Let's ruin the surprise:
I'm buying an Aune B1 the moment the nice folks at Aune Audio show up at my door demanding their demo unit back. I can't stop playing it and there's one huge reason: The Aune B1, against all expectations, makes my Audeze LCD-X headphones sound better...way better...when I'm using my Astell and Kern AK-100 Mark II DAP and it rivals the sound from my much more expensive Fostex HP-A8C DAC/amp streaming Tidal or accessing ITunes.
I'm not kidding. I had just started using the touring B1 and the LCD-Xs by playing a Norah Jones tune that has no sound in the left channel for the first few bars and I mistakenly thought "oh crap" the left channel is dead so something must be broken somewhere. I mean there was nothing in the left channel. There was no noise - no hiss - no nothing. It was like the left channel didn't exist. It wasn't like it was absent. It was like it wasn't there and never had been there and suddenly eight bars or so into the music the left channel emerged out of a intergalactic black hole and burst into glorious sound.
I was stunned.
And, if this wasn't enough now the sound out of both channels was driving my LCD-Xs into new realms of detail and punch. That did it. I went to search for my chargecard!
You don't have to read any farther. If you've got big expensive headphones and a $200 investment isn't a big deal then go to Aune (sold here in Canada by Grant Fidelity) and buy the B1.
BTW here's the standard disclaimer around nobody is paying me for my opinions (although as a former newspaper and magazine editor and writer I'm still available. I write for several of my own blogs on a variety of subjects.) and I would like to thank Aune for supplying the B1 which is on tour.
It might help to know I'm 66 and my wife gives me my allowance for cleaning the house once a month plus there's my pension cheque so I'm self-supporting and picky about what I buy. I got into this audio thing at the beginning of the year and I now own way more headphones and IEMs than your average big band. I've got DACS upstairs and down and everything is streaming including TIDAL through Apple's Airplay system. I'm a very happy camper although yoga four times a week helps.
For those of you still with me, there are a couple of things you should know now about the B1,
First the B1 tends to overpower my in-ear monitors. I wouldn't have thought such was possible and when I read another reviewer who made a similar statement I thought he was delusional. I mean how can an amp be too powerful? Well it can. The B1 on its lowest power setting still sounds too aggressive in my Shure 535s. The bass hits too hard. Same with the Titan !s and the rest. Any of the higher pitch percussive notes came out way too sharp. It can hurt.
Yes you can turn down the gain but this isn't an amp that you'd want to exclusively drive your in-ear monitors. (Get Cypher Labs Picollo for your IEMs. It too uses discrete parts like the B1 which some claim make for a more elegant sound. I tend to believe them.) On the other hand, if you like a lot of music in your ears this might be your ticket to sonic amazement at least until your hearing fails. The Random Access Memory cut of Get Lucky is pretty intense using in-ears. The Audezes handle the musical assault with easy. This could be an age thing as in me being older and you not so much?
My Momentum on-ears handle the sound output of the B1 pretty well too but again when I switch back to my 535s even turning down the volume doesn't make this a soothing experience. It's aggressive as heck and where Bob Marley and Wailers sound like they're screaming in the IEM, they sound much better in the Audezes or the Momenums.....if you're on the low gain setting. On high gain - Class A setting you can feel the Audezes kicking into high gear and the difference is shocking, even exhilarating.
I've had the Audezes since the beginning of the year and I've read every review I could find about all the high-end headphones out there and while I loved the sound the LCD-X produces there was something missing for me when it came to using them with a DAP. The missing bit was that intangible "wow" factor that I can hear in the Momentum on-ears or the 535s when using the DAP and a small amp. It's subtle for sure but sitting on the couch with the AK-100 Mark II driving my Cypher Labs Picollo amp with the 535s remains one of the best musical experiences I've ever had.
When I swapped out the LCD-X the sound was still perfect but...
Remember that song from the 60s by the Lovin Spoonful called Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? One of the lines goes: Sometimes you really dig a girl the moment you kiss her and then you get distracted by her older sister!
That was my experience. On their own the LCD-X were very kissable headphones. They did everything just right. But then I plugged in the B1 and boy was I distracted by this older sister who was much more muscular and aggressive.
So what's happening?
The B1 is a class A amplifier. So what's class A?
In the Amateur (Ham) Radio world where I come from we use a lot of different kinds of amplifiers. Amplifiers...well amplify. They can boost audio signals or radio frequency signals and for the most part it's all the same thing. They shouldn't take anything away or add anything as they just amplify the signal.
What's different about a Class A amp is they are relatively simple devices. There's often not a lot of parts and a Class A amp is on (that is to say amplifying) all the time. That's one of the reasons Class A amps tend to run warm. There's no cooling off time. This 100 per cent demand on the circuit also means there's a higher demand on the power supply no matter if it's battery powered or runs off 110-volt AC. BTW the kind of warm I'm talking about is warm like a puppy or kitten warm. Not warm like an oven or hair dryer warm. You don't want hot when it comes to your electronics.
There are other kinds of amps. A Class B amp uses what's called a push-pull configuration of tubes or solid state devices so that only one half of the amp is working at any one time while the other half is turned off and thus cooling. The two parts of the amp switch back and forth many times a second making them more efficient than class A amps and are often used in audio circuits. There are other classes of amps out there like Class A/B and for those interested I'd suggest the great Google for answers.
Right now it comes down to do we want efficiency or do want power?
As far as I'm concerned, especially when driving the LCD-Xs I want power and the B1 delivers.
It's like this: Let's pretend you're a Navy pilot. You're parked on your aircraft carrier and you get the go-ahead to take off. You don't release the brakes and then slowly bring the engine up to speed. You know what will happen. By the time you roll up to the edge of flight deck you won't have gained sufficient speed to actually take off. So that's not how to takeoff from the flight deck of a carrier. The right way is when you get the okay to go, you make certain you're brakes are on tight (might even be a restraining cable...I don't know as I've never been in the Navy) and you increase the power of your engine to military power of 110 per cent. Then with every rivet in the aircraft trying to rip itself out of its socket, the engine screaming, your heart in your mouth, you release the brake and the aircraft leaps into the air.
Hardly what we'd call efficient but it sure is powerful.
And so we have the Aune B1. Turn it on and it's on at 100 per cent. Likely doesn't matter whether you're actually listening to anything or not. The B1 is running full out and thus warming itself in the process. It's going to be a nice unit to place in an inside a jacket pocket on a snowy winter day in Canada. And remember, I'm saying warm here and not hot. Again hot you do not want in your electronics. Warm is okay especially when you know you're running a Class A amp.
So if this isn't enough to make you giddy with joy there's the price. At $199 the B1 isn't inexpensive, it's downright cheap. But cheap isn't a bargain if the sound isn't there. There are a lot of other guys out there who have reviewed the heck out of the B1 and I think I'm safe in saying they all have said they liked the sound of the B1. Some even raved!
A few carped about things I don't find important like whether the volume knob is metal or plastic or how cheap the fake leather inserts seemed to them. I actually thought they looked pretty good but what I think about the cosmetics is irrelevant IMHO. Your mileage may vary.
Coming from the Ham Radio world where some of things I buy come in a bag and you solder them onto a circuit board and connect them to circuits using alligator clips and there's no case or fancy anything I couldn't care less about the aesthetics of the B1. What makes a buying difference for me is whether or not the thing enhances my listening experience and the B1 passes that test with flying colours. Having said that the B1 might have come with a few accessories. As it is you get the B1, a USB cable, a business card, a mini quick guide and a four-inch stereo plug. I mean you don't need anything else but I'm getting spoiled by other manufacturers adding cases, higher-end plugs even key chains. I know I'm being very shallow here.
But when it comes to sound, I spent hours and hours swapping out headphones with the AK-100 Mark II supplying the music to the B1. I also compared the B1 to the Cypher Labs Picollo amp and even the Fiio E-11 which was my first purchase a couple of years ago. (I use the E-11 to listen to Netflicks out of my IPad. Makes a big positive difference to the sound quality of the movies.)
In general here's what I found:
The B1 as I said is super quiet. I couldn't hear any hiss or with any of my IEMs or headphones. I couldn't even hear a noise floor or anything else. It was almost like somebody had added a squelch control.
Now a couple of reviewers have said they could hear a bit of channel imbalance but I couldn't. Almost everyone who has reviewed the B1 agrees it's loud and many agree it's too loud with IEM but I just read a post that said Aune is going to turn down the gain a bit on the lower gain setting. That would be a very good thing to do.
You see the B1 has two controls that affect the amount of amplification it can deliver. The first is just that: a gain control that switches the output stage from 20MWs of power to 40MWs (which has a big effect on battery life) and a current control whose markings suggest it switches in or out the Class A amplifier. Not sure if this is exactly what is happen as we may have lost something in translation but let's look at it this way. When using the LCD-Xs I turn everything on and my hair bursts into flame and when using the IEM I turn everything off. Clear enough?
Aune has warnings all over the place about not switching the gain controls whenever you're listen to music so as to not damage sensitive IEM or headphones. I did by accident and lived to tell the tale but not recommended.
Back to the sound...the B1, because it's always on, doesn't bog down under big musical demands. Bob Marley and The Wailers Legend album is one of my favourites for testing equipment as the music is very demanding and in your face. The B1 - Audeze combination is now the best musical experience I've ever had when it comes to Bob and the boys. Bass, mids and highs don't compete for the available wattage. There's plenty enough power for all and the sound can be called warmish without being overly coloured. It's a pleasing sound and might even be considered more listenable than the output from the Fostex DAC/amp which is a bit more sophisticated and slightly more sedate and colder.
Some audio engineer out there will understand when I say the B!-Audeze combo makes the music sound snappier. it's almost as if the music is coming out at a faster speed. Now I know that's not possible but the combo is hard-hitting and while realistic it's pitched just a little more aggressively than anything else I own.
So what this means is when I'm listening to Lucinda Williams I can hear her breathing hotly in my ear with the B1-Audeze combo. With anything else in the house...not so much and I like to hear Lucinda that close to me...I really do The Picollo amp sounds more polished and laid back and anybody would be thrilled with the Picollo but just don't do an A - B comparison with somebody singing their lungs out as while the Picollo will entertain, the B1 will astonish. (The Fiio E11 isn't in the same league but is musically very sound and works with the IPad as I said before.)
One of my favourite Canadian groups The Cowboy Junkies (There's a great story here about how sister Margo Timmins had never sung professionally before when her brothers asked her to be the singer in their new band. Her haunting vocals changed the Canadian music scene back in 1986 and continues to thrill audiences today. Listen to the first song on the group's second album The Trinity Session recorded in 1987 at Toronto's old downtown Church of the Holy Trinity. Using one microphone suspended above them, you can hear the rush of the amplifiers as their auto gain settings picked up the ambient noise of the old wooden Toronto church just as Margo (who in the 1990s was named one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People Magazine) begins to sing. Turn it up just a little more for the full effect. Ageless.
Now size can be an issue. The B1 is just a little bigger than the AK-100 Mark II. It's not too big but you won't be carrying the combo around in your pocket. Now normally I walk around with the AK-100 Mark II with the 535's plugged in without an external amp or with the smaller Picollo amp and I'm perfectly happy. But the B1 is for use when I'm using the Audeze's and trust me, I'm not going outside with the LCD-Xs on my head. There's a limit to how geeky even I will be seen in public and you're talking to a guy who occasionally wears a baseball cap with his Amateur Radio callsign embossed on it.
Since I'm using the B1 almost exclusively at home with the AK-100 Mark II and the Audezes size doesn't matter but...
Then there's battery life issue. Since the B1 is always running at Class A power the battery drains in as little as four hours on maximum gain out and about 10 hours according to Aune at minimum gain settings. Four hours if you're walking around with the B1 connected to a decent DAP isn't a lot of time but there is solution. You can add an external battery!
Since the B1 is charged via the USB connection to a computer (and in fact doesn't include an external power supply) it makes sense that external batteries like the Mophie external batteries made for powering an IPhone or IPod should work just fine and they do. I purposely left the B1 on as I typed this review and the battery died after four or so hours of high-gain power listening. I added an external 8000mah Comwave Power battery and the music keeps playing.
But the setup weighs one pound six ounces! That's not pocketable but it would be fine in small backpack. Now since I'm using the setup while sitting outside on the deck I don't care but for some it might be an issue. (One of my new external batteries - Xtorm bought while on a trip to Switzerland - includes a solar panel so in theory I could sit out on the deck on a sunny day and never run out of power.)
For me, when it comes down to sound verses weight, sound wins hands down and the B1 has got the sound and the power and the fury to drive big headphones (even those that people say are easy to drive) into higher realms of musical excellence.
Don't believe me. Listen for yourself. Like Sade is singing right now: This is "No Ordinary Love" and Aune: the cheque is in the mail.
I'm buying an Aune B1 the moment the nice folks at Aune Audio show up at my door demanding their demo unit back. I can't stop playing it and there's one huge reason: The Aune B1, against all expectations, makes my Audeze LCD-X headphones sound better...way better...when I'm using my Astell and Kern AK-100 Mark II DAP and it rivals the sound from my much more expensive Fostex HP-A8C DAC/amp streaming Tidal or accessing ITunes.
I'm not kidding. I had just started using the touring B1 and the LCD-Xs by playing a Norah Jones tune that has no sound in the left channel for the first few bars and I mistakenly thought "oh crap" the left channel is dead so something must be broken somewhere. I mean there was nothing in the left channel. There was no noise - no hiss - no nothing. It was like the left channel didn't exist. It wasn't like it was absent. It was like it wasn't there and never had been there and suddenly eight bars or so into the music the left channel emerged out of a intergalactic black hole and burst into glorious sound.
I was stunned.
And, if this wasn't enough now the sound out of both channels was driving my LCD-Xs into new realms of detail and punch. That did it. I went to search for my chargecard!
You don't have to read any farther. If you've got big expensive headphones and a $200 investment isn't a big deal then go to Aune (sold here in Canada by Grant Fidelity) and buy the B1.
BTW here's the standard disclaimer around nobody is paying me for my opinions (although as a former newspaper and magazine editor and writer I'm still available. I write for several of my own blogs on a variety of subjects.) and I would like to thank Aune for supplying the B1 which is on tour.
It might help to know I'm 66 and my wife gives me my allowance for cleaning the house once a month plus there's my pension cheque so I'm self-supporting and picky about what I buy. I got into this audio thing at the beginning of the year and I now own way more headphones and IEMs than your average big band. I've got DACS upstairs and down and everything is streaming including TIDAL through Apple's Airplay system. I'm a very happy camper although yoga four times a week helps.
For those of you still with me, there are a couple of things you should know now about the B1,
First the B1 tends to overpower my in-ear monitors. I wouldn't have thought such was possible and when I read another reviewer who made a similar statement I thought he was delusional. I mean how can an amp be too powerful? Well it can. The B1 on its lowest power setting still sounds too aggressive in my Shure 535s. The bass hits too hard. Same with the Titan !s and the rest. Any of the higher pitch percussive notes came out way too sharp. It can hurt.
Yes you can turn down the gain but this isn't an amp that you'd want to exclusively drive your in-ear monitors. (Get Cypher Labs Picollo for your IEMs. It too uses discrete parts like the B1 which some claim make for a more elegant sound. I tend to believe them.) On the other hand, if you like a lot of music in your ears this might be your ticket to sonic amazement at least until your hearing fails. The Random Access Memory cut of Get Lucky is pretty intense using in-ears. The Audezes handle the musical assault with easy. This could be an age thing as in me being older and you not so much?
My Momentum on-ears handle the sound output of the B1 pretty well too but again when I switch back to my 535s even turning down the volume doesn't make this a soothing experience. It's aggressive as heck and where Bob Marley and Wailers sound like they're screaming in the IEM, they sound much better in the Audezes or the Momenums.....if you're on the low gain setting. On high gain - Class A setting you can feel the Audezes kicking into high gear and the difference is shocking, even exhilarating.
I've had the Audezes since the beginning of the year and I've read every review I could find about all the high-end headphones out there and while I loved the sound the LCD-X produces there was something missing for me when it came to using them with a DAP. The missing bit was that intangible "wow" factor that I can hear in the Momentum on-ears or the 535s when using the DAP and a small amp. It's subtle for sure but sitting on the couch with the AK-100 Mark II driving my Cypher Labs Picollo amp with the 535s remains one of the best musical experiences I've ever had.
When I swapped out the LCD-X the sound was still perfect but...
Remember that song from the 60s by the Lovin Spoonful called Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? One of the lines goes: Sometimes you really dig a girl the moment you kiss her and then you get distracted by her older sister!
That was my experience. On their own the LCD-X were very kissable headphones. They did everything just right. But then I plugged in the B1 and boy was I distracted by this older sister who was much more muscular and aggressive.
So what's happening?
The B1 is a class A amplifier. So what's class A?
In the Amateur (Ham) Radio world where I come from we use a lot of different kinds of amplifiers. Amplifiers...well amplify. They can boost audio signals or radio frequency signals and for the most part it's all the same thing. They shouldn't take anything away or add anything as they just amplify the signal.
What's different about a Class A amp is they are relatively simple devices. There's often not a lot of parts and a Class A amp is on (that is to say amplifying) all the time. That's one of the reasons Class A amps tend to run warm. There's no cooling off time. This 100 per cent demand on the circuit also means there's a higher demand on the power supply no matter if it's battery powered or runs off 110-volt AC. BTW the kind of warm I'm talking about is warm like a puppy or kitten warm. Not warm like an oven or hair dryer warm. You don't want hot when it comes to your electronics.
There are other kinds of amps. A Class B amp uses what's called a push-pull configuration of tubes or solid state devices so that only one half of the amp is working at any one time while the other half is turned off and thus cooling. The two parts of the amp switch back and forth many times a second making them more efficient than class A amps and are often used in audio circuits. There are other classes of amps out there like Class A/B and for those interested I'd suggest the great Google for answers.
Right now it comes down to do we want efficiency or do want power?
As far as I'm concerned, especially when driving the LCD-Xs I want power and the B1 delivers.
It's like this: Let's pretend you're a Navy pilot. You're parked on your aircraft carrier and you get the go-ahead to take off. You don't release the brakes and then slowly bring the engine up to speed. You know what will happen. By the time you roll up to the edge of flight deck you won't have gained sufficient speed to actually take off. So that's not how to takeoff from the flight deck of a carrier. The right way is when you get the okay to go, you make certain you're brakes are on tight (might even be a restraining cable...I don't know as I've never been in the Navy) and you increase the power of your engine to military power of 110 per cent. Then with every rivet in the aircraft trying to rip itself out of its socket, the engine screaming, your heart in your mouth, you release the brake and the aircraft leaps into the air.
Hardly what we'd call efficient but it sure is powerful.
And so we have the Aune B1. Turn it on and it's on at 100 per cent. Likely doesn't matter whether you're actually listening to anything or not. The B1 is running full out and thus warming itself in the process. It's going to be a nice unit to place in an inside a jacket pocket on a snowy winter day in Canada. And remember, I'm saying warm here and not hot. Again hot you do not want in your electronics. Warm is okay especially when you know you're running a Class A amp.
So if this isn't enough to make you giddy with joy there's the price. At $199 the B1 isn't inexpensive, it's downright cheap. But cheap isn't a bargain if the sound isn't there. There are a lot of other guys out there who have reviewed the heck out of the B1 and I think I'm safe in saying they all have said they liked the sound of the B1. Some even raved!
A few carped about things I don't find important like whether the volume knob is metal or plastic or how cheap the fake leather inserts seemed to them. I actually thought they looked pretty good but what I think about the cosmetics is irrelevant IMHO. Your mileage may vary.
Coming from the Ham Radio world where some of things I buy come in a bag and you solder them onto a circuit board and connect them to circuits using alligator clips and there's no case or fancy anything I couldn't care less about the aesthetics of the B1. What makes a buying difference for me is whether or not the thing enhances my listening experience and the B1 passes that test with flying colours. Having said that the B1 might have come with a few accessories. As it is you get the B1, a USB cable, a business card, a mini quick guide and a four-inch stereo plug. I mean you don't need anything else but I'm getting spoiled by other manufacturers adding cases, higher-end plugs even key chains. I know I'm being very shallow here.
But when it comes to sound, I spent hours and hours swapping out headphones with the AK-100 Mark II supplying the music to the B1. I also compared the B1 to the Cypher Labs Picollo amp and even the Fiio E-11 which was my first purchase a couple of years ago. (I use the E-11 to listen to Netflicks out of my IPad. Makes a big positive difference to the sound quality of the movies.)
In general here's what I found:
The B1 as I said is super quiet. I couldn't hear any hiss or with any of my IEMs or headphones. I couldn't even hear a noise floor or anything else. It was almost like somebody had added a squelch control.
Now a couple of reviewers have said they could hear a bit of channel imbalance but I couldn't. Almost everyone who has reviewed the B1 agrees it's loud and many agree it's too loud with IEM but I just read a post that said Aune is going to turn down the gain a bit on the lower gain setting. That would be a very good thing to do.
You see the B1 has two controls that affect the amount of amplification it can deliver. The first is just that: a gain control that switches the output stage from 20MWs of power to 40MWs (which has a big effect on battery life) and a current control whose markings suggest it switches in or out the Class A amplifier. Not sure if this is exactly what is happen as we may have lost something in translation but let's look at it this way. When using the LCD-Xs I turn everything on and my hair bursts into flame and when using the IEM I turn everything off. Clear enough?
Aune has warnings all over the place about not switching the gain controls whenever you're listen to music so as to not damage sensitive IEM or headphones. I did by accident and lived to tell the tale but not recommended.
Back to the sound...the B1, because it's always on, doesn't bog down under big musical demands. Bob Marley and The Wailers Legend album is one of my favourites for testing equipment as the music is very demanding and in your face. The B1 - Audeze combination is now the best musical experience I've ever had when it comes to Bob and the boys. Bass, mids and highs don't compete for the available wattage. There's plenty enough power for all and the sound can be called warmish without being overly coloured. It's a pleasing sound and might even be considered more listenable than the output from the Fostex DAC/amp which is a bit more sophisticated and slightly more sedate and colder.
Some audio engineer out there will understand when I say the B!-Audeze combo makes the music sound snappier. it's almost as if the music is coming out at a faster speed. Now I know that's not possible but the combo is hard-hitting and while realistic it's pitched just a little more aggressively than anything else I own.
So what this means is when I'm listening to Lucinda Williams I can hear her breathing hotly in my ear with the B1-Audeze combo. With anything else in the house...not so much and I like to hear Lucinda that close to me...I really do The Picollo amp sounds more polished and laid back and anybody would be thrilled with the Picollo but just don't do an A - B comparison with somebody singing their lungs out as while the Picollo will entertain, the B1 will astonish. (The Fiio E11 isn't in the same league but is musically very sound and works with the IPad as I said before.)
One of my favourite Canadian groups The Cowboy Junkies (There's a great story here about how sister Margo Timmins had never sung professionally before when her brothers asked her to be the singer in their new band. Her haunting vocals changed the Canadian music scene back in 1986 and continues to thrill audiences today. Listen to the first song on the group's second album The Trinity Session recorded in 1987 at Toronto's old downtown Church of the Holy Trinity. Using one microphone suspended above them, you can hear the rush of the amplifiers as their auto gain settings picked up the ambient noise of the old wooden Toronto church just as Margo (who in the 1990s was named one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People Magazine) begins to sing. Turn it up just a little more for the full effect. Ageless.
Now size can be an issue. The B1 is just a little bigger than the AK-100 Mark II. It's not too big but you won't be carrying the combo around in your pocket. Now normally I walk around with the AK-100 Mark II with the 535's plugged in without an external amp or with the smaller Picollo amp and I'm perfectly happy. But the B1 is for use when I'm using the Audeze's and trust me, I'm not going outside with the LCD-Xs on my head. There's a limit to how geeky even I will be seen in public and you're talking to a guy who occasionally wears a baseball cap with his Amateur Radio callsign embossed on it.
Since I'm using the B1 almost exclusively at home with the AK-100 Mark II and the Audezes size doesn't matter but...
Then there's battery life issue. Since the B1 is always running at Class A power the battery drains in as little as four hours on maximum gain out and about 10 hours according to Aune at minimum gain settings. Four hours if you're walking around with the B1 connected to a decent DAP isn't a lot of time but there is solution. You can add an external battery!
Since the B1 is charged via the USB connection to a computer (and in fact doesn't include an external power supply) it makes sense that external batteries like the Mophie external batteries made for powering an IPhone or IPod should work just fine and they do. I purposely left the B1 on as I typed this review and the battery died after four or so hours of high-gain power listening. I added an external 8000mah Comwave Power battery and the music keeps playing.
But the setup weighs one pound six ounces! That's not pocketable but it would be fine in small backpack. Now since I'm using the setup while sitting outside on the deck I don't care but for some it might be an issue. (One of my new external batteries - Xtorm bought while on a trip to Switzerland - includes a solar panel so in theory I could sit out on the deck on a sunny day and never run out of power.)
For me, when it comes down to sound verses weight, sound wins hands down and the B1 has got the sound and the power and the fury to drive big headphones (even those that people say are easy to drive) into higher realms of musical excellence.
Don't believe me. Listen for yourself. Like Sade is singing right now: This is "No Ordinary Love" and Aune: the cheque is in the mail.
Thank you, sir.