iBasso confirmed that the charge rate through the USB cannot keep up with the operating current and that the battery slowly depletes.   When I asked them about the rolling kit - they just said to swap over components - not really helpful, since I am not able to identify the alternatives.  ...

I thought that lossless encoders were just that, bit perfect representations of the CD or source.  I got into a bit of an argument with a Naim user who had 'perfect rips' of the CD's onto their hard drive. He claims that the output of that system compared to say, the FLAC output of a Rockbox'd...

I did a couple of days of burn-in and compared sources again. Added to the mix was a newly acquired iRiver H140, with Rockbox, via the optical line out.   Using the DB2/PB2 with ipad/adaptor/usb and the iRiver H140/optical outputs - I was surprised, for the same source file, to detect a...

DB2 also works with USB camera connector and an iPad. Comparisons with the iPad sound direct to the headphones was a little surprising. In the brief time I had to compare, the two results were quite close.  I need to do further work to find out if the iPad output via headphones is good, or if...

Just go the little beastie from China, complete with a balanced jumper.  I have only had enough time for first impressions of the DB2 with the PB2, using Grado SR225i and Senn HD650 phones (the later balanced).   I compared to my reference Sugden CD/Preamp system output - the DB2 took a...

Thanks for the info folks - I'll take a look at finding some RS1i's or 2i's.  I note there seems to be two different versions, with and without a wooden button in the middle - is this just cosmetic or should I be looking out for one version rather than the other?

OK- I'm game - what's a 'woody'?  Do I get a lathe and turn myself some ear bowls? Chris

I have SR225i's and wondered about upgrading within the Grado family - especially if I could increase the overall warmth of the presentation a little - My 'phones are run-in and whilst they compliment my balanced HD650's, covering many recording balances - the difference is a little difficult to...

I checked with iBasso today on my DB2 order. They waiting for PCB's and should be shipping from the 15th onwards   regards Chris

thanks for that - I don't think I would have anything quite as big as 320Gbytes, more like 32Gbytes on an SDHC card. Are there any alternatives - apart from out of production items, that are compact audio players with digital outputs? I have done several searches without much success.  ...

I'm not sure if this should be in this forum, or the portable source forum but I'm thinking of buying a Squeezebox touch to use with an iBasso DB2/PB2 combination fed from it's digital output.   I'm working on the premise that whilst I am at home, I can stream from my network and use SD...

Part III with the iBasso PB2 - comparing AD797 / BUF 634 with OPA627BP / BUF 634 in balanced mode with Silver Dragon cables and Sennheisser 650's. The source was an iPod 5.5g with a Kimber dock cable.  The date code on the OPA627BP was 9820WM5016 and measured 50-60Kohms between pin 1 and 5...

After about 50 hours burn-in I evaluated the Silver Dragon balanced cable on the HD650's against the stock single-ended cable on the PB2. Gosh what a difference! - and not in the way I expected.  With AD797 and BUF in place, I evaluated the two configurations back to back. In balanced mode, I...

Silver Balanced HD650 cables and OPA627's should be with me for the weekend and I pre-ordered the iBasso DB2 today - proceeds to Japan. Do I need to run-in IC's?  I thought it was capacitors which were the main reason for burn-in? regards Chris

I have just seen on the other thread that the DB2 is on the way - fun fun.  I haven't had so much fun since I blew up £100's worth of Mosfets when testing a 100W RMS into a fully capacitive load!

Not at the moment. The dragon cables are on their way for the HD650's and we'll see how it goes. The Grado's slip into a shoulder bag at a pinch and were designed to be a semi portable solution. The HD650's I plan to feed direct from my computer, via SPDIF into the DB2 / PB2 when it becomes...

I promised to do a review of my two portable headphone amplifiers, the IBasso PB2 and the Headroom ultra-micro amplifier. To do this review I employed 2 headphones, the Sennheiser HD 650, and the Grado SR225i. All the equipment was run in for two weeks before commencing any evaluation. On order...

I have only recently taken to portable and computer audio, having been playing with audio reproduction since the days of Peter Belt. I have been flicking through the 23 pages of this thread searching for a very simple answer. If I take a program like Decibel and iTunes and each case, play a...

My PB2 arrived yesterday and is currently burning in with some pink noise. I took a look at the rolling kit and compared it with the various posts and recommendations from this thread and its links.   Clearly iBasso have gone to some trouble to offer alternatives. I understand the reason for...

I took the plunge this weekend and Rockbox'd my ipod 5.5g. Using a Headroom ultra micro amp and SD650's I had a hard time picking up on any difference between FLAC on the RB'd ipod and what I could recall from before the modification with an AIFF in the Apple OS. (I could just tell the...

This feels like a parallel argument to the subject of PC's vs Macs. When I was younger I wanted to design computers, fix the OS bugs myself in CP/M and found the early challenges of MS Windows exciting. I haven't got time for all that now. I won't my computer to switch on every morning and to...

Apologies for my ramblings but I just tried the iPod through my normal Sugden system, with Totem Model 1 speakers. The difference between the 256 kbps AAC and ALE was obvious. ALE was far more spacious and you could hear the ringing on cymbals. That surprises me. I expected the headphones to be...

Kevin - I did a double take, you are dead right. When new, the Sony's had hardly any bass and for monitoring, I don't normally encounter too much in vocal work. I burned them in for a bit and the bass filled out. I just fed some rock music through them and the bass has now become boomy and...

Well, the first part of my experimentation, whilst waiting for the PB2 to arrive was comparing an ipod 5.5 through a dock connector (Kimber cable) and the headphone outlet into the amp. I have to say, not a huge difference. Phones were HD650's and SR225i's. The Headroom amp has two inputs, so I...