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
My issue is with you bro, spreading negatively on a beautiful day like this!
Seriously tho, I have only seen you leaving shitty reviews on every predict under a certain price point and comparing it to the $700 dac and $1000 amps that you own.
The reason why you seem like a troll is simply because you go like "product is shit" not a "product is shit because of this, and I recommend this product of a similar price instead".
In summary, shitting on products is okay, but people prefer reading value added comments such as you explaining why this is shit and your alternative recommendations at a similar price point.
Audio doesn't have to be expensive.
Have a great day!
I can't think of anything in this price range I could honestly call "good" so I can't in good conscious make a recommendation based on audio quality. When you're looking at lo-fi you try to make judgements based on value.
High quality audio is cheaper than it's ever been -- but still very expensive.
"THE SUBJECTIVISTS: The hardcore Subjectivists trust their own ears above all else and often ignore, downplay, or sometimes even actively discredit objective efforts. Some argue they have superior hearing and/or listening skills and more refined tastes. That sometimes creates at least a whiff of an elitist “club” that some are drawn to (think Robb Report). But, regardless, their genuine passion for audio is to be admired. And I believe at least some of them do have superior listening skills compared to the Average Joe. Despite their more emotional left brains, which might imply a greater love of music, there’s some consensus Subjectivists spend more of their time tweaking and evaluating their hardware than a typical objectivist. Stereophile’s Michael Fremer is generally considered a strong subjectivist.
THE OBJECTIVISTS: This group tends to prefer some sort of science, measurements, or objective listening tests to back up claims of “A is better than B”. When reading a gear review they’re more likely to skip to the measurements section (if there is one) than read subjective impressions. They tend to be skeptical of outrageous claims and ultra high priced gear. They also tend to buy less expensive gear, less often, than subjectivists making them less attractive to manufactures. As mentioned above, they tend to be more satisfied with their systems so the spend more time just listening to music rather than the gear. Some have speculated this is because they’re confident more of their hardware is already “good enough.” Peter Aczel and the late Julian Hirsch are classic audio objectivists. And a lot of the folks at Hydrogenaudio fall in this category.
THE MODERATES: Just as with politics and religion, it’s not black and white. Some have a foot firmly in both the objective and subjective side of things. Some examples are John Atkinson at Stereophile, John Siau at Benchmark Media, and to some degree, myself. We value objective measurements but also trust our ears and just because we may not hear a difference we accept someone else might. I believe those in the middle are generally the most open minded. " -nwavguy http://nwavguy.blogspot.sg/2011/05/subjective-vs-objective-debate.html
I personally feel that I am a Moderatist, in the sense that I dont exactly believe in Measurements= sound, but I more prone towards being a objectivist for a big reason:
I do not believe that audio has to be expensive. Why do we have to pay more for a unjustified price to performance ratio?
NwAvGuy designed the o2 to be a non-expensive amp with a relatively good performance that anyone can afford. His reason for creating the o2 is well, for people to listen to the music through the headphone, not the amp. He wanted to construct a amp that would produce accurately how the recording was meant to sound.
There are people shitting on cheap and expensive products equally due to one factor. Price. Cheap products are easy to shit on, because, well, its cheap. Expensive products are also easy to shit on, because, well, its a low value product.
Either expensive products or cheap products all get haters, well cos there are people that purchase expensive products and feel that they literally are having the best audio performance that the people who are not willing to pay would never get. And likewise, there are normal audiophiles who think spending that much on a amp is a low value option and I can get similar performance for a much lower price.
And Mr. GUTB, sorry to say, but expensive components ≠ increased audio performance. There has been a recent breed of people supporting expensive products and claiming that they are a audio engineer with experience and justifying their purchase of expensive products as it uses quality components.
I am sorry to say Mr. GUTB, you happen to have a case of "component snob".
" DESIGNER COMPONENTS: Some audiophiles are “component snobs”. Someone once told me the Benchmark DAC1 isn’t worth considering because its Alps volume control only costs a few dollars. But, being objective, the DAC1 has great crosstalk performance (a weakness of some volume controls), good channel balance tracking, the volume control feels solid, turns smoothly, and doesn’t make any audible noise when turned. So what exactly is wrong with the volume control? The answer: Nothing significant. But some think you’re supposed to spend way more to get those hidden designer labels. They can go enjoy their latest issue of the Robb Report. They’re after something very different than simply getting the most accurate sound and the O2 isn’t their kind of amp.
DESIGNER COMPONENT CHALLENGE: Some claim specs alone don’t tell you how something like an op amp will sound. I believe if two op amps meet clear some basic measurement criteria, they will sound so similar it’s next to impossible to tell them apart. Anyone’s who’s skeptical might be interested in my Op Amp Blind Listening Challenge.
IMPLEMENTATION IS EVERYTHING: Like the DAC mentioned above, I’ve seen all sorts of products that use the right parts but got the details wrong and don’t work very well. Just routing a single ground signal wrong on the PC board can seriously harm performance. I’ve seen designs that measure great on RMAA but are simultaneously oscillating at RF frequencies. The O2 demonstrates proper implementation can yield genuinely excellent performance without using any designer or expensive parts. Some of the O2’s measurements are pushing the limits of even my dScope audio analyzer."
-NwAvGuy http://nwavguy.blogspot.sg/2011/07/
I am not shitting on expensive products. I am simply pointing out whats happening:
GUTB- Low-fi amp
NwAvGuy- Why is this amp a objective amp backed up with proper measurements
" Cost (almost) No Object – Some go overboard with ultra-high end parts, exotic topologies (i.e. fully balanced), etc. These designs can end up being very costly as some “boutique” audiophile parts are ridiculously expensive and some of the topologies require 2+ times as many parts. Do they work any better? It’s unfair to generalize but I know lots of the parts and principals that go into overkill designs often have no measurable benefits and fail to survive blind listening comparisons. I’m sure some designs turn out great. And even those that don’t can be impressive works of art to be admired. You can put a Mercedes AMG V8 engine into a riding lawnmower but the result probably belongs behind a rope in a museum rather than trying to mow lawns. In other words, the engineers at Lawn Boy can probably build a better lawn mower than some guy in a shed using Mercedes parts. I go into this more later and it’s one of the key reasons why many Cost no Object designs are flawed—the implementation is at least as important as the parts and cost."
-NwAvGuy http://nwavguy.blogspot.sg/2011/07/
So, Mr. GUTB, the o2 isnt a cheap amp. Its just that NwAvGuy chose to design the o2 with logical parts to keep the price low yet give very good performance. Oh yeah, he also didnt collect any money for his hard work.
So thats why commoners like me can have the o2 amp a such a low price point.
I highly recommend going to NwAvGuy's blog to cure your case of "component snob"
Have a great day!
Music streaming is of very low quality -- at best CD quality but usually the streaming system is of terrible quality until you get into big $ network players. Tidal Master with MQA is changing that but for MQA the cheapest quality MQA DAC at this time costs 2k so out of the range of most audiophiles (on Massdrop anyway).