Hello, hope you are all doing well.
I am looking for a portable DAC/AMP that will power IEMs from a phone, like;
T2, T4, P1, Tape Pro, FH3, Starfields, Believe, ThieAudio L3/L4/L5, Yume, TRI Starsea
And more efficient headphones, like;
X2HR, SHP9500, AKG 361, HD58X, SR80e
With the overwhelmingly positive recommendation of the S9 by amirm, that would be a no brainer
But, it is very important for me to precisely control the volume since the step volume increases from my phone are way too big.
To make matters worst the S9 is powerful, but I wonder if it would be TOO powerful for more efficient IEMs. In a way that I would be barely able to control the volume from my phone because it would be either mute, low volume, and then way too loud.
It is a shame they ditched the hardware volume control.
So I tend to go for the S8, which has an analog/hardware volume control, which allows for a lot more precise volume increase/decrease.
Is the S8 performance a significant downgrade from the S9? (not taking into account power delivery for example).
Is the S8 still able to drive comfortably most of the headphones and IEMs I mentioned?
I would easily take the S8 over the S9 because of that hardware control volume IF there isn´t a significantly noticeable difference in performance in the scenarios I mentioned.
Any stances from S8/S9 owners?
Specs:
S8: Couldn´t find it, but SE only. DAC CHIP>CS43131
S9: SE>90mW, BAL>125mW. DAC CHIP> AK4493EQ
Currently, I have a K3 KGUSS (basically an FX AUDIO DAC-X6) and a Hidzis Sonata II
I am looking for a portable DAC/AMP that will power IEMs from a phone, like;
T2, T4, P1, Tape Pro, FH3, Starfields, Believe, ThieAudio L3/L4/L5, Yume, TRI Starsea
And more efficient headphones, like;
X2HR, SHP9500, AKG 361, HD58X, SR80e
With the overwhelmingly positive recommendation of the S9 by amirm, that would be a no brainer
But, it is very important for me to precisely control the volume since the step volume increases from my phone are way too big.
To make matters worst the S9 is powerful, but I wonder if it would be TOO powerful for more efficient IEMs. In a way that I would be barely able to control the volume from my phone because it would be either mute, low volume, and then way too loud.
It is a shame they ditched the hardware volume control.
So I tend to go for the S8, which has an analog/hardware volume control, which allows for a lot more precise volume increase/decrease.
Is the S8 performance a significant downgrade from the S9? (not taking into account power delivery for example).
Is the S8 still able to drive comfortably most of the headphones and IEMs I mentioned?
I would easily take the S8 over the S9 because of that hardware control volume IF there isn´t a significantly noticeable difference in performance in the scenarios I mentioned.
Any stances from S8/S9 owners?
Specs:
S8: Couldn´t find it, but SE only. DAC CHIP>CS43131
S9: SE>90mW, BAL>125mW. DAC CHIP> AK4493EQ
Currently, I have a K3 KGUSS (basically an FX AUDIO DAC-X6) and a Hidzis Sonata II