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
First I tried to replace the earpads with Brainwavz HM5 angled leather pleather. Unfortunately I had to break the outer ring of the ear pad attachment rings to even get them on. They are a very thight fit for the headphones. They tuned the sound signature somewhat towards the low end and filtered out some of the sparkle at the high end, but still id did not feel right in terms of comfort. Long story short, do NOT get Brainwavz HM5's for HE-350's. They just dont really fit and also dont improve comfort.
However, after some fiddling around, I put the HM5 earpads on my Beyerdynamic DT770's and the DT770 stock earpads on the HE-350's. With this configuration (see image attached below) the HE-350's are 200% more comfortable. I can adjust the headband back 1 click from max on each side and the pads cover my ears completely. Also the clamping pressure is reduced since the DT770 earpads have a lower profile. But because they dont have fabric covers in the middle to seperate the driver housing from the ears, there is still enough room for my ears to slip in completely without touching the driver housing. Addidtionally my ears are now closer to the drivers boosting mids and lows while still preserving the very detailed highs. Finally, I used Ballistol oil to lubricate the hinges allowing them to rotate more freely and adjust to my head and ears.
Regarding sound, breakin did not change the sound signature, but I feel like I got used to the highs and can now enjoy them even more. Especially percussion instruments have much more detail in how you can actually distinguish individual beats from each other. When there are 4 recurring beats in a row, you would usually hear them as the same beat played 4 times again and agian. With the HE-350's I can actually hear that the first beat might have more energy, the second one is slightly weaker, on the third the drummer slightly messed up producing less ring and so on. To be fair, I dont know much about music production and instruments, nor the english vocabulary to describe them. I just want to get across how much detail there is in the highs that you just dont get with other headphones.
Nuff said, for 99 bucks and with some mods, brilliant.