Everybody wants better sound out of their headphones, but (and here's a shocker, I know) not everyone wants to own a lot of hardware to make that happen, especially if you want to take your show on the road every now and then. Whether budget-tightening precludes your investing in a portable listening rig to supplement your home setup or you're just a minimalist, you might just be in luck. Low-cost audio gear leaders FiiO and Alpha Design Labs (the personal audio wing of high-end connector kings Furutech) have each introduced some impressive do-it-all devices that just might cover all of your digital listening needs.
Both the FiiO E17 and the ADL Stride (the little brother of the Cruise we saw back at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest) are small, easily portable combination headphone amp/USB DACs, with onboard Li-On battery packs that recharge via USB. While many low-cost combo devices these days provide only USB inputs, you can use either of these devices in a couple of ways: to decode your digital audio via a USB input (the E17 adds S/PDIF on optical and coaxial connectors, along with a few other cool tricks which we'll get to in a minute) or to amplify your device's analog output via a 1/8-inch analog connector.
I was hoping you could tell me where you bought: Tor Espn Aspaas recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor Op. 111 (from Mirror Canon, on 24/96 FLAC) and Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time" on 24/96 FLAC.
Cheers.
The Tor Espn Aspaas recording is available from 2L (http://www.klicktrack.com/2l/releases/tor-espen-aspaas/).
The Miles is a personal rip from vinyl, so far as I know it isn't available anywhere in that format.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks for this series of reviews and the information about iPad compatibility in addition to pc, Mac and iPod functionality. Having joined the Android phone generation, I found out that my workplace's required VPN software (Cisco, darn them, though I'm sure they are nice people) works fine on i-devices but only works with Android phones if jail-broken. Since the whole purpose of the VPN is security, we aren't allowed to hack our own phones to access work (and I don't want to hack mine anyway). So..., I'm about to have more devices than I want (really), with an iPad on order, kindly purchased by my employer because it helps me work 24/7. Sorting out iPad audio with your help will be a lot easier than doing so on my own. I do not see this sort of extra info about device compatibility appearing in reviews by others: you are ahead of the curve and have me hooked. In fact, I just (re)subscribed to the magazine via eReader. I look forward to following your reviews.