Audiophile and gears

Should work with LG phones with decent volume and resolution. I could drive mine with a tiny DAP, but unusable with the laptops (Gram, 16 inch MBP).
HOWEVER with adequate current ( the monster A90 can provide) these headphones (Deva specially) turns into something else. Even a non audiophile person can easily spot the difference, specially the soundstage, it's not particularly huge, but the overall placements of instruments etc. is spectacular.
XD05 basic can also drive them to 90 percent of that sound in medium gain around 50 percent volume. But the high gain setting is little too much, don't know what headphones are this for. I can drive the 600 ohm DT880 just fine with medium gain ( volume pot around 80 percent) The high gain distorts the sound very early even with very difficult to drive headphones...may be it's for HE6 or similar headphones.
Overall I'm happy with the XD-05 basic...no sweetening of the sound, plenty of power, heavy and robust. Too big to carry around all the time, too small for a desktop set up, perfect for my usage.

Hifiman is totally kiling the competition with their new planars.Even the least expensive one 400SE sounds fantastic.
 
So I talked to Shenzenaudio support awhile ago. They said they declare very low value for B2D, so low that even won’t attract any custom duty. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. If I’m to use expedited shipping service, then fear of missing items is almost out of question.
 
People looking for portable amps that can be driven via phone, take a look at the E1DA offerings - 9038s with balanced 2.5mm output and 9038D with normal 3.5mm output. These are one of the most powerful and clean offerings in this form factor. I think I have recommended them more than a few times in this thread. I use mine with my HD650 and the 9038s has more than ample power to run this 300ohm headphone. I got mine when Aliexpress was available but Audistore has this available in India now. One can also contact the sellers directly and offer payment via PayPal and they might ship it to you directly. Linsoul.com too have them available. Audiostore have them priced for 10k which seems like a decent price for a $100 item. The power on these beauties blows away any competition in this form factor.
 
rdst_1 said:
People looking for portable amps that can be driven via phone, take a look at the E1DA offerings - 9038s with balanced 2.5mm output and 9038D with normal 3.5mm output. These are one of the most powerful and clean offerings in this form factor. I think I have recommended them more than a few times in this thread. I use mine with my HD650 and the 9038s has more than ample power to run this 300ohm headphone. I got mine when Aliexpress was available but Audistore has this available in India now. One can also contact the sellers directly and offer payment via PayPal and they might ship it to you directly. Linsoul.com too have them available. Audiostore have them priced for 10k which seems like a decent price for a $100 item. The power on these beauties blows away any competition in this form factor.
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One downside is using with portable devices eats up battery faster. I use Hidizs S9 pro. Clean sound and powerful as hell, but it drains battery so fast, that my iPad can’t keep up with it sometimes.
 
rdst_1 said:
People looking for portable amps that can be driven via phone, take a look at the E1DA offerings - 9038s with balanced 2.5mm output and 9038D with normal 3.5mm output. These are one of the most powerful and clean offerings in this form factor. I think I have recommended them more than a few times in this thread. I use mine with my HD650 and the 9038s has more than ample power to run this 300ohm headphone. I got mine when Aliexpress was available but Audistore has this available in India now. One can also contact the sellers directly and offer payment via PayPal and they might ship it to you directly. Linsoul.com too have them available. Audiostore have them priced for 10k which seems like a decent price for a $100 item. The power on these beauties blows away any competition in this form factor.
Click to expand...
Yes, I remember you have recommended it many times. There must be something special about this item, surely I will consider it if I intend to buy something portable. :)
 
rdst_1 said:
People looking for portable amps that can be driven via phone, take a look at the E1DA offerings - 9038s with balanced 2.5mm output and 9038D with normal 3.5mm output. These are one of the most powerful and clean offerings in this form factor. I think I have recommended them more than a few times in this thread. I use mine with my HD650 and the 9038s has more than ample power to run this 300ohm headphone. I got mine when Aliexpress was available but Audistore has this available in India now. One can also contact the sellers directly and offer payment via PayPal and they might ship it to you directly. Linsoul.com too have them available. Audiostore have them priced for 10k which seems like a decent price for a $100 item. The power on these beauties blows away any competition in this form factor.
Click to expand...
This is also on the list, would probably go for 9038D as I do not have any balanced cables, however thought that adding a few K more can get the XD05
 
NoobphileXXL said:
One downside is using with portable devices eats up battery faster. I use Hidizs S9 pro. Clean sound and powerful as hell, but it drains battery so fast, that my iPad can’t keep up with it sometimes.
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I prefer devices like these over devices which come with their own battery, because then the life of the device doesn't depend on the life of it's battery. Not to mention that it helps in increasing the portability of the device many folds. I've seen people worried about battery replacements for their expensive DAPs whereas it is much cheaper and easier to change phone batteries and usually people upgrade their phones anyhow.
Nitendra Singh said:
Yes, I remember you have recommended it many times. There must be something special about this item, surely I will consider it if I intend to buy something portable. :)
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Haha.. Looks like I have been a little overzealous. I was ready to spend around 25k on a DAC/AMP and then someone mentioned the E1DA on Hifivision. Glad to say that I was very surprised how powerful this small thing was and at 1/3rd my budget, I was able to easily drive my 650s. And then I joined their discord where many other audiophiles showed how they had moved over to this DAC from their desktop setups and very happy with the result.

tommy_vercetti said:
This is also on the list, would probably go for 9038D as I do not have any balanced cables, however thought that adding a few K more can get the XD05
Click to expand...
XD05 will definitely be more powerful. The E1DA suggestion is for people looking for a more portable setup like dongle DAC/AMPs.
 
From what I've read online, both Hidizs S9 pro and EIDA products are very powerful for their sizes, but other than the battery draw, there's another problem with these dongles. Most of them don't have hardware volume control and only work with Android/iOS devices ( phones, ipads etc.)
If you use a low end DAP ( like I do), there's no way to turn down the volume as these dongles don't recognise the volume controls of the non Android DAP and LO from DAPs are usually set at maximum volume.
I'm not much into streaming music anymore, almost my entire collection is stored in multiple microSD cards ( one in the DAP, one in the sd card slot of the Windows laptop,none of them bother me with email and other notifications)
 
quaratineinthesejeans said:
From what I've read online, both Hidizs S9 pro and EIDA products are very powerful for their sizes, but other than the battery draw, there's another problem with these dongles. Most of them don't have hardware volume control and only work with Android/iOS devices ( phones, ipads etc.)
If you use a low end DAP ( like I do), there's no way to turn down the volume as these dongles don't recognise the volume controls of the non Android DAP and LO from DAPs are usually set at maximum volume.
I'm not much into streaming music anymore, almost my entire collection is stored in multiple microSD cards ( one in the DAP, one in the sd card slot of the Windows laptop,none of them bother me with email and other notifications)
Click to expand...
The 9038s Gen 3 solved this issue by using a different USB bridge which enables hardware volume control and it also has flashable firmwares after which you can use their app and tweak digital filters at hardware level. I have the Gen 2 myself, but again, I use it with my phone.
Maybe, I am different, but I would never have a DAP and then use another dongle/AMP. I would rather buy a powerful enough DAP as I don't want to carry 3 devices with me, because we have to carry our phone with us anyhow. And that's why I went this route and bought a LG G8X which is as good as a DAP for most IEMs/HPs and then I have the E1DA for stuff that needs more power.
 
rdst_1 said:
I prefer devices like these over devices which come with their own battery, because then the life of the device doesn't depend on the life of it's battery. Not to mention that it helps in increasing the portability of the device many folds. I've seen people worried about battery replacements for their expensive DAPs whereas it is much cheaper and easier to change phone batteries and usually people upgrade their phones anyhow.
Click to expand...
That’s my exact thought before buying Hidizs, Replacing phone battery would be more convenient. Otherwise I could easily have gone with Qudelix or btr5.
 
PXL_20210915_121119487.PORTRAIT.jpgPXL_20210915_121049518.PORTRAIT.jpg
Finally a full Chinese portable set up. Everything in it is cheap and made in China. Sonically, not the best I've heard (not even close to be honest)
But definitely a far better sounding solution compared to a very expensive IEM and DAP ( I have a Campfire Solaris and used it with someone's DX220) From memory, this set up sounds much more open, clean, sharp without being sibilant. The lows when required comes up nice and fast with no trace of boominess. Would say it's close to 70 percent of the desktop Topping stack (D90/A90) sound at fraction of the price.
Since it's a very inexpensive set up, most people can try it...trust me on this...it won't disappoint. A bunch of normal people have listened to this and confessed they have never experienced this sound ( most of them use XM4, QC35, 700 etc.in office) and ready to buy the components, except the DAP possibly. It doesn't matter though, it's just a transport.
 
Nothing expensive in it...
DAP : Fiio M3 Pro possibly 70-80 EUR
DAC amp : xDuoo XD05 basic around 160 EUR
Headphones: hifiman Deva, got for less than 100 EUR ( it's slightly more online, but fortunately hifiman for some reason has always been kind to me and gives away awesome discount coupons from time to time)
Total around 350 EUR including aftermarket cable. I'm not aware of any powerful enough DAP to drive 600 ohm headphones.
I wasted so much money on headphones and desktop dac amps over the years...was not ready to shell out 1000 EURO for a DAP ( tried to buy one used back in India...sadly didn't happen)
Please share your portable set ups and ideas. After some, we can make a list of various setups for various price brackets. It will be fun.
 
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