Western reliable portable DAC/amps for headphones

[Bjorn]

What western portable DAC/amps for headphones exist in the market today? Trying to get some overview of what's sold in the market for people who ask me about advices for portable audio.

I generally avoid recommending Chinese brands to people due to poor reiliability, often non existent service, and only 1 year of warranty (there's 5 years warranty of products sold in Norway). I understand of course that a western brand is mostly produced in China or Asia.

 

[staticV3]

Apple headphone adapter.

Enough grunt for most headphones and IEMs, but has some quirks with volume:

Review: Apple vs Google USB-C Headphone Adapters

Thanks for that. I'll have to reacquaint myself with how to SSH into the RPi so I can open a terminal to run alsamixer and follow these steps: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/Alsamixer Correct?

www.audiosciencereview.com

iFi also make portable equipment: https://ifi-audio.com

 

[Sokel]

Astell&Kern may be asian too (Korean) but has a broad network as far as I know (I have seen them in many shops)

Sound is decent,haven't seen any measurements though.
They have the premium feel and look nice if that matters.

 

[Koeitje]

Why not buy a product where you live instead of importing it yourself? Then you will always have the minimum required warranty period (seems like you would enjoy a 5 year warranty then?).

 

[Klonatans]

EarMen Sparrow (from Serbia if it can be considered West) and Antelope Audio ZEO (American, I think).

 

[Bjorn]

Seems like it's challenging to find such a dongle DAC/AMP that measures well or meausements are lacking.

Why not buy a product where you live instead of importing it yourself? Then you will always have the minimum required warranty period (seems like you would enjoy a 5 year warranty then?).

Sure, that can work. What brands are considered stable and measures great? I'll check if I can locate them here.

 

[AnalogSteph]

There's still Chord with the Mojo 2 and Hugo 2. Not sure about reliable and the UI rather is an acquired taste, but you do get an FPGA for their trademark overkill digital filters with a gazillion taps (e.g. 40,960 for the Mojo 2) for extra audiophile woo-woo factor. (I like low periodic ripple and good ultimate rejection as much as the next guy, but DAC ICs generally don't have filters sporting more than a few hundred taps and performance improves exponentially as you add more.)

 

[Koeitje]

Seems like it's challenging to find such a dongle DAC/AMP that measures well or meausements are lacking.

Sure, that can work. What brands are considered stable and measures great? I'll check if I can locate them here.

If you can't buy local, there are some manufacturers that have good service. I bought a dongle from Zorloo Zuperdac-S (low power, low THN+D) many years ago and the USB connector on it broke after like 1.5 years (USB micro is such a shit connector). They replaced it free of charge with a newer model (Ztella, good power but higher THD+N) and I didn't have to ship the old one back. I see they have some newer models now, no clue how good they are. Probably good enough based on the measurements of the earlier models.