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
1.5ft Premier Series XLR Female to RCA Male Cable, 16AWG (Gold Plated) aprox $4.50ea. (and a total &*$@ steal!)
Tried to show you here how it looks, but hard to see other than the mesh jacket shown coming out of the cable that the opaque plastic isolates from touching the rest of the jack...
This makes the cable directional, meaning that it is only really used for one way connection to benefit properly from the added shielding (don't ask me why it doesn't work the other direction, because I think it does anyway) provided by this configuration and not being tied to the ground of the - on the RCA and into the DAC. Essentially, the idea is that the jacket mesh which doesn't run in parallel and goes directly to the ground in your house, and provides better interference rejection. A normal RCA cable can't provide this type of full shielding since both conductors are used, and even if there is a shield, it could only be terminated to one side as a in a Kimber Kable interconnect for partial isolation, or sometimes both sides go to the same termination point as the - wire which arguably provides almost no gain from the shield wire. There are endless debates on whether any of this helps in a normal RCA cable, and all I can say is what I think sounds better to me which is the Kimber way.
You can see in this photo better the arrows on my Monoprice XLR cable (first marks past the RCA end) showing the direction the audio should flow from component to component:
Does it work? IMHO, Yes.
I also show the RCA that I used to hook up in the same way to the Jotunheim, but using the unbalanced inputs on both sides instead. There was an audible difference not only in the sound quality, but I could hear noise when I turned up the volume to higher levels off the RCA to RCA. Both Monoprice cables are very good for very inexpensive cables, and both did sound good if not comparable to other more expensive RCA cables I have and tried like my Kimber Kables. The Monoprice RCAs were not the same as my Kimber interconnects, but those are on duty in my home theater system anyway, and cost more than the DAC and AMP combined. The Monoprice RCA you see is only a few dollars, and probably one of the best for the money period.
The RCA to balanced did not have any noise and the background was dead silent and I think still sounded better than my Kimbers, which did not have the noise at least but not the fullness. I felt that the imaging, detail etc were all better using the the Monoprice balanced to RCA. I believe that it also essentially keeps it as much balanced from the DAC as you can have in this kind of setup, but you are still taking advantage of the superior isolation inherent in a fully balanced system all the way though the dual amplifiers in the Jotunheim, and the huge power gains on the headphone side which I find extremely desirable (the amp is a monster). I could tell a difference with the balanced audio from my Modi from a direct comparison to the Vali2 single ended configuration in terms of separation no doubt. Much better separation with the balanced, and a different listening experience which I'm now addicted to. But there is a distinct difference in the fully isolated system built into the JOT that gives it a major edge IMO.
All that being said, I'm using this DAC since I have no reason to believe that in all senses it will sound better than anything else in the price range up to the Modi Multibit, and doesn't require PC drivers. I will plug it into my SMSL SAP-9 Balanced Headphone Amp (https://www.massdrop.com/buy/smsl-sap-9-balanced-headphone-amp), which is almost the same size form factor as the SDAC, and I think will outperform for my purposes the O2. For $100 price, the SMSL is a pretty sweet pairing for this for a work setup, and low key/high performance. Even the sizes are very similar. I may still try to pick up an O2 to compare, but I already have the SMSL and love it! Also will use the Monoprice RCA to XLR to hook them up.
Can't wait for this though, as if I do add an O2, I can stack all three and do some fun comparisons from jack to jack without having to switch anything on the stacks backside.
Also was very tempted by the drop happening tomorrow which has this Grace SDAC inside an Alex Cavali amp, the Massdrop CTH + SDAC DAC/amp:
(https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-cth-sdac-dac-amp?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ccu_massdrop_CTH_SDAC_DAC_Amp&referer=H7BG7Z&mode=guest_open&iterableCampaignId=163856&iterableTemplateId=236814)
It would I'm sure sound wonderful, and is also balanced with tube! I have to think that the setup that I'm doing is effectively similar to how the innards of the Massdrop CTH + SDAC DAC/amp will be setup since it's hardwired to the amp inside in the same way. But it would be too nice to leave at work. Also the SMSL has a nice 2.5 TRRS balanced headphone jack too! There are some good options at the moment for an inexpensive high performance setup that will drive most anything well. Sorry for the long winded answer, but hope it helps. Good luck to you with your system!