M50 would suffer from that as well, but having read your thoughts on the matter, I think I'll go ahead and pull the trigger Now to wait until Jan 9th... Wish they weren't backordered
 
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The ZO2 should have enough juice to drive your M50s, no problem - note that there have been one or two who havent enjoyed what SmartVektor does to their music, but they are in the minority.

 
 

 

[estreeter]

The M50s are sensitive headphones ? I think most of the complaints were from people with expensive IEMs, and I dont remember reading any complaints re fullsize phones. Inevitably, there will always be someone on HF with bat-like hearing and a large collection of vocal/acoustic music, but I suspect that for most the ZO2V1 doesn't hiss any more than any other sub-$200 portable amp. I dont find it any different in that respect to my uHA-4, and that amp has a large following among IEM owners.

 

[XxAlterWavexX]

lol, bat-like hearing 

 Yeah, I guessed as much... Still, good to know! Thanks... It was either this or the iBasso T3 but the technnology in this amp sounds intriguing for sure.
 
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The M50s are sensitive headphones ? I think most of the complaints were from people with expensive IEMs, and I dont remember reading any complaints re fullsize phones. Inevitably, there will always be someone on HF with bat-like hearing and a large collection of vocal/acoustic music, but I suspect that for most the ZO2V1 doesn't hiss any more than any other sub-$200 portable amp. I dont find it any different in that respect to my uHA-4, and that amp has a large following among IEM owners.

 

 

[lee730]

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lol, bat-like hearing 

 Yeah, I guessed as much... Still, good to know! Thanks... It was either this or the iBasso T3 but the technnology in this amp sounds intriguing for sure.
 


 

 


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The M50s are sensitive headphones ? I think most of the complaints were from people with expensive IEMs, and I dont remember reading any complaints re fullsize phones. Inevitably, there will always be someone on HF with bat-like hearing and a large collection of vocal/acoustic music, but I suspect that for most the ZO2V1 doesn't hiss any more than any other sub-$200 portable amp. I dont find it any different in that respect to my uHA-4, and that amp has a large following among IEM owners.

For me there really is no comparison between the UHA4 and the ZO2 and the revised edition that is (Rev 2.3) when it comes to hiss. The UHA4 is dead silent, black background on low gain. There is audible hiss though when put on Hi gain with my Sensitive IEMs. While the ZO2 standard exhibited a crazy amount of hiss and still very audible hiss on the revised version. Just food for thought.
 
 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

My ZO2.3 just arrived! I probably won't write much about sound quality aspects after initial testing as last time it was such a big difference after burning it in a little.
 
   
 
ALL YOUR ZO ARE BELONG TO ME
 
What I can tell quickly is that the contour levels have definitely been altered, in a good way. Now it sounds balanced at the lowest setting with nothing exaggerated and the following low levels are also providing less bass boost than previously so now you can add a more fine level of bass boost! (there's at least 2-3 more finer levels of bass boost than on ZO2.1) I find myself using about 3 - 4 levels higher with this non-burnt in ZO2.3 than I used with the burnt-in ZO2.1 so seems the contour levels are much better balanced now. Should be nice for all those non-bass heads out there, you can add just a very tiny bit of boost or none at all. Thanks digiZoid for taking our feedback so seriously!
 
I don't think either it really sounds that bad using the low gain mode while using headphone-out jack. No increased distortion noted despite having to up the volume a little (in my case to 53% for my 64 ohm headphones compared to 16% with high gain). The bass boost will be giving less of a drastic change in low gain but it doesn't sound that bad at all but yea the bass is definitely stronger with high gain. I see it like an alternative bass contour shape in case the high gain doesn't work nicely for you, it's more smooth and definitely provides a huge boost also in low gain mode at the higher levels. Sound signature wise from very intial testing, reminds me slightly more of ZO1 than ZO2 but it's not sounding exactly like either of them. But more on that later but at least I seem to enjoy this ZO2.3 more on the first listen than I did with ZO2.1.
 
Also now it switches on/off MUCH faster and is almost completely distortion/noise free for me (well as good as it gets anyway). But the bypass feature is removed as I already knew so no suprises there. The hiss is reduced in ZO2.3 on high gain level compared to ZO2.1, testing with XB500 headphones which are among the most hiss-prone headphones around provided quite noticable hiss in ZO2.1 while it's very faint/almost inaudible on ZO2.3 and switching to low gain level which fits this very sensitive/easy driven headphone (probably IEMs too) and it becomes as good as silent, nice. This headphone brings normal listening volume levels with 12% in high gain and about 38~40% on the max level in low gain so it's probably wiser to use that as I notice this sensitive headphone also responds better to the contour levels in low gain compared to the M-Audio Q40 for example.
 
I don't use portable devices so can't test with LOD but that's my above experiences so far using headphone out. Quite positive impressions so far, the high/low gain certainly helped. I will use it for a while before going more in depth regarding sound quality aspects.