Travagans Colors Portable Headphone Amp

Performance

This little amplifier has a fixed gain due to the lack of a volume control. Some DAPs with a good headphone-out will benefit greatly from such a little "booster" type amp. If you hook it up to an already noisy source the results might be less desirable. The DAP I will be using it with is my old and trusty Cowon iAudio i7 16 GB which has a really good headphone out, but lacks line-out capability. This is the ideal scenario for the Colors because it is amplifying a relatively clean signal at all volume levels. I will of course be comparing it to my other headphone amplifiers such as the Go-Vibe V6, HeadRoom Total BitHead, and the not so portable Octavart "The One" Amp & DAC.

The Colors amp surprised me a lot not only does it do a great job even with really demanding cans has a quite balanced sound. To start off with I used the Travagans amp to power a pair of Yuin PK1s which are a pair of high impedance earbuds. And it really helped a lot compared to driving them straight out of my Cowon iAudio i7. The major difference besides the higher volume was a remarkable change in bass response. With only the internal amp in the Cowon driving them the bass is a bit on the slow side and tends to muddy up the mids a bit as well. The bass becomes so much more punchy and tight when adding the Colors. The Colors really helped tighten everything up just a tad, the percussion gain a bit more punch which is nice.

If you have a DAP with a relatively weak output the Colors is the perfect addition if you do not want to haul around a normal headphone amplifier, and considering the price of only $59 it is quite a bargain. One thing you do need to figure out first is if the headphone-out on your DAP is noisy because if it is, that noise will be amplified.

The Travagans Colors did do a lot for the presentation with a pair of high impedance earbuds like the Yuin, but it did not really do anything with low impedance IEM or earbuds for that matter it just boosted the volume. I really liked the Colors in combination with some of my hard to drive earbuds and the unique Head-Direct RE1. The effect when just using normal impedance earbuds was so little that it is not worth dishing out $59 for. This amp is perfect for those with a small DAP that has a good headphone out because you can get a relatively good amp for a good price. You do, however, miss out on using it in combination with a line-out.

It definitely sounds more analytical than my Go-Vibe V6 because it does not add more bass. This is of course due to the choice of op-amp in the Go-Vibe. The Go-Vibe is more fun sounding because it adds some loudness to the tracks. The little booster amp does not add that much coloration at all which is quite surprising.

Durability

Since the Colors do not have anything sticking out of it like my other headphone amplifiers it is quite durable because there is not really anything that can break except the jacks. The input and output jacks are just as prone to breaking as that on any other of my portable amps. Another problem is the fact that the shell is made from silica gel rather than hard plastic. This means that if you by accident push it hard or pry it against something one of the components might get in the way and break.