[ajzepp]

I had a bit of a revelation last night...

Sometimes at night I watch movies on my Roku, so I'll run that into my Little Dot amp, and then run my Grado extension cable to my headphones. Last night I happened to be using my Grado SR80s, which have the 1/8" plug. So I got the bright idea of swapping out the 80s for my Atrio IEMs. Now maybe everyone else is already doing this and I'm just late to the party, but honestly, I was really surprised at how much improvement there was over my Fiio E11 portable amp. The Atrios had far more punch and a larger sound stage, and the sound was just more robust overall. It really caught me by surprise how much improvement there was, that I thought I'd mention it here to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. The Little Dot is a better amp, of course, but it's still a budget piece.....it's not like I had them connected to a high end amp or something...it's a little $120 chinese amp, but the improvements were dramatic.

Anyone using full size headamps with their IEMs?

[eclein]

I really have only used IEM's for walking so I've always stayed small form factor, but after seeing this I'll try some today on my Asgard and see what the sound difference is like. I've read a bunch places where folks use IEM's as the main can in their collection and I would imagine they would sound great. I'll try some today zepp!!!

[ajzepp]

Ed: Same here, I had always just used them with portable amps, as well. Let me know what sort of differences you experience, if any, when you fire it up with the Asgard...that should be a perfect amp to try this with. I'm seriously thinking about a nicer pair of IEMs now that I see how well this works on my end. I do have upgraded tubes in my Little Dot, so I dont know how much of a factor that was, but I've truly never heard my Atrios sound anywhere near that good...especially with just a streaming music channel on Roku.


Dale: NICE IEMs, man!!! Those must sound amazing!  This is really exciting for me, cause I had never really heard an IEM with an expanded sound stage...now that I see a better amp can bring this about, I'm excited to consider a jump up the IEM ladder a bit. Which amp(s) are you using with those beautiful Senns?

[ajzepp]

I sometimes use the PA2V2 or FiiO E17 with the iPhone, and there the lower bass is really strong. It settles back to merely strong with the Audioengine D1 or Dragonfly DACs. One of the interesting things about the IE800 is the soundstage - it doesn't seem as wide as some headphones, but it has a depth and a reality that's striking.  I'm about to order the HRT MicroStreamer which has gotten some good reviews. They say it's better in most respects than the Dragonfly (can't be sure though, what they say....) and they say it competes well with the new Meridian Explorer.

Over the years I've had a much more difficult time establishing depth of the sound stage than I have width, so that's a very impressive attribute indeed! I need to fire up my Atrios with my D1 since I use that with my Meier headamp. Let usknow how the HRT piece works out if you pick one up...seems I've heard a lot about those products over the last year or two.

[cujobob]

I have JH13 Pros from JH Audio and I heard a big difference with the portable RSA amp I had. IEMs should be able to better any other speaker/headphone type because it takes so many variables out of the equation. I've found IEMs to have sound different by the slightest things though (if one is put in slightly different from the other), so the custom acrylic enclosure really seems to help over my old Etys, Triple Fi 10, and the like.

Portable headphone amps can be bettered by desktop amps pretty easily. There are a number of reasons for this, but the difference seems to be narrowing. I'm considering getting an O2 amp but the whole point of my IEMs were to take great sound on the go...so I haven't decided yet. They usually sit around unused because of not having a mic for my iPhone, sadly.

[ajzepp]

I have JH13 Pros from JH Audio and I heard a big difference with the portable RSA amp I had. IEMs should be able to better any other speaker/headphone type because it takes so many variables out of the equation. I've found IEMs to have sound different by the slightest things though (if one is put in slightly different from the other), so the custom acrylic enclosure really seems to help over my old Etys, Triple Fi 10, and the like.

Portable headphone amps can be bettered by desktop amps pretty easily. There are a number of reasons for this, but the difference seems to be narrowing. I'm considering getting an O2 amp but the whole point of my IEMs were to take great sound on the go...so I haven't decided yet. They usually sit around unused because of not having a mic for my iPhone, sadly.

Good points...I think that I'm really considering upgrading to a better portable, such as something from the RSA line that you mentioned, or even one of Jan Meier's portables since I've had such good results with my Meier Corda Jazz. I guess I had no idea that IEMs were this sensitive to amplification...I'm not a big believer in night and day differences in audio, but honestly it came pretty close this time around. It felt as if I had new IEMs on hand and was listening to them for the first time.

Those JH Audio IEMs really look awesome...I'd love to get some custom molds and fire up a pair of top of the line JH's.

[cujobob]

There are some other good companies doing custom IEMs now, I got mine a couple of years ago.

I've been reading some good things about JDS labs amps...they make O2s for a desktop amp (runs on batteries without being plugged in but too big to really be considered portable) and they have a new C5 portable amp that will get around 14 hours of battery with a digital volume control. The other model they have available is well liked, too...

RSA stuff, when I was reading up a couple of years ago, was considered to be the best at that time for what I was looking for. I didn't see a lot of new offerings from them.