My new audio travel kit

[tutomac]

Hello all. I wanted to quickly share some stuff with you. Hope it's not too boring and maybe it may inspire a few of you who were thinking about this.

Last month I took my family for a 20 day vacation through Spain. While the on-site vacation was an amazing experience, the air travel was awful. Mainly because our ride was extremely boring

You see the last time I flew international I was gorging in the pleasures of business class (or the such) to Buenos Aires 10 years ago! That was a fun flight (plus no jet lag). This time, when my wife booked our tickets I had wet dreams of wine, champagne, lobster, and open leg room. I never cared to look at our tickets, ever. I was psyched

Until the moment of boarding. I went through the jet way like a little kid (accompanied by two more, 12 and 9). I was giggly, excited, even loud. I was trotting into the airpl.... "WHAT THE HELL?! We got into the wrong airplane!" I must have looked to the welcoming (uh, yeah, whatever lady) flight attendant like a kid who just found out Santa is not the guy he always thought to be. The airplane was a, u-humm, 767. Tiny with raggedy seats, and old smelling, that thing must have been 25 years old. When I noticed my wife (who was leading the pack) did not even flinch past 1st Class (or Business, or whatever) never looking back at my outcry, I knew I was in trouble, and this was going to be a long F'ing ride to Madrid.

I painfully (and mad as a Sevillian Toro blinded by the blood in his eyes) plummeted into my tiny, flat, shitty, and stincky seat on row 35!! I cried. I looked in front of me, and no video screen. Just a distant CTR type console that (barely) drops automatically from within the overhead compartment seemed to be the only sign of entertainment for a 9.5 hour flight (11 on the way back BTW). Sweet Mother of Jesus (I'm Catholic, you see).

Did I say I was mad? Anyways, within literary 7 minutes I succumbed to my reality. I pulled out my ipod classic and my god-knows-how-old pair of Sony in-ears phones... that had so much ear wax stuck to them that I wondered if I was ever going to hear through them (not listen of course). By now we're airborne (uncharacteristically ahead of schedule), and ETOH is available. What do you know!! God threw me a bone! I thought since our flight left Dallas, TX what would be the chance they would have Tito's Vodka? As it turned out: 100% So I ordered two doubles (yes FOUR little bottles on my tilted tray!!). And drank.

I have over 12,000 songs on my ipod. Pretty good collection. Proud of it as a matter of fact. Even after my attempt at achieving oblivion, that music sounded like crap. A thousand little sharp miniature flying knives slicing and penetrating my middle ear at 35,000 feet above the ocean.

Fast forward a lot, and we landed in Madrid. The next 19 days were absolute bliss. Nuff said.

Until the last day. I experience the same nightmare of flying, except... WORSE. We flew 11 hours and the sun never sat. Punishment for all the eating, drinking, and sining in Spain. Oh well.

All this lead me to this: when I returned home (finally), I promise myself if I would ever travel again, I would listen to music in a more civilized, enjoyable way. One that will allow me to smell the guy in the seat in front of me's fart without noticing. One that will help me forget the abuses and miseries of Coach class for endless hours.

So welcome my new Audio Travel Kit:





It consists of:
-Centrace HiFi M-8 DAC/amplifier
-Sennheiser Urbanite XL headphones
-ipod classic
-ADL LOD cable 30-pin to USB A
-Macbook Pro (JRiver MC20)
-iFi iPurifier adapter
-Moon Audio USB Silver Dragon USB cable (not shown)
-1/4" to 1/8" adapter (for a second simultaneous listener if need arrises)

This is what it looks like put together:



It sounds amazing! I have been "burning-in" everything in preparation to our next trip.

We're going to Puerto Rico next week. As this time I checked the reservation and confirmed that Coach is the new Business in my house, I cant wait to try this rig in flight.

When I return from our XMAS vacation, I will have enough hours on the rig to offer an impression and critique on SQ and practicality (after all this is not the tiniest/lightest rig for this application, but one that met my needs at this time).

Cheers!

[jdandy]

Hector.......Good looking headphone rig for travel or home.

Well written and funny story, too.

[Masterlu]

Hector... Don't travel with it assembled:



You may not make it through security.

[tutomac]

You're not gonna believe me, but I thought the same thing after I took the picture... looks like a darn bomb, and it is yet to be tested through TSA.

It sounds good, though, I swear...

[tutomac]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Hector.......Good looking headphone rig for travel or home.

Well written and funny story, too.

Thanks Dan! This will be strictly for travel.
For home, I just bought a Bryston BHA-1 amp (from Ivan) for my HiFiMAN HE-500's... won't be getting that until January.

Cheers!

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by tutomac

You're not gonna believe me, but I thought the same thing after I took the picture... looks like a darn bomb, and it is yet to be tested through TSA.

It sounds good, though, I swear...

Just don't put this album sticker on it.

[Loop4fun]

Hector, This is well written. Funny! Thanks for brightening the evening.

[doggiehowser]

I use an iFi iDSD micro with some UE11Pros - iPhone 6+ and the USB camera kit



pics from iFi directly

Weird the pic didn't show
http://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uplo...oneiDSDm01.jpg

[doggiehowser]

I used to carry something a friend built for me - a RedWineAudio modded iPod Video G5.5, mono wooden housing with Sonicaps and an iQube

[Scottsmrnyc]

Great Looking Travel System- I have two travel systems; The first is my Stax system; consisting of the SRDX Pro or Non Pro with my Stax 4070s. The second is my Sennheiser HD 800s with my Headroom mini portable amp. I use an Ipod Classic with both.