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
Ryu, Street Fighter
Soldier:76, Overwatch
EDC3, NuForce
Sound Matters All-rounders don’t optimize for one or two areas, but look for overall strength across the range of attributes.
When it comes to sound values, the typical mass market IEM pumps up the bass value and creates a big peak somewhere in the treble.
If it is a smoother transition, we call this tuning “V-shaped” because EQ with sliders looks like this (bass is on the left and treble to the right):
Some music recordings already contain overly boosted bass and sharp glare in the treble. A boosted bass + treble peak tuning usually adds too much and can be fatiguing to listen to over long periods of time.
The alternative is to tune something musical (enjoyable to listen to) but more neutral than the typical mass market IEM. (Bass, mids, and treble in balanced amounts.) Mids seem to get neglected in a lot of mainstream products. So that’s where we started. Then we added treble to give a sense of air, but without being too bright-sounding. Finally, the prototypes went around for bass feedback with a couple different dampers until we got the okay from our community test group.
Balanced armature drivers: One bigger bass driver + two on top for mids/treble
Dampers look like this:
The new EDC3 is a combination of 3 drivers per ear that each handle different sections of the sound, some crossovers to mix sound in the right amounts, and balanced armature technology for drivers that fit into the earpieces. There’s also a mechanical damper (or filter) that we used to tune the final balance. We hope that the Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 is the the well-rounded character that you will be enjoying late into the game…
- Jyri/NuForce
Here's one comparo with Etymotic ER4S in blue:
Still trying to decide whether to economize by buying these or spring (ow!) for the Massdrop Plus Universal IEMs. Both possibilities seem designed to be detailed and non-fatiguing while offering the deja-vu-inducing soundstage that IEMs rarely flung before the emergence of the Shure E5 (the first IEMs yours tabbouleh had ever heard that weren't "intimate" w-a-a-y back in 2006 at the inaugural New York Head-fi meat).
It will be fathinating to thee whether you collaborate on custom IEMs at some point, since that would mean devising a way to make absurdly individualized personalization work in a two-stage group buy. But perhaps you'll streamline your collabs at some future juncture (ow!).
Is it a 3-way cross-over? In the Brent Butterworth review he said It’s a 2-way design, basically the two balanced armatures for mid-highs are wired in Parallel. Can someone confirm? It’s not very clear. Thanks.