[SemperMalum]

One of my all time favorite paring around $1000 is the Geshelli J2 dac with the Archel 3 Pro or Erish 3 pro. Mine XTC2 isn’t the warm detailed one, it’s the biowool one. I do however have a second pair of warm detailed XTC2s coming in the mail Monday. If you can remember, hit me up on Wednesday and I’ll tell you how they pair. I’m sure it’ll be amazing but I don’t want to mislead you with assumptions, I’d much rather give you experience ce based fact.

I'm rocking a JDS Labs DAC+ hooked up to an Archel 3 Pro. It's a great combo and tone control lets me adjust my preference on the fly with the implementation done very tastefully. Highly recommended.

 

[Patswalker]

I'm rocking a JDS Labs DAC+ hooked up to an Archel 3 Pro. It's a great combo and tone control lets me adjust my preference on the fly with the implementation done very tastefully. Highly recommended.

That would be a spectacular combo. I don’t have and JDS labs stuff but I have a lot of Geshelli stuff and I love it. I’ve actually been eyeing that totl jds labs dac/amp.

 

[Bjorn154]

If you want to save a bunch of money, the Cayin RU7 and Questyle M15 dongles are incredible. Seriously amazing. I didn’t believe the hype but they’re wild. Pretty shocking for the size and price. You could buy one from Amazon if they’re on there and if you don’t like them return it no questions asked! Were I starting the whole hifi game over I’d do that and be super happy while I save up until I can get something I’d keep forever. The chord Mojo 2 for example is often found used for $1500 and that thing is wild.

 

[Bjorn154]

Let me add Earmen Colibri to the dongles. Blew me away with the XTC2’s. Actually made me question my own sanity spending thousands of dollars on desktop amps.

 

[stormwrx]

To add another question what are some of your favorite amp/dac pairings, combos $1K and under with XTC 2 opens?

I’m enjoying my XTC 2 opens (beryllium, 64 ohm, warm yet detailed) with the Fiio K9 AKM at my desk and the iBasso DC Elite on the go.

 

[Patswalker]

Let me add Earmen Colibri to the dongles. Blew me away with the XTC2’s. Actually made me question my own sanity spending thousands of dollars on desktop amps.

I’ve heard nothing but great things about earmem. I have yet to try.

 

[Bjorn154]

I’ve heard nothing but great things about earmem. I have yet to try.

Came highly recommended from a HP fanatic and I was floored you can get that level of quality sound from an iPhone.

 

[Patswalker]

Came highly recommended from a HP fanatic and I was floored you can get that level of quality sound from an iPhone.

What I really want is the Angel. I’ve got a good amount a dongles and a good amount of desktop setups but the middle ground is super interesting to me. I’ve got a Chord Mojo 2 which I LOVE for IEMs. I love the idea of that space in the audio world, not quite a full tilt desktop device and not quite a pocket sized device. Small and portable but powerful and atill great for full headphones, which to me is where the Mojo 2 starts to fall off.

 

[Bjorn154]

What I really want is the Angel. I’ve got a good amount a dongles and a good amount of desktop setups but the middle ground is super interesting to me. I’ve got a Chord Mojo 2 which I LOVE for IEMs. I love the idea of that space in the audio world, not quite a full tilt desktop device and not quite a pocket sized device. Small and portable but powerful and atill great for full headphones, which to me is where the Mojo 2 starts to fall off.

A DAP like the A&K SP2000/3000 would fit that bill.

 

[Philimon]

Re-asking here because crickets from @fidgeraldo in other thread.:

You mod them to your preferences? or JM mods them for you based on what?

 

[Patswalker]

A DAP like the A&K SP2000/3000 would fit that bill.

I’m not a fan of daps. And if I get one I’m not going to put that much money into one. I’ve tried them and I just don’t take music portable enough to need one. I always have my computer with me when I want music so I lean much more towards dongles and devices like the Angel/Mojo2/Hugo 2 type thing.

 

[phoneslave86]

What I really want is the Angel. I’ve got a good amount a dongles and a good amount of desktop setups but the middle ground is super interesting to me. I’ve got a Chord Mojo 2 which I LOVE for IEMs. I love the idea of that space in the audio world, not quite a full tilt desktop device and not quite a pocket sized device. Small and portable but powerful and atill great for full headphones, which to me is where the Mojo 2 starts to fall off.

Highly recommend jd atom amp 2 for gryphon, mojo2 and daps. It’s a very noticeable SQ improvement set up right but not as good in bare bones form on bad power with a cheap interconnect. Must have a high end interconnect to really shine so it’s a bit of an investment. I use atlas equator metik 3.5mm which bypasses using solder, amazing cable. I plug my amp into a humdinger to kill DC line noise and use an Aliexpress flux-50 filter and a fairly cheap cryo copper cable with copper connectors which effect the sound (less than $100) The jd amp does above average vs noisy power but still benefits and gets even better.

I’ve been travelling with this kit and testing with an emi tester the power conditions of various places. It’s rarely even near acceptable for audio just about everywhere. 1/20 places are reasonably quiet to start with. The SQ improvement can be large from this. This setup easily can rival a typical mid level full size desktop systems with an xtc. One can hear much deeper into the capabilities of these small devices with the amps help and each one is quite unique. As a bonus it works great with two xtc at the same time. It’s plenty revealing enough to want to use a revealing headphone cable as well.

*edit* Got to reword, I do favor the basso if I had to pick one, but I love the others. They are just unique in the sound each one, and I will be sad to sell any of these is how good they are and I probably have to pick one to keep pretty soon. The basso has the most power for driving a headphone. All three with the amp I can listen to all day if needed, it has to be really good to do that.

Here is a pic from today while travelling. The whole kit fits into the small box in the picture. Sorry for poor english hard to type here. If anyone needs specifics to comparisons of these with xtc tunings combined with these dacs I’ve learned quite a bit feel free to message me specifics. Been testing out 3rd 1.0 tuning I got back a couple weeks ago. Another unique awesome tuning, each one is different headphone than the last and I will dearly miss the other tunings forever no doubt! Different tunings can really pop with some of the combos here, many unique signatures. Some of them are really balanced and handle bad recordings consistently which is what I consider good synergy these days. Headphone pads and cables play a role. With my gryphon and new 1.0 open back it’s silver cable and leather non-cut pads. Must swap to gold or copper cable and fuzzy cut out for the mojo 2. Just imperative synergy, total pop and correct, game changing synergy, can’t underestimate it. I go to foot tapping with the mojo with the fuzzy right away but not at all with the leather pad every time. The gryphon silver cable is one of the very few cases the leather pad is really, really good overall with the current tuning.

 

[Ace Bee]

Can someone advise me an upgrade over Gryphon? I had Shanling M7 but sold it as I want to buy the iBasso DX260..if I get it, do I still need the Gryphon or an external portable amp will be more suitable?

With Gryphon I found I had to push the volume level to around 80 with XTC... Wasn't expecting that.

 

[Patswalker]

Can someone advise me an upgrade over Gryphon? I had Shanling M7 but sold it as I want to buy the iBasso DX260..if I get it, do I still need the Gryphon or an external portable amp will be more suitable?

With Gryphon I found I had to push the volume level to around 80 with XTC... Wasn't expecting that.

I wasn't all that impressed my the Gryphon personally. It was nice but not my favorite. What's your price range?

 

[Ace Bee]

I wasn't all that impressed my the Gryphon personally. It was nice but not my favorite. What's your price range?

Around 300 USD I would say.