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
Sound Characteristics: As far as differences between a compressed lossy stream/file and a compressed lossless stream/file are mostly present in the "finer" details IMO. Things like greater bass impact/authority, the frequency extremes are more apparent. There is a greater sense of space around the instruments and they have a wider range of placement (soundstage depth). Instruments and vocals have a greater sense of texture and nuance. Source Discrimination Look for reviews if you will be purchasing tracks/albums, remasters are often good sources but this isn't universal. Early days of high res involved a lot of basic CD transfers getting upsampled and slapped on SACD's or DVD-Audio discs. "Publicly available" FLAC files can often have questionable sources. If this is your thing don't judge the medium on these files alone. There are certainly exceptions but EDM, Pop and Rap generally have poor dynamic range and may not yield the most differences from lossy counterparts. The bass benefits remain present in the aforementioned genres but Acoustic/Folk, Jazz, some Rock/Blues and Classical may make that difference more apparent. Can I truly get the most out of HiFi music with standard equipment? Depends on one's definition of standard equipment. I personally feel you can spend $300-$500 bucks and put together a killer entry into HiFi. Tidal is worth a go as even a full month's cost is less than most single albums on HDtracks. On the headphone front an ifi idsd nano BL is a highly versatile device that allows you to play with full MQA unpacking (192kHz/24bit max) from Tidal, The HD58X should be a great start on the HiFi journey. All in that "starter pack" will let you take HiFi every where you go and cost you under $400 bucks. After that one is chasing the last 5-10% performance and the cost goes up exponentially relative to performance gains.