talip bin osman

IMHO, the problem you are perceiving is not brought about by amplification but your IEM's transparency... your IEM just exposes the limitations or the overall character of the ipod's DAC... i maybe wrong but just to be sure, hook up your IEM to a USB DAC/amp to your PC... listen to a few tracks from your audio files and if im correct these proplems you sre perceiving will go away... instead of using your budget to purchase a portable amp, allocate it for the hifiman 602... its a DAP, amp and USB DAC anyway... hard to go wrong with that one man...

the E7 has an amp section man... just like the nuforce icon mini... u can get the icon mini at treoo or at audio-iconic

its the senn badboy you should be choosing man... though the 840 will portray classical music and ensembles on a large hall types a bit better (because of it's slightly better soundstage) anything else other than these, the hd 25-1 kicks the 840's ass the whole day.. rock, metal, triphop, industrial, bigbeat, downtempo, trance, lounge, chillout... the senns got you covered here...

how much is your budget and what type of cans are you using? get straight to the top if you have the moolah... you are going to save more! (avoiding the journey by going straight to the upper echelons of headphone gear) if you dig the sound of solid state and you have any of the three high end senns, go for the headamp gs-x in balanced mode... i have tried it with the quad CDP2 as source and i must say it sounds phenomenal... (its a journey ending type of set-up) or if your music library is already on a hard drive, you can get the eastern electric minimax DAC and hook it up with the gs-x...

i suggest you get a nuforce icon mini or a fiio E7... it should be sufficient to drive the M-50 with enough dynamics and authority... the difference in sound quality as compared to the onboard soundcard should be noticeable... these 2 amps/DACs are quite versatile in a sense you can use it at home or away from it, can be used as a stand alone DAC or amp and can be hooked up to a notebook or any DAP...

be careful of buying USB DACS if you are planning to hook it up with your playstation 3 man... though it has USB ports, the PS3 just refuses to recognise such DACS... i suggest you purchase a DAC with not just USB as inputs but something with digital coaxial or toslink... go with the audiotrak drDAC DX or the ibasso D12...

hi there man... i was about to suggest the ATH M_50 but you had already cancelled it out from your options! it has a good tonal balance, a fairly decent soundstage (for a closed pair),excellent instrument separation, a well defined treble and can plumb the low frequencies fairly well... at a very reasonable price... anyway, if you want something more affordable, may i suggest to you the sennheiser HD-202... it shines with mainstream pop and its quite good looking too!