No, you would want to look for something with high current delivery, since you want voltage for higher impedance, and current for lower impedance. Planar also favor current delivery over voltage. That being said I have heard the kann cube with an audeze in ear and it drove them really well
I recall seeing like 700mw @ 32 ohms balanced but that may have been max power. The P6 is def stronger than the qpm for sure from my experiences with it, drives every iem I have with great control, and even with some of my headphones it’s still really good. Luxury & precision also make the LP6 which is more designed for driving headphones, and has a custom eq from what I know, so perhaps look into that, but I haven’t heard that one
That is correct, but it’s still a ladder dac lol, I would assume it would be at least as good as the p6 but can’t say for sure
Sometimes manufactures will give ratings but for the most part it’s just been kinda guess and check for me lol. I know there is a way you can take the rated output power in mw and the voltage at the same impedance and figure out current, but not all companies give you both specs. In full size amps, you want to see the power double when you half impedance load (if it doesn’t, there’s a good chance the amp can be current limited), I guess also pay attention to psu design and the topology of how the amp is designed, but at least from my experience there isn’t a surefire way to tell right off the bat.
Yeah lots of things out there for sure. The safest bet from a power perspective is prob the kann if you weren’t a fan of the 220 max, other options might offer better sq but power or lack of eq would be concerns
FWIW, DAP EQ is something I’ve been digging into for some time. Here are my notes:
A&K : 20-band quasi-PEQ. Gain and Q are adjustable, frequency must be selected from 20 pre-sets, at the 1/2 octave points (30, 45, 60, 90 Hz, etc.). There is an old thread on Head-Fi claiming the Q adjustment didn’t actually do anything either (AK300 model). If true, has this been fixed? More recently, Oratory1990 does a 20-band A&K EQ for the Aeon Flow headphone. It has the same 2.5 Q for each FR despite that producing sub-optimal results, why? Whether the Q adjustment works is easy to test, would love someone with an A&K DAP from the past few years to do so.
Questyle : 10-band GEQ setting allowing up to + or – 6dB adjustment in each frequency band. Only 2 EQs can be saved.
Lotoo Paw Gold: full-function 5-band PEQ each with 3 filter options, high-pass, low-pass or band-pass, 3 EQs can be saved.
iBasso (at least DX200 models): 10-band GEQ + 6-band PEQ, at least 4 EQ saves, 8 filter tyoes,
All other manufacturers I know of if they have EQ at all have 10-band GEQ, some with only presets, no customs.
Gotcha, so it looks like Lotoo or iBasso is it. I was looking at the N3pro but the tube output will be too weak for my i4’s (130mW).
That’s a shame, I’m not super interested in either company’s DAPs. The Lotoo is nice for no Android but I feel like the 6000 will be a tad weak and the Paw Touch will be too expensive considering it’s coming up on two years old I think.
Ah, that is much more powerful. I guess those Nutubes can take more. Although honestly I’d rather have the Raytheon tubes in the N3pro. I wonder how the SS output on the R8 compares to the LPGT.
@MaynardGK might be able to answer this better, does the DX220 have low and high pass like LPGT?
From more listening it’s now leaning a bit more towards cyan but still in the middle, it really is impressive (which is prob why I’ve been so floored by it since I’m a sucker for a nice dac lol). But the trade off with the p6 is the feature set for sure (but personally I don’t mind that). I would love to see a more advanced player with similar or better performance, which is prob the LP6 or the Ti but I haven’t tried those yet to confirm. The LPGT prob has a similar quality amp as the P6, but as a dac it’s not as high preforming, but no real way to test that since in the daps you can’t really isolate the amp from the dac and feed the amp separately (but you can test them as dacs separately which is where I’m basing my assessment)
Someone on Headfi thought the LP6ti was better than the P6 for some reason, I think it was something along the lines of the LP6ti being more resolving and detailed, whereas the P6 had that more pleasant and soft warmer tonality. But that is just one person’s comparison.
For the price it better be lol, it’s pretty much a 2x increase in cost. But I would agree it’s a bit warmer tonality but only by a slight margin on the p6, but I wouldn’t call it soft imo
Just a quick update, I recently picked up a LessFox BX-2 Plus amp for the P6. Honestly this alone is damn good for headphones it’s not even funny. This amp with the line out of the p6 is extremely impressive (albeit large in size so less portable), drives really anything reasonable I throw at it with ease.
The BX-2 is a very interesting amp, it really doesn’t have much coloration to my ears and maintains the sonic signature of the dac you have going into it. It does increase stage width (but doesn’t sacrifice placement and depth), sharpen things up a bit, and perhaps is a tad bit cleaner with more detail but really it just sounds like the p6 but enhanced (and now can drive headphones with ease).
I have a feeling that I might not want the LP6 anymore with this around lol. Also in the process of selling my 220 max since there is absolutely no need for it anymore with this thing around, really don’t need the micro bl either but that does at least have a more fun tuning going for it, so holding onto it for now. You do see the most benefit with headphones, but some of my slightly more amp demanding iems actually benefit a fair amount as well, and even with the power this thing has with the proper setting noise floor or hiss is not a concern at all, almost as quiet as the p6 on its own, really impressive
