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
- The TA-26 runs significantly cooler than the DarkVoice or TA-03S. The chassis does warm up a bit, especially the housing for the power transformer, but not to the painfully hot temperatures the DV and TA-03 show across the whole unit when used for 12 hours straight.
- The TA-26 has much much less noise than the DV, still. Pretty consistent with all of the amps from xDuoo I've bought, but very pleasing after fighting with a DV.
- Every single set of high Ω cans I've used with the TA-26 have worked as wonderfully as possible. Nothing needed me to go past 10 o'clock on the dial.
- The front facing power switch isn't a giant honking bar like on the DV, and is much harder to accidentally toggle.
- The volume knob doesn't generate noise when being turned and doesn't seem to have any imbalance.
- The sockets used for the tubes are nice high quality ceramic with gold plated pin cups. They make very excellent tight connections to the pins on the tubes.
- The preamp out sounds about as good as one can expect from an OTL triode amp, and very similar to the DV. I think the preamp on the Schiit Valhalla 2 sounds a bit better, but that is likely because it is much more neutral and doesn't have the bottom end bump like the TA-26. That said, if the amps you're going to feed with the preamp out are a bit bass shy, the TA-26 will do a wonderful job. TA-26 feeding TA-03S was not good sounding, giving the TA-03S nasty bloated bass that wasn't good for anything other than EDM (for me).
The Meh (I nitpick):- The TA-26 does not have a bypass for the preamp out when headphones are plugged in. Without opening the unit up and tracing the circuit, I'm guessing it is rather similar to the DV, and something to potentially mod with a simple cut of a trace, snip of wire, or de-soldering of resistor. Not horrible. Not amazing, not horrible, just meh.
- The volume knob isn't as pleasant feeling to turn as the DV. It feels about the same as the pot on TA-03S, it has some resistance but not that silky smoothness of the pot the DV ships with.
- The tube slots are just a bit too recessed, making it somewhat difficult to safely pull/replace tubes unless you use socket-savers/extenders.
- The stupid railings make it difficult to use wacky tube adapters for stuff that isn't 6AS7/6080. They may be removable, but I've got a feeling it requires complete disassembly of the amp to get at the screws (or nuts). Aside from aesthetics, they don't serve any purpose. I'd rather have a removable cage or nothing at all.
- Blue LED. Why oh why must these vendors use blue. Just give me a dull amber or green. Hell, I'll take dull red even. Anything but the spot-light blue. It isn't a beacon of blindness in dark rooms like a bunch of gear I've bought, but it is still much brighter than I like. I'll likely slap a square (or two) of kapton tape over it, damn the aesthetics.
The bad:- Nothing. 100% stock the unit isn't bad. Some silly design choices, sure, but nothing that stands out as a deal breaker.
I'm not sure if I like the way it sounds more than the TA-03S. I mean, they're very similar sounding, with the main difference being that the TA-03S has a slightly deeper bass and a bit more recessed treble which is better with brighter cans (like the T1.2). Both amps have that sweet linear big boy triode sound and similar pricing, and to be fair, I'd be perfectly happy using either amp all day every day. The TA-26 has a slight edge in regards to availability of 6AS7 and 6SN7 tubes for rolling, but the prices for both tend to be a bit higher especially for NIB/NOS. The TA-03S on the other hand has extremely limited rolling options for the output tubes, but they can be had dirt cheap and Russian variants (6S19P-VR) can be found that have long lifespan and extreme vibration tolerance. Preamp is a 12AU7, so stupid easy to find for cheap, even NIB/NOS. If you plan to roll heavily, the TA-26 will be a better option. If you want a set it once and forget it (until heat death of tubes), the TA-03S is probably the way to go. So, yeah. I've no regrets associated with buying it. My only problem is the extreme lack of space for my ever growing collection of amplifiers. If I had bought the amp here my review would absolutely be a 5 star and recommend to friends.