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
If this is your first tube amp, know that tube amps have a hidden cost, and that is tube rolling. It's not that they break, I've only ever needed to replace 1 tube in the past 5 years in all my tube amps combined. They can last you up to tens of thousands of hours or more. It's more to do with wanting to try out other tubes. I've spent more money on tubes than on amps themselves.
I think I will be picking up the standard wa7 first and if I do enjoy it, then down the rabbit hole I go for a WA22!
Wa22 is a good amp, but you really need a fully balanced source for it, otherwise the Wa6SE is still better. Something like a balanced DAC the Audio-GD Master 7 ($2.2k), and a wall conditioner like the Isotek Aquarius ($2k) would make it better than the Wa6SE. It's a lot of money to get balanced with slight improvement over SE, the Wa22 is more meant for people who have spare gear lying around.
Problem with Woo gear in general is they are not that tubey sounding, if you're after tubey and don't need balanced, a better choice would be an Eddie Current Zana Deux S. For something that gives you a good taste of tubey goodness at more affordable price ranges, try a Bottlehead Crack (without Speedball mod) or the La Figaro 339.
1) If you don't know what this is telling you, i.e. basics of amp and can pairing, please read up on it before you drop hundreds of dollars buying stuff. Don't follow blind! 2) If you do know the basics, the answer is obvious whether this amp fits your X00.
The audio hobby is full of expensive pitfalls and traps. The vast majority of the consumer base is uninformed and underinformed, and this willful ignorance is magnified in the echo chambers of forums discussions and such, in which people just repeat what they've read elsewhere as gospel. On the back of this ignorance, the audio enthusiast industry has gotten away with murder, i.e. the entire audiophile cabling industry for instance.
It's hilarious that Woo Audio would advertise this amp as appropriate for headphones down to 8 ohms, which suggests it'd be appropriate for some of the most sensitive IEMs, i.e. Andromeda, while for SOME reason not listing this amp's output impedance, which is arguably one of the most important pieces of information for amp/can pairing. Fortunately, we have a few enthusiasts who measure all this stuff.