High quality portable audio

[Bluepete]

I've seen the light!

I've always been a bit of a tech geek, but never the computer side of things. I like audio and video shenanigans, but quality on a budget.

My home cinema gear is all "last years" gear at a vast discount with almost no perceptible lesser quality than the currennt model.

I have an old ipod nano only 'cos the rest of the family like itunes (my ten year old lad helps me with the feckin thing, I've never understood it) and the rest of my lot have much more modern ipods.

Both kids have AKG 451 headphones to replace the very poor Apple ear buds, and feeling jealous, I bought some AKG Y50's. They needed a bit more drive, so I started looking at headphone amps. Then, I read about external DAC's and an evening googling lead me to Fiio.

http://www.ea-audio.co.uk/products.html

The basic idea is that the internal DAC on an ipod or any normal device can be improved upon by a dedicated unit, plus an amplifier will drive the headphones better.

So, today, a Fiio Kilimanjaro 2 arrived.



WHAT A DIFFERENCE,

Huge dynamics, clarity, pace and depth vastly improved with volume now able to go to at least 11!

Seriously, this is a gucci but of kit. The difference is astonishing. I can't recommend it enough.

So, who else plays with this sort of tech?

Anyone have any hi-rez audio kit? Share and let's convert some .organs!

Pete

[maviczap]

Being mostly deaf on my right side its pretty pointless having high quality headphones or audio stuff

[Bibio]

nice setup Pete.

yup it always makes a huge difference. i built a very very nice head amp that can drive my 600ohm DT880's to ear bleeding levels without a hint of distortion. dedicated power supply with fully shielded custom wound transformer that i had to get from Poland. 2 Rike audio s-caps smoothing caps high quality parts throughout the PCB's and nice full alloy cases. the shear scale of the sound stage is something to behold

just read the title.. ermm its not portable.. lol