The lone thing I went for was an earbud called the Yinman 600. It is called the 600 because that’s its rated impedance (600 ohms). Difficult to drive, it is said to have one of the smoothest frequency responses across the board, with equal parts resolving bass, mids, and treble. I’ll give it my best sources to drive it and see how it performs. Really looking forward to it.
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Link plz if you can
I remember the Xenns Top launched and with codes could have been $380 or less during 11.11 sales but it didn’t have enough reviews out. Fast forward and they’re rarely that cheap used.
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Great price nice sounding IEM. Congtars enjoy.
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So after the little fiasco with the redesigned Sonata BHD with 140mW output falsely advertised as 280, I settled on the same-price AkLIAM PD4 with per-channel 281 mW @32, same -105dB THD+N claimed on BAL-out as the best-case THD+N that was found on the more expensive Sonata BHD Pro on its SE-out, many excited reviews talking about its detail retrieval and spacious soundstage. Has play/pause/next/previous button, and volume ones that only control the phone (but I think I can live with that).
Should be a good first foray into “balanced” headphone sources for me.
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As an exclusive IEM user (been in this hobby a very long time and found my end-game cans a long time ago), I primarily use one of two combos:
- JCally AP20 paired with IEMatch
- E1DA 9038S
Between those two, I feel I have ALL bases covered and I’m still holding out for a killer TWS adapter that doesn’t suffer from the many issues the ones in the current market are plagued with.
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Cheers to a fellow JCally AP20 user!
I’ve been thinking that I’m the only out there, hahaha.
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Oh yeah, just noticed that one recently, that’s the weird dongle-with-a-battery thingy. What’s that design get you, higher max power (not revealed in the specs) or just the option to avoid drawing power from the phone? Will it still work as a regular dongle if its battery dies?
All of the specs are available in the product description. The device works through either its own internal battery or through the phone’s battery. As long as one of those still has juice, you’re good to go. And the switch from internal battery to source battery makes zero sounds, nor does it disrupt playback.
The buttons feel clicky and cheap, however, but the functionality and practicality far outweigh the cons. In my opinion, of course. YMMV.
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330 mW, nice, same THD as the AkLIAM PD4 Plus but way sexier build plus the battery and its switch, plus dual BAL-outs. It seems I found the one seller on Ali who didn’t post the most important image with all the power levels, and left it at that. 
Any thoughts on soundstage vs. the best other sources you know, including desktop?
No difference between JCally AP20 and Tempotec M3 in terms of soundstage in my opinion. Overall, both of them sound very alike.
I even prefer JCally more than Tanchjim Space, since the latter is sometimes a bit too shouty, too clinical to my ears.
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I personally haven’t A/B’ed the JCally with a few other “higher end” sources I happen to still have laying around. Honestly speaking, that side of the hobby doesn’t appeal to me as much so I’m probably not the right person to ask.
A long while back, I came to the personal conclusion of: ‘stop chasing minutiae and start enjoying the music.’
My overall impression of the JCally AP20 would be, it does what I need it do for every IEM in my current rotation (from the Moondrop B2 to the Aroma Jewel) and thats good enough for me lol.
I got a Moondrop Para and a Fiio FF3, to complement the Timeless that I already have, as well as a Fosi SK01 which will hopefully give me pleny of power on top of a nice bass boost when I want it. For me, unless my disposable income drastically increases this will probably be endgame.
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Nope, bad purchase. You get what you pay for in this case.
Detail is fine, but:
- what those people perceived as “spacious sound” was an increased sense of stage depth because of the exaggerated dynamics (or what Andy.EF calls “boosted dynamics”); I think they have some kind of expander effect going on that creates artificial dynamics and separates sounds too much front-to-back; sure this makes the sounds that are up front appear more crisp and defined, but it also pushes away some stuff you should be hearing and thus removes information, it creates unnecessary black background where there should be additional music (it’s like turning the contrast too high on a TV); might be the best dongle to listen to overcompressed Loudness War victims from the early 2000s but it’s otherwise not what I would call proper hi-fi
- it’s a little V-shaped via removal of some energy from the upper bass and/or lower mids, I will play some white noise and check with Audacity to get a better picture of what they cut out, but I’m not liking the removed warmth.
This is just from the SE output, I will of course test the BAL anyway since it’s my first BAL source, but I don’t expect much qualitative difference, especially not on these 2 issues. The cheaper HiBy FC3 still sounds better, I will probably be looking to get rid of the AkLIAM.