What would be a good portable Dac/Amp to use with my HD6xx and Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone?
I am new to this hobby. I purchased a HD6XX and plan to use it with my Sony Xperia 1 V cell phone, that has a 3.5mm jack. I was wondering if I needed a portable dac/amp or just a portable amp and if so what would one recommend? Any assistance one could provide, would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, Haz
Mar 7, 2024
Unfortunately for you the world doesn't revolve around your arbitrary idea of what a "great deal" is.
Here's my thoughts on the "good deal" bit. I wasn't aware of how new Focal was to the headphone business... someone at work asked me about them when they did their promo and I was like... I'm not buying 3k headphones from a company I haven't heard of, I'm not buying 700 headphones either...
After this drop released I went and did the research and the interviews that Head-Fi did with Focal really helped me understand that they are bringing a new approach to the table with these headphones and that even the materials cost could be really high.
I fully expect older models to drop in price as they get cheaper due to materials sourcing and manufacturing efficiency, so in that sense comparing the "good deal" of the Focal vs a Sennheiser/Fostex/AKG or even HifiMan (who is fairly new) isn't completely fair. I do expect that if this relationship continues we may see a deeper discount on a Clear equivalent (still above the 800 of the Elex). I mean I'm tempted just because I would actually use the case on the Clears and that's $150 retail.
I think the conclusion of the overall discussion seems to be... Focal's headphones are worth this much, but the Elex might not be a really great deal (or different enough for an Elear owner). The only reason I'm still in this drop is because I don't own any of Focal's headphones. If I was an Elear owner... I might consider it, but I'd definitely be out if I was a Utopia or Clear owner (I know others might not). Because you can definitely do better things with $800 in the headphone market. But I don't know if I would drop $800 on Elears over the Elex, but that's also because I'm ok with waiting (not everyone is).
And that's not even taking into account the money they would lose from people not buying the Elear, Clear, and Utopia because they undercut their entire headphone line by creating the Elex.
Everyone on here complaining about the price of this product are being extremely selfish. Their argument is basically the same thing as if they walked into a Tesla dealer and say "You know man, this $67,000 price tag is a real bummer, if it was $35,000 I would buy it in a heartbeat! And so would everyone else! You'd sell millions!"