What would be a good portable Dac/Amp to use with my HD6xx and Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone?
I am new to this hobby. I purchased a HD6XX and plan to use it with my Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone, that has a 3.5mm jack. I was wondering if I needed a portable dac/amp or just a portable amp and if so what would one recommend? Any assistance one could provide, would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, Haz
Mar 7, 2024
The power gap between the two is huge for your X00's impedance (around 1030mW vs a bit more than 613mW for de O2), but for higher impedances the O2 (88mW) actually gives more power than the m9xx (57mW). I really can't see why choose the m9xx having high impedance HP.
M-Stage - great amp, meh dac, heavy, odd form factor, gets hot Bravo Audio Ocean-powerful Class A amp, tube warmth, tube rolling opportunities, you can fry eggs on this one O2 - nothing but praise here, great clarity, like a wire with gain, powers everything I throw at it Odac RevB - dead silent background, great clarity and imaging, older design using a PCM chip, (feeds all of the above) SMSL M3 - portable, decent dac, weakish amp, DSD, can power from a power brick, OTG support for Android, inexpensive Micca Origen - great form factor, knob on top, DSD, plenty of power, uses the same Cirrus Logic chip as the SMSL
Here's the thing...the m9xx does all the things that made each of the above special...only better. Oh, and the crossfeed feature alone is worth the price of admission.
Update: I ran rca's from the m9xx to the O2 and OMG! You CAN have the best of both worlds! The m9xx will simultaneously power the amp on both units! On the O2 comfortable levels at 3:00 o"clock on low gain and 11:00 o"clock on high gain. More power than you will ever need!
Also if you go back to Jude's review, his comment was more that he preferred tubes to roll off some of the early production HD800's at times harsh treble. Not that the m9XX lacked power. I never even got above 85 when using the m9XX with the HD800S. Which means that I was using less than half its available power.
The HD800 is more efficient than the HD600 and HD650. In fact Michael Grace literally used a HD800 as his personal reference when he designed the m9XX. I had the HD650 and I'll agree I didn't like it that much with the m9XX. But the HD650 is a notoriously amp picky headphone.
To my ears the HD800 (unmodded) was a good pairing with the m9XX. The HD800S with it was near magical. And most people who have actually heard it will say so, instead of just reading off spec sheets.
Hopefully I don't sound biased, since I'm fortunate to own an m9XX.
A lot of people have remarked how similar the m9XX sounds to the m920 and most everybody considers the m920 to be endgame.
EDIT: ok the amp is pretty good for easy to drive iems or headphones, bad for hard to drive ones, ok.
I like the O2/ODAC for what it is, a lot. It's not in the ballpark of the m9XX at all. And it has nothing to do with power. Their power specs
The O2/ODAC is also getting a bit long in the tooth. These days it's being outperformed by things like the audioquest dragonfly
Amp matching is important, but the m9xx can basically push any good modern designed cans because of how easy most are to drive, and it does it while sounding divine.
For my 650s though I can feel a noticeable improvement running the m9xx to a lyr 2, for instance. So much better.
Since the m9XX has such low output impedance, you're never out of current, so the only issue is if they will make your headphones loud enough. With the HD800S, the m9XX will drive them to 117dB in high power mode, and 115dB in "regular power" mode. That's plenty of headroom unless you listen at VERY high volume levels. And again, you aren't lacking for current whatsoever, since the m9XX is 0.08 output impedance.
I agree that I don't love the HD650 with the m9XX, but that has to do with the HD650 being so amp picky, not lack of power. There are plenty of 4 watt amps I don't like with the HD650. I don't think the HD650 sounds very good with the Gustard H10, for example. And, again, everybody who I know that has heard the HD800S with the m9XX reports it as not just "passable" but flat out incredible. And, while this is my/our opinion, again, we have heard the HD800S with the m9XX, and as you mentioned elsewhere, you've never heard this pairing. You saying "meh, that is your opinion" when you have literally never heard the pairing is completely unreasonable, and misleading.
also I don't believe Sennheiser admits to tweaking/changing the tonal balance of the hd800. Some people may have done their own measurements but those could be just within tolerances and completely biased and subjective. I'm sure Jude has heard more than one pair of hd800s, too ;-)
It sounds like it isn't power you're missing with the Hd650, but rather you like the bass boost the Hd650 gets with higher impedance amps due to the impedance hump the HD650 has in the midbass. But then again, the Lyr2 won't create that effect, so I don't know.
My main point is that it just simply isn't true that the m9XX is underpowered for the HD800 (unless you regularly listen above 100dB). That's an objective fact. At 90 dB the HD800 is only drawing about 15mW from the m9XX.
As for your other conversation with that man about the hd600..... I wholeheartedly agree. hd650 is a lot better to listen to, but that is just our opinion. Some people call it a dark hp but the newer models sound fine to me. Not the biggest but far from small and very realistic soundstage. Bass that has perfect impact, but a bit shy of what I'd call perfect extension... midrange is balanced and I think treble sounds fine, not veiled. Just not lifted enough to blast your dang ears. Close to perfect headphone especially for the price range.
Other favorite can in rotation is the ATH AD2K and nobody will ever have my pair ;-)