Looking for top-tier portable DAC/AMP

[paradoxical3]

As a serious pianist, sound has been very important to me for over a decade. I have spent thousands of hours in front of acoustic grands pianos, listening to live symphonies, etc. I trust my ears to a pretty good extent with acoustic instruments and have been struggling to figure out why what I hear is so different than other audiophiles. For example, I purchased a Schiit Bifrost multibit and Asgard 2 amp for my HD650 and was really confused why I thought my cheaper Focusrite pro gear sounded better with the HD650. Then I found this website and it made a little more sense....

Anyway, I have been traveling a lot for work and own IE800S IEMs which I consider one of the few IEMs that can accurately handle a symphony. But I am looking for a top tier dac/amp combo that can drive them to higher level than my Google Pixel 2 XL dongle can. A lot of the classical music I listen to is recorded with greater dynamic range and quieter than most popular music, so the Pixel 2 XL dongle can't drive them to adequate volume or good clarity.

When I say top tier, I don't really care about price (whether it's low or high), but I am looking for something that measures well and is portable. I am considering the Fiio Q5, but cannot find measurements on it. Is this a good choice or is there something better? Some of the Topping stuff looks interesting on the desktop side but I don't see a really compelling portable offering from them.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Kyle / MrHeeHo]

The Chord Hugo 2 performed really well when measured https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...hord-hugo-2-dac-and-headphone-amplifier.2349/

If price isn't an issue for you go for it, if you're wanting a cheaper alternative the Chord Mojo seems to be pretty good as well and looks to be in the pipeline for a future measurements and review

 

[paradoxical3]

Thanks for the quick response. I like the measurements of the Hugo 2, but it's a big large for truly portable use. The Mojo is really interesting to me and at a nice price point, but I haven't seen any measurements of it yet.

 

[RayDunzl]

https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-electronics-mojo-da-headphone-amplifier-measurements

 

[amirm]

Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately we have not reviewed many high-end portable DACs. I recently reviewed the LH Labs Go2 Pro but unless you have a balanced headphone, it doesn't have much power output.

I am happy to measure one if you get one and loan it to me.

 

[dc655321]

When I say top tier, I don't really care about price (whether it's low or high), but I am looking for something that measures well and is portable.

If you're not yet completely turned off the idea of dongles, the SMSL iDEA may be an option.
Measured here and here. I have one I use with my mac desktop, linux laptop, and old nexus 5 phone.
FWIW, I quite like it.

 

[jacobacci]

Hi, paradoxical3
I own both the Mojo and the Hugo 2 and I find them both excellent. They are quite different though. The Hugo 2 has four filters, described here: http://majorhifi.com/chord-hugo-2-filters-explained/ As mentioned in the article, the second two are designed to emulate Mojo. The first two are quite different from Mojo.
If money is no objective, I would definitely go for the Hugo 2, even if it is on the large side. The outstanding (in my view) sound quality is worth the weight and size. Use USB Audio Player Pro and an OTG cable and be done for the foreseeable future.
Hugo 2 has become the main DAC in my second system and it has given my active Piega Speakers another lease of life. It did away with lack of soundstage and glare.
Best Regards from Switzerland
Rudi

 

[Wombat]

Hi, paradoxical3
I own both the Mojo and the Hugo 2 and I find them both excellent. They are quite different though. The Hugo 2 has four filters, described here: http://majorhifi.com/chord-hugo-2-filters-explained/ As mentioned in the article, the second two are designed to emulate Mojo. The first two are quite different from Mojo.
If money is no objective, I would definitely go for the Hugo 2, even if it is on the large side. The outstanding (in my view) sound quality is worth the weight and size. Use USB Audio Player Pro and an OTG cable and be done for the foreseeable future.
Hugo 2 has become the main DAC in my second system and it has given my active Piega Speakers another lease of life. It did away with lack of soundstage and glare.
Best Regards from Switzerland
Rudi

"It did away with lack of soundstage and glare". Huh? How did it accomplish that?

I know what glare is wrt vision. Do you mean brightness? High end roll-off or mids reduction can reduce brightness.

 

[jacobacci]

Hi Wombat
Quite simple, my old dac was on the bright side and did not have a great soundstage (Weiss DAC-202). I had always attributed these two characteristics to the Piega P8LTD speakers, specifically to the ICEPower 200ASC amp modules. It seems the Chord Hugo 2 is a much better system match with the Piegas and I am now very happy with the sound. In fact they sound quite remarkable given the Piegas are from 1999. The ICE Power modules were added in 2005. With the Hugo 2 the sharp glare is completely gone, transients are now clean and soundstage is much more spacious. Rob Watts is making a big deal of the timing accuracy of his DACs and the importance of this to soundstage. At least in my setup I can confirm this. All very subjective of course.
The Weiss is now doing duty as a DAC / headphone amp.

 

[FrantzM]

"It did away with lack of soundstage and glare". Huh? How did it accomplish that?

I know what glare is wrt vision. Do you mean brightness? High end roll-off or mids reduction can reduce brightness.

We may need to understand the difficulty to describe what we hear with words. There is such a thing as a soundstage and for reasons that I do not know yet, it seems to me that some products presents a larger/different soundstage than others. Same with the reproduction of treble.... I can't subscribe to the philosophy that all electronics sound the same. My experience screams the contrary.
There is the temptation to reduce things to the extreme... Similar sin is committed by those who can hear differences between Ethernet cables ...

 

[Arnold Krueger]

As a serious pianist, sound has been very important to me for over a decade. I have spent thousands of hours in front of acoustic grands pianos, listening to live symphonies, etc. I trust my ears to a pretty good extent with acoustic instruments and have been struggling to figure out why what I hear is so different than other audiophiles. For example, I purchased a Schiit Bifrost multibit and Asgard 2 amp for my HD650 and was really confused why I thought my cheaper Focusrite pro gear sounded better with the HD650. Then I found this website and it made a little more sense....

Anyway, I have been traveling a lot for work and own IE800S IEMs which I consider one of the few IEMs that can accurately handle a symphony. But I am looking for a top tier dac/amp combo that can drive them to higher level than my Google Pixel 2 XL dongle can. A lot of the classical music I listen to is recorded with greater dynamic range and quieter than most popular music, so the Pixel 2 XL dongle can't drive them to adequate volume or good clarity.

When I say top tier, I don't really care about price (whether it's low or high), but I am looking for something that measures well and is portable. I am considering the Fiio Q5, but cannot find measurements on it. Is this a good choice or is there something better? Some of the Topping stuff looks interesting on the desktop side but I don't see a really compelling portable offering from them.

Thanks in advance.

I spent about 12 years just before retirement as a professional recordist - making 100's of private recordings for 100's of events, groups and academic musical festivals. This gave me a lot of experience with various genres and venues.

One point of flexibility that I had and exercised was a lot of freedom to walk around and listen to things at various locations during the 100's of rehearsals I attended to set up my gear.

The sonic perspective of a performer who is actually performing at the time is IME violently different from that of a person sitting in the audience.

Furthermore, there are 100's of obviously different sonic perspectives within a venue. A good venue minimizes that, but this can happen to only a limited degree. Interestingly enough

There one one venue where the tone was remarkably similar all over the hall, but the trade-off was that levels varied quite bit.

At the music festivals I asked the judges what they wanted from the recordings that I made. They said they wanted the recordings to sound like it sounded where they sat. It turned out that the micing required to approximate their desires was violently different from where they actually sat, sometimes by 100 feet or more.

 

[jacobacci]

I can't subscribe to the philosophy that all electronics sound the same. My experience screams the contrary.

I agree with you, Frantz. I believe the differences in sound are mainly due to the interaction between output and input characteristics of the gear and cables involved. Even if a piece of kit measures perfectly into a pure high resistance, it does not mean it will reproduce a perfectly linear signal into a load with a capacitive or inductive component.
As in the case of the Piega speakers and the two DACs, I am experiencing very different sound from the Weiss DAC-202, whether I feed a Denon D7200 or an AKG K812 headphone. With the AKG K812 the sound is overly bright, where as with the Denon I find it very naturally balanced. Same source, very different result.
@paradoxical3 The Hugo 2 certainly has the potential to sound great, do try it with your IE800s whether the match is made in heaven or not.

 

[Soniclife]

The mojo looks good measured, see https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/measurements-of-chord-mojo.2434/

 

[Soniclife]

What are you intending to feed the DAC with? Your phone, a laptop, something else?

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

As a serious pianist, sound has been very important to me for over a decade. I have spent thousands of hours in front of acoustic grands pianos, listening to live symphonies, etc. I trust my ears to a pretty good extent with acoustic instruments and have been struggling to figure out why what I hear is so different than other audiophiles. For example, I purchased a Schiit Bifrost multibit and Asgard 2 amp for my HD650 and was really confused why I thought my cheaper Focusrite pro gear sounded better with the HD650. Then I found this website and it made a little more sense....

Anyway, I have been traveling a lot for work and own IE800S IEMs which I consider one of the few IEMs that can accurately handle a symphony. But I am looking for a top tier dac/amp combo that can drive them to higher level than my Google Pixel 2 XL dongle can. A lot of the classical music I listen to is recorded with greater dynamic range and quieter than most popular music, so the Pixel 2 XL dongle can't drive them to adequate volume or good clarity.

When I say top tier, I don't really care about price (whether it's low or high), but I am looking for something that measures well and is portable. I am considering the Fiio Q5, but cannot find measurements on it. Is this a good choice or is there something better? Some of the Topping stuff looks interesting on the desktop side but I don't see a really compelling portable offering from them.

Thanks in advance.

I would recommend giving the LG V20 or the latest V30 phones a serious listen. You can spend allot for a DAP but IMO you would be quite satisfied with the audio quality and the ability to drive even power hungry full size headphones. IMO these phones make owning a DAP superfluous.

 

[Jorj]

I'm on a similar hunt. I jumped in on the Kaiser 10 custom Massdrop, and I'm going to test them for a while with my Note 8 for travel duties, but I already find it lacking with other IEMs.

The shortlist, if I use my phone as a player, is the iFi iDSD Micro BL, Chord Mojo, and perhaps the GeekOut V2 Infinity. I'll just Amazon them all at once in October and see which one makes the grade. The Hugo 2 is too yuge, but perhaps...

On the other hand, if I decide to go with a DAP, the Sony statement Walkman seems to beckon, but I'd really have to A\B it against his little brother. The HiBy line seems interesting, and then there's the A&K stuff. I just hate the idea of another device to lug about.

If I was not so stuck on the Samsung Note series, I'd be rocking an LG V30 right now.

 

[gvl]

Centrance is not widely known but they've been around and made a good number of well-regarded portable DACs/Amps over the years. Afaik they also also do some work in the pro-audio segment. Perhaps Amir can get his hands on their latest BlueDAC to get some objective data and perhaps considers it a challenge and measures the "unmeasurable jitter" http://www.centrance.com/products/bluedac/.

 

[dc655321]

The shortlist, if I use my phone as a player, is the iFi iDSD Micro BL, Chord Mojo, and perhaps the GeekOut V2 Infinity. I'll just Amazon them all at once in October and see which one makes the grade. The Hugo 2 is too yuge, but perhaps...

On the other hand, if I decide to go with a DAP, the Sony statement Walkman seems to beckon, but I'd really have to A\B it against his little brother. The HiBy line seems interesting, and then there's the A&K stuff. I just hate the idea of another device to lug about.

Curious why these particular items made it to your "shortlist".
You list 3 so-called mid-fi dacs, then TOTL (or at least top-dollar) A&K and Sony gear. Seems like quite a spread.

 

[Jorj]

Curious why these particular items made it to your "shortlist".
You list 3 so-called mid-fi dacs, then TOTL (or at least top-dollar) A&K and Sony gear. Seems like quite a spread.

Mid-fi? Do you have a list of other portable DAC\amps that are TOTL? Of course the DAPs are spendy, but do they really qualify as more high-end?

 

[Jorj]

Centrance is not widely known but they've been around and made a good number of well-regarded portable DACs/Amps over the years. Afaik they also also do some work in the pro-audio segment. Perhaps Amir can get his hands on their latest BlueDAC to get some objective data and perhaps considers it a challenge and measures the "unmeasurable jitter" http://www.centrance.com/products/bluedac/.

I've seen Centrance around, but never put ears on them. We need more info here....loving the idea of streaming a FLAC file to the DAC from my phone via Bluetooth. USB is notoriously craptastic (but still better than S/PDIF, in theory), but adding a wireless path to the chain seems fraught with peril. Further, if they are just using AptX or some other codec, then I'll pass. That is not the way to achieve the kind of fidelity I'm hoping for.