Ooooooh okay okay, that’s good to know, though I do recall some having issues with noise floor, I think it was Nymz who mentioned it. Also Resolution recommended the Fiio Q3 but after looking at some reviews on the noise floor and the battery thing made me think twice again.
Hmmm…lots and lots to consider, And I am kinda warming up to the 4.4mm jack. I’ll think on it more and see once my Oracle arrives. Thanks again for answering my questions about the Oracle, Silver!
Np, the Oracle shouldn’t have a noise floor issue. My Dunu EST112 does but that thing is really sensitive. So it depends on the IEM.
Yeah that’s reassuring to hear. My Audiotechnicas are pretty sensitive for a single DD and take barely anything to power, I have my volume on my macbook at 1/16 and I would still lower app volumes it gets so loud.
Probably considering the BTR5 more now but still can be a toss up with the TC44B
Either should suite you fine I have not used the TC44 line but I do like their TC35 line since it is one of the few quality DACs I have found that is not a on a little cable.
Yeah, gonna see how well the Oracle goes with the Ifi zen blue for testing or even just straight into my laptop and phone.
Oh yeah, do you have the 2.5mm version as well? Just wondering if you could measure the jack in the 3.5mm adapter if you do have it
2.5 jack alone .21 ohm with 3.5mm adapter .22 ohm.
I guess I should’ve specified the length of the 2.5 jack plus the adapter hahaha, but that’s also good to know that it measures just fine
1 1/2 inch for hardware to tip for the 2.5mm jack and 3 1/8 inch for the 3.5mm adapter so a bit over double.
Thanks a ton! Aaaaand yeah, definitely gotta be careful with this thing when it arrives. Because that’s a loooot of leverage to bend the jack with and jerk the cable from the side of my laptop if I’m not careful
Yea it is why I replaced the cable pretty fast. The cable feels nice and looks nice, but unless you main 2.5mm it is a really dumb system for a modular kind of cable.
Eeeeyup, part of why I asked about the TC44 mainly on my laptop, and have plans in the near future to get a XINHS cable that’s actually properly modular
Unless you get an amp that has an issue with the single ended output… you really don’t need a balanced jack for the Oracle. An IEM cable is not long enough for interference to be a major concern and the Oracle does not need the extra power output that most amps have on their balanced jack. So you don’t need a modular system… I do like them personally so I guess I really can’t say too much though.
True, but it would be nice having the versatility of a 3.5mm everywhere and being able to have the ruggedness of the 4.4mm. But we’ll see how things go once I actually get the things. They should hopefully arrive by this week thursday
Also resolutions recommendation of the Q3 makes a lot of sense if you are mainly using it as a desk amp and only rarely as a portable one since it would be a better desk amp then the BTR5 or any of the dongles. It is a bit too big for me to want it portably and I have enough desktop DAC and AMPs so I went with the smaller BTR5.
Yeah, though like the main question I put up here is that from what I’ve read the Q3 has fairly high noise floor especially more sensitive IEMs hence why I was looking at the TC44 since it has gotten measured, tested, and recommended by Audiosciencereview with good praise aside from the relatively low output power compared to the rest of its performance. but with your input I don’t think the noise floor issue would be a problem. Though not to mention the other concern I raised about the battery and the thing being constantly charged
Also portability isn’t gonna be an issue, I spent almost the last decade using tablets as essentially my dedicated DAPs and I always carry a messenger bag with me when going out
The noise floor issue with the Q3 might only be on one of the outputs if I remember correctly… I think it is the single ended one. It has been a while since I looked into it though. I know some of the ifi amps had a channel imbalance issue on single ended as well at lower volumes. Sometime DAC/AMPs have one output that just works better then the others.
All three have hiss from what I’ve watched and read
I have both the Qudelix 5K for portable use and the ddHifi TC44B for desktop use. Been using them with my Dunu SA6 and some balanced earbuds. No audible hiss on both (completely silent) on any scenario.
The reason I’m not using the 5K as a desktop dac is because the dac has a power-on delay (about 1.5s), so in most applications, you can’t hear the first 1.5s of audio. This is especially noticeable when playing youtube videos and playing audio in Audacity or Microsoft Groove app.