That is my impression too ā¦ The difference between most DAC, Amp, pre-amp stacks are such small margins, and they want fairly large amounts of money for those tiny margins.
The portable options like the Qudelix 5k and BTR5 do such a great job for so little money. There are some headphones that need more power than they deliver, but I havenāt run into that yet.
I am using a BTR5 with my 7Hz Timeless. If I were buying an amp for it today, I would get the Qudelix 5k. Note that the Timeless doesnāt really need much power, I have run it on a $10 USB-C to 3.5mm dongle, with a 2.5mm to 3.5 adapter connected, all hooked up to my phone.
I think a proper source makes a significant difference with certain headphones, but when it comes to iems, I think they are so easy to drive, that there isnāt really a point. You mostly loose money and convenience, when going for a desktop dac/amp for iems without any real benefit.
For me it is the other way round: As I have over ear headphones too, it is good to know that the amping has reserves for powerhungry cans (or even IEMs as I learned with the TinHifi P1). And it is a real benefit to have a real volume knob instead of those dongles without any controls. And you have not to spend a fortune to get a decent amp as the JDS Atom that I bought for for my desktop.
I bought a USB-C volume knob for $30 for that very reason. It seemed like a far simpler and cheaper solution to drive my Hifman headphones than spending at least $180 ( a ZenDac v2 is probably the cheapest good balanced desktop solution right now ).
Run mine as a bedside set up from a JDS Atom being fed from a 2nd hand Chord 2Qute DAC with a custom PSU via Node2i.
Mobile is a Walkman NW-a45 through a Topping NX4DSD (as an amp).
Sound good on both but the bedside rig is a detail animal.
I too bought an USB volume control years ago. Unfortunately my device did not work properly. I even used a dumb potentiometer in the analog path for some time. But I did not want to have another item on the desktop and therefore bought a small DAC and a small amp and put it under my desktop surface.
Sorry to hear that it didnāt work for you. I have avoided analog stuff on my personal gear for a while. I am old enough that I predate digital, and I actually won my first CD player on a radio station contest in my early 20s.
I opted for that model because it works on Windows, Apple, and Linux. I havenāt confirmed it on Apple, yet, but I have used it on the other two. I have it hooked into a hub on my desk that is USB-C to the laptop I am using, and I switch depending on work vs. personal.
Heres a cheaper and faster to operate option, bind the volume to mouse buttons if you have a programable mouse, im using scroll whell left and right clicks on a Logitech g502 for that purpose. If you dont have it, that $30 would buy you that exact mouse if youre in usa, which is a better investment imo as that crapload of buttons sure do come in handy. Though that knob looks nice, ill give it that.
Or there is a program for volume control for windows that runs in systray with which you can set a keyboard hotkey and scroll with the wheel for volume up/down.
For that matter I could consistently use the volume control on the current keyboard ( I own three keyboards and change them out depending on my mood ), and not buy anything, but sometimes I just want a volume knob.
My standard keyboark is the GMMK, which uses
fn + /
fn + .
I almost refuse to use any Logitech hardware anymore, their current stuff is almost always tied to Windows only software and device drivers. I write software for a living, and use Linux and Apple hardware for some projects. A mouse that half the buttons only works correctly 1/3 of the time would by very annoying.
That is why a standard USB device that works on everything does make sense.
Yup, i can see the alure of spinning a knob, more authentic .
Using my g502 on linux and no problems, though ofcourse no way to have unlimited profiles with auto switching per app as on windows, just the 3 onboard profiles that i need to switch manually.
I have to say out of all my IEMās (apart from low impedance campfire sets) planarās are the most picky when it comes to source ie they scale well given the chance
Yay, I didnāt know they still had anything that stored the programming internally, that is good to hear. The hero sensor sounds great, now if Logitech just knew how to make or source better switches I might consider it.
The Anywhere MX was my mouse at work and home, for almost 4 years, and the switches got so bad, they would die in less than 5 months. One replacement took so long, that I had moved on to the Glorious O by the time it arrived, and I never opened the MX when it showed up.
I have never bought another Logitech product. At that time all their software to program the buttons was not internally stored on the mouse, but was a Windows config thing, so it never worked on Apple, which was my other primary platform at the time. So I just never used the feature.
I read a lot of complaints about the switches on logitech mice, though not a real problem for me as i do my own soldering. Did replace the switches on mine few months ago, but it lasted about 4 years or so before developing problems. Not too big on gaming so that might have helped, but then it might not have any role, as claim is double clicking is not mechanical, but electrical related as theyre using switches with wrong current rating in their mice. Switch to something with correct rating like kailh or japanese omrons(cant recall the exact model from top of my mind), and shouldnt be a problem for a long time after that. What i did when they started failing.
Depending who you ask.
Since brain want to play tricks on us, i decided to play a trick on it regarding the timeless burn in. Oh how the tables have turned .
I did hear harshness with them at certain tracks, and to minimize the chances of just getting used to the sound, i switched to tips that would reduce the harshness and used them exclusively with those.
After 300-400 hours on my set i switched back to the tips that i could hear the harshness with, and it was still there and pretty much the same as long as i can remember, but dont forget that sometimes memory can be a feeble thing .
If there was any change in sounding it would be small and not that significant, and in my case i was just focusing on that 2-3kHz peak.
There are some claims that it changes all the way to becomming much better, but one of the pepople that claimed that, i followed his comments and he was trying out maybe 10 different tips in the process so i dont fully trust that judgement, refer to my comment memory being a feeble thing.
Also some claims that i read that it solved channel imbalanceā¦ Now this i have very hard time subscribing to, as to hear the imbalance in the first place the difference should be around 2db or more imo, which on sets measured it was higher, measuered mine to have up to 5-6db on certain frequencies out of the box.
That being said, for burn in to solve channel imbalance, FR would need to shift for that ammount of db, and as far as im aware up to now noone was able to measure any FR changes after whatever burn in period.
Mind you, i do have bias against burn in in general, but thats because ive done it and havent heard any discernible change after it that would convince me otherwise. Dont have experience with as many iems as some people here do so that should be also taken into account.
Maybe ill become a convert when i actually hear it and recognize it without any doubt .
In the end, if you think that burn in makes your set sound better, thats what counts, no matter what other people think, me included.
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