The Audiophiliac listens to two outrageously fine Firestone products: the $199 Fireye DA USB headphone amp and the $39 Fireye Mini portable headphone amp.
Firestone Audio have recently come out with a miniature ultraportable amplifier that has been highly praised by the audiophile community in its native Taiwan — the Fireye Mini.It’s just 1.5 inches by 1 inch by 0.5 inch, and the soft-rubber-shelled amp weighs almost nothing, so you can hang it off your iPod, iPad, iPhone or any device with a 3.5mm headphone output. Plugging in a headphone turns the Mini on and lights a bright blue LED, unplugging turns the amp off. Charge the Mini via the USB connection and it’ll play for up to 24 hours. It’s available in green, gray, purple, red, and white.
It is a TINY amp, and should definitely be one of the smallest out on the market.The Mini made each one sound like a better pair of headphones. Radiohead’s “Amnesiac” had a more expansive soundstage, bass definition firmed up, and treble sparkle improved compared with what we get straight out of my iPod Classic.
The amp’s definitely worth $39, so if you’ve already invested in a nice set of headphones, why not see how good they can sound? Firestone is known for building pretty sturdy products — the Fireye Mini isn’t one of them. In order to keep costs down, Firestone did not use any plastic hard shell to house the electronics. Rather, everything is just housed in the soft jelly housing, unsealed. The PCB board is laminated with a thick plastic sheeting, but heaven forbid you spill anything on it, or sit on it. I’m assuming that Firestone just thought this thing would be so cheap that people would just go ahead and buy another one if a freak accident happened.The Fireye Mini is strictly plug and play. There is no volume attenuator, so LOD cables are not recommended. The 3.5mm headphone plug is in the center of the left face of the amp, with the line-in port to its left. When you plug your headphones or IEMs in, a blue LED comes on the bottom-right corner, indicating that the Fireye Mini is on and amplifying its input signal. At the bottom of the amp, there is a miniUSB power input. Most people claim that on a full charge, the Fireye Mini can be used for 12 hours continuously without any trouble.
Measuring a still-compact 2.4 inches by 3.2 inches by 0.6 inch, the Fireye DA USB digital-to-analog converter/headphone amp ($199) isn’t much bigger than the Mini. The machined metal chassis, volume control knob, and switches exude quality. The DA was designed to work with computers, but not with iPods/iPhones, etc. I used a Mac Mini as a music source for all of my listening tests.The DA’s sound has a solid foundation, so weighty bass impact is the star attraction here. Definition and punch are strong, and there’s a bass boost switch on the front panel that adds even more kick to the low frequencies on my Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones.
The DA has two output jacks: a 3.5mm headphone jack and a 3.5mm line output/optical/digital. The front panel has bass boost and gain switches, while the second one pushes the volume level up for hard-to-drive headphones, like my 300-ohm Sennheiser HD 580s. if you crave maximum resolution the DA would be a better choice.
