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 SDAC is good and clean sounding across the ranges in the music I've listened to so far, and the amp is plenty powerful to drive the headphones and IEMs I've tried so far (even some planars, all without high gain). The sound is more analytical, which I suppose holds true to the goal of the original ODAC + O2 design.
Construction-wise, it feels pretty well made. The fit and finish on the chassis and panels is good. The headphone output, volume knob, RCA ports, USB input, and power input ports all feel solid. The rubber O-rings on the volume knob are a nice touch. The power and gain buttons have a little bit of lateral movement, but they're not loose by any means. The power-indicator LED looks a bit out of place right in the middle of the front panel, but it doesn't affect function.
Overall, I think the SDAC+O2 is a good value. It's a marked improvement to the default sound in any computer and will work well with most headphones (and powered speakers). Improvements beyond this are going to be more a matter of personal preference (ie. different sound profiles). For most, I'd expect this could be a one-shot solution to take care of your computer audio needs.
The setup I've been using: - Source: Macbook Pro, Spotify, iTunes (playing some ALAC tracks) - Headphones: Fostex TH-X00 Purpleheart, Monoprice Monolith MP1060, V-Moda M-100 - IEMs: Westone 3, Ultimate Ears UE900, Shure SE215