Marketing copy worthy of blooper reels is one of Astell&Kern’s fortes. And, Music Friend In My Pocket, AK70, is the cringingly, suggestively ugly even by AK standards. Bravo. Despite, this, the AK70 itself is handsome. Sure, its Korean edges will draw blood. But it is shorter than an iPhone 5 and not much larger than an original AK120. Get a case for it. It will fit in your pocket.
Read moreRMAA: Audient iD4 24-bit
Adjusting input levels, and volume is easy breezy thanks to fine-tuned DAW and plug-in controls. Its headphone amp being poorly suited to low-resistance earphones, returning anomalies in frequency response, THD, IMD, and stereo crosstalk. Most of the anomalies smooth out by the time portable or monitoring headphones are plugged in. And, iD4 spits perfectly matched volume into both channels at all volume levels, not to mention trace amounts of background noise. I’ve yet to go deep into its microphone amps, but after digitising test signals from Mojo, I am relatively convinced of its recording fidelity - considering its price, and ostensible market. Stereo crosstalk numbers aside, that is.
Read moreRMAA: Aune X7s 24-bit
User-adjustable gain, XLR output, phase splitter, TRS 6,3mm jack, pre-amp: what more could you want in an all-in-one desktop headphone amp? A practical answer to this is lower noise. But as this amp isn't marketed at the portable audiophile, it is probably fair to shelve that desire.
Read moreRMAA: Arcam MusicBOOST 24-bit
RMAA: The Bit Audio Opus#1 24-bit
Disclaimer: I purchased the The Bit Audio Opus#1 at a significant discount for the purposes of the review I published at Headfonia. This DAP goes for 650$ to 750$ USD. You can find out all about it here: High Definition & High-Resolution Audio Player.
Read moreRMAA: MST Audio Chord Mojo-Kai (balanced) 24-bit
Every project Ryuzoh has been involved in exhibits a basic character set: stability, performance, and with the notable exceptions of his mods, ugly mugs. FiQuest wasn’t pretty. Neither was the Cio MB DAC. Come to think of it, the AK240’s harsh angles are fit only for press photography; and Mojo… God, what a horrible, alien design. Of course, neither Mojo’s nor the AK240’s ugliness are Ryuzoh’s fault.
Read moreRMAA: Phatlab Audio PHAntasy 24-bit
Phantasy has the potential to sound very good; spritely, limber, and light. If that’s your schtick, Phantasy may be your fantasy. But it is woefully beset by impedance mismatch issues. Many SET amps exhibit the same issues. For that reason, they usually have one, or perhaps two, headphones to which they are perfectly adapted and marketed. The rest is the luck, or ill-luck, of the draw.
Read moreRMAA: Venturecraft Valoq 24-bit
If you read the summary (to be published soon), you will note that I’m not a fan of using Valoq. Valoq is kludgy. It is ugly. It screws the gapless pooch and pops way too much when the mains are switched on or off. Finally it’s got an annoying grounding problem.
Read moreRMAA: Apple iPhone 6 24-bit
Being an Apple fan has its ups: the iPhone 4, iMac, iPad, and its downs: Apple Hifi, long Mac Pro cycles, and the iPhone 6.
Read moreRMAA: Shozy Alien Gold 24-bit
To LARPers, Alien looks like a sword hilt; to Wing Commander heads, it is the TCS Tiger's Claw. The former is part of a human-killing machine, the latter is an alien-killing machine. Either way, it is most certainly Terran.
Read more