I vary my listening from portables (Fiio X5ii, X3ii, LP5 and iPhone 5S) to my desk-top's set-up (PC > USB > iFi iDSD). Over the last couple of years, I have slowly changed from cheaper listening set-ups to my current set-up. I don't say audiophile – I just love my music. (This is to give any readers a baseline for interpreting the review). I am not affiliated to VE in any way, and this is my honest opinion of the Runabout amplifier. Lee actually supplied it because he was interested in my opinion as to how it performed, and I wasn’t obligated to actually write a review – but I wanted to because it is a very interesting amplifier. The Runabout portable amplifier that I’m reviewing today was provided as a review sample by VE. If we only do budget, people will have a false image of us not being serious enough, so the idea is very simple”Īnd to close, I asked Lee about VE’s mission statement or values statement, and the answer I received made perfect sense – “ keeping it real”. We believe to be the best hi-fi company, we need to have the best of the best gears, not only budget ones. We believe the Zen is the best earbud in the world, and as we can sell the monk for cheap then it might go viral and get more attention to the other products. I see our budget gear (like the Monk) as a walking ad for our brand, among our on-line community (people who love earphones, because they mainly they love the ART the earphones can deliver, like gaming, movie, anime and stuff. “We see our fans, not just as moving wallets. I’m going to quote one of Lee’s replies, because it really does add to my impression of VE as a company. Their goal long term is “to have the best budget and hi-end gear”, and it was refreshing to see some frank and honest comments in reply to some of my inquiries. I asked Lee about their core business, and he said they were primarily an internet company, and had developed more products than were currently on offer, but for now their current product range covered enough to cater for immediate development. VE is relatively small (for now) with 5 employees, and currently have a very small product line (Zen 1&2, Asura and Monk earbuds, Duke IEM and the Runabout amp I’m reviewing today). It really shows a lot about a company when they show pride in their own achievements, and are so open about sharing information with their customer base. I was able to ask Lee a little about the company, and he has been very open and approachable – something I love to see when dealing with a manufacturer. Venture Electronics (or VE) is a 3 year old audio company based in Shenyang, Liaoning in the Peoples Republic of China. with the 320 ohm VE Zen and a weak source), but I’ve found it’s important to realise that an add-on amplifier has a specific purpose – to provide cleaner and more power when it’s required, or to lower the output impedance, or even to colour the sound to your liking. There are times when you absolutely need an amp (e.g. Once I actually started comparing objectively, most of the time a lot of those differences disappeared. And with the amps I was using, I wasn’t volume matching when comparing. For larger images (1200 x 800), click individual photos INTRODUCTION My journey through Head-Fi has been interesting, and in my early days I was pretty naïve about what an amplifier did (wow – gotta amp everything - the increase in clarity, details, soundstage!) Over time, as I gained more knowledge, experimented and (more importantly) tested, I began to realise that those benefits I was sure I heard, had mostly come about by simply turning the volume up.
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