What is your "going mobile" routine?

Personally, I'm begining to build a setup for home listening, but I happen to travel a lot. I'm aware that there is an entire segment of the market for portable/battery powered dac/amp units ranging from the $100 fiio's to the $300 oppo HA2. I'm curious what experiences those with Mid - High End HeadPhone rigs at home have had while going mobile. Do you adapt a unit like the HA2 - from 3.5 > 6.5 and rock a unit like that plugged into your phone? Do you say "eh" and just use a descent bluetooth pair of cans? I know that some great cans also work well off the regular audio jack on an iphone - so maybe this is also an option, choosing an interesting pair that is also friendly to non-dac/amp boosting?

Thanks for shedding any light.

 

For ultra convenience, iPhone with Audeze Sine using the Cypher cable.

For better sound, Pono player balanced out to my Empire Ears Spartans.

 

Sony NW-ZX2 > JVC HA-FX1200 is all I need. Here's the reasons:

128GB internal storage + Microsd card expansion(additional 200GB+ possible).
Due to it's zero fatigue% sound signature of the JVC HA-FX1200, You can listen to this setup for tens of hours without any listening fatigue(at safe volume levels).
ZX2 monster slaming, latina ball grabber# has great synergy with JVC's Dynamic driver bass.
The ZX2 has enough battery life to last you 2-3 days of continuous playback. You can always use USB battery bank to recharge the ZX2.
ZX2 Sound Quality* can rival any high-end desktop dac/amp or portabrick setups(IEM only, not headphones).


* Sound adjustment app force stop http://www.head-fi.org/t/742609/sony-nw-zx2-hi-end-dap/8295#post_12001359
# http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/best-daps-2015.174/page-18#post-56814
% http://www.head-fi.org/t/748207/jvc-new-top-tier-wooden-iem-jvc-ha-fx-1100#post_11172177

 

These days it's usually either Audeze SINE + Cipher from my iPhone 6s Plus or Unique Melody Martian + Chord Mojo from my MacBook Pro. The Martian sounds great out of the iPhone, too.

 

Wow I hadn't heard about the SINE + Cipher - what's your overall experience? What cans do you compare them with that you run at home? Thanks!

 

Thanks for sharing, I found this super interesting - also added a poll choice ;-)

 

I listen to my music at relatively low volumes. I'm a bit paranoid about hearing loss because as a kid I frequently played drums while blasting shitty wraparound headphones, and now in my late 20s I can't hear past ~16k.

My phone (Sony Xperia Z3) has built in proprietary active noise canceling circuitry, and Sony makes a pair of IEMs to go with it via a 5-pole connector. They're cheap (~$40) and work with Comply tips for extra noise reduction and comfort. They surprisingly sound better than entry level IEMs like my Shure SE215, but I've never bothered comparing it against nicer IEMs.

I commute via light rail and the trains can get ridiculously loud and screechy, so even if I had something nicer I wouldn't be able to hear the difference unless I cranked up the volume higher than I'm comfortable with. This setup gives me "good enough" SQ and more importantly allows me to protect my hearing so I can get more out of my nicer home rig.

 

Mine is embarrassingly bad. Admittedly, I don't care much about my mobile setup. I just don't expect it to ever compare to anything I have at home... ...not for any amount of money that I'd want to be carrying around in public, anyway. Something about carrying around extremely valuable objects... ...I just don't like it. I feel like I'd be inviting disaster into my life. I'm much more content to have hundreds to thousands of dollars of equipment in an environment that I have much more control over. I can do without when I'm not at home. I'd rather have one kickass home rig than two decent rigs for home and portable use.

Maybe when I reach true endgame on my bedroom setup, I'll pursue better portable options. But for now, hell no. I'd have to be crazy.

I have Yamaha rh5ma's that I never intended to take out when I bought them years ago being fed by a rockbox'd xduoo x3. It works. They sounded okay when I just used my phone. The rh5ma's don't have that air and resolution to them that higher-end stuff has, but they do have an astonishing amount of mid-bass slam and sub-bass rumble, as well as a non-fatiguing tonality/presentation and very nice mids. Very good for masking outside noise without cranking them. They sound louder than they are. The sound quality isn't super high, but they sound good. Though not the least bit analytical, they are both fun and musical. Perfect for casual beat-em-ups.

The player sounds even better, doesn't glitch out/die, and holds a ton of music. The cable on the rh5ma's is too long. I may invest in some entry level porta-cans or IEM's. I just can't see myself wearing hundreds of dollars on my head and carrying a few hundred more in my pocket out in public.

Risks aside, usually when I'm listening outside of home, it's not even close to critical. I'm doing at least one other thing or I'm between doing things for a few moments. I feel like I'd be wasting the experience of a good portable setup.

 

Used to be my phone + Aurisonics ASG-2.5 but I'll be moving to ZX2 + Spiral Ear SE5 Ult pretty soon.

 

For travel, by which I mean anything involve one or more plane fights, there are two factors that determine what I bring: a) how light I need to travel and b) if I'm traveling alone.

When I travel with company, especially my fiancé, I find people want to talk, randomly, which makes proper IEMs a bit of a pain - since they're coming in and out often enough that it becomes tiresome to deal with. I've yet to get a set of custom IEMs made, simply because they'll be even more fiddly to take in and out frequently.

For my lightest travel scenario it's just my iPhone 6S and a pair of Bose QC20i. That's mostly for the noise cancellation, the ability to easily talk to my travel mates (they come in and out without fuss, and have the "aware" mode button) and the fact I can wear them for twelve hours straight without wanting to slice my ears off. For longer trips, and depending on the nature of the trip, I might throw my Shure SE846 and AudioQuest DragonFly Red into my carry-on as well - for use once I'm not on the plane.

When not traveling with company, but still traveling light, it's the iPhone, DragonFly and SE846.

And, when I can spare the weight/space and concentrate on listening, then I take an original AK120 (and half a dozen 200GB cards), Chord Mojo and the SE846. I only use the AK120 as a transport, since it sounds very iffy indeed feeding the SE846 directly.

When I first started into serious headphone listening, I travelled a HeadRoom Supreme (back when they still took 4 AAs internally ... and ate them in less than an hour), Etymotic ER4W and a Panasonic CD player, in one of HeadRoom's bags, with a big-arsed 4 D cell battery pack). Still have the amp and ER4S!

 

Clip+ and TZF-S5.
Not awesomeballz like my home setup, but there is something special about listening music while working, super satisfying.
Simply different vibe.
If I could find something as unoffensive as Clip with SBAF approved technicalities for 100-200 bucks, that would be great. The Sony ZX-2 looks to be what I'm looking for, but more expensive than I'd like.

 

Low fi hell. Actually, those dreaded words; "good enough". 1st gen x5>e12>custom shelled Um3x (for max isolation)/R2a (most forgiving)/xba-h1 (bulletproof and who cares anyway). This is a poor man's setup for sure, but I'm pretty sure any improvement to be had would cost more than it is worth, to me anyway. My phone is so low-budget that it only has 8 gb storage and no external storage option, so.... While the e12 is powerful enough to drive my full-size cans ( he500 marginally) most are open and pretty impractical out and about in any event, though I do have some Momentum on-ears I use on walks sometimes.

 

I just grab my Mee P1s and plug them into my iPhone SE every morning and walk out the door. does the job for me

 

Fiio X3ii and Momentum 2. If I need tidal I just plug into my phone, though mostly just the Fiio. Sometimes I'll use my Phonak iems if I need more isolation than my Senns can give.

 

iPhone 5S + Melectronics A151 (I think). I usually keep Koss Portapros in my work or travel bag too for when I know my wife or a colleague might want to speak to me or I need more situational awareness/sense of space (such as working on a catwalk). I take my Focal Spirit Pros with me to work a lot of the time but if I'm traveling, I am frankly limited in the amount of time I'll be listening to stuff and they aren't comfortable for more than an hour or two.

 

I'm a dweeb and attach my HA-2 to my phone to use with my UERM's.

 

PORTA PROS FROM A PHONE.

 

So much love for these inexpensive guys. Feel like I'll have to check them out.

 

Portapros were my introduction to this world so it'll always have a special place in my heart haha.

 

I like this too! For variety and isolation, I use a JVC HA-S 500 (bassy, most efficient) or an Amperior (still very efficient), or some other on-ear closed headphone, or even something else. When I need to use my phone for calls while taking a walk, I use a Xiaomi Piston 3 (with an integrated microphone), and the person at the other end will ask me whether it's windy where I am calling from . FWIW, my phone is a Nokia Lumia 635 (Windows).