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1 Level
1375 Review
58 Karma

Review on 🎧 iFi Ear Buddy: Enhance Your Audio Experience with the Ultimate Travel Kit for Headphones and IEMs - Including Accessories and Audio Attenuator Cable by Kenny Marozas

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Good product. I wish it had more levels.

Excellent product. I wish it had additional tiers, but I think it would be difficult to make it high quality and affordable. Basically it is an attenuator. Reduces volume for very sensitive headphones. I recently bought some high quality audiophile in-ear headphones which were very delicate. When I connected it to my smartphone, the sound was very loud. The obvious solution was to turn the volume down to about 1/10th, but this resulted in the music being close to the amp's noise floor. It seems that the phone keeps the amplifier's gain at a constant level as the digital signal decreases. This leads to a severe deterioration in the signal-to-noise ratio of the digital signal. Ideally you want the signal coming out of the DAC to be full range and the power amp to attenuate the signal, but it's expensive to implement. Well this is clearly the fault of a cheap amp, but perhaps a better solution in a smartphone product wouldn't be cost effective. I'm sure a dedicated headphone amp won't have this problem, but of course I won't be carrying one in my bag.

Pros
  • TRAVEL IN COMFORT - Customize the sound of the aircraft's onboard system. INCLUDES: travel case, gold-plated airplane adapter and memory foam ear tips (37dB noise reduction to reduce take-off and landing noise!) Results may vary depending on the device you use Ear Buddy with. The sound improvement may be more noticeable for some and less noticeable for others.
Cons
  • Expensive