The Runabout was sent to me as a review unit from Venture Electronics (VE) a while back. I would like to thank VE and Lee for giving me the chance to check out the Runabout. The Runabout is available from Aliexpress:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Venture-Electronics-VE-RunAbout-Portable-Earphone-Amplifier/32417419249.html?spm=2114.01020208.3.2.q0oued&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_9_79_78_77_91_80,searchweb201644_5,searchweb201560_9
I’m not in any way affiliated with Venture Electronics.
Short introduction of Venture Electronics:
VE is a small and pretty new company, only three years old.
They’re located in mainland China and have fast become very popular in audiophile circles due to their line of earbuds (Monk, Asura and Zen) which offers excellent value for money.
About me:
I’m a 43 year old music and sound lover that changed my focus from speakers to headphones and IEM’s about five years ago. At that time I realized that it wasn’t realistic for me to have all the different setups that I wanted and still house a family of four children and a wife so my interest turned first to full sized headphones and later also IEM’s.
My preferences are towards full sized open headphones and I believe that also says something about what kind of sound signature I prefer (large soundstage in all directions, balanced and organic sound).
My music preferences are pretty much all over the place (only excluding classical music, jazz and really heavy metal). My all-time favorite band is Depeche Mode although I also listen to a lot of grunge/indie, singer/songwriter/acoustical stuff as well as the typical top 40 music.
I do not use EQ, ever.
I’m a sucker for value for money on most things in life Head-Fi related stuff is no exception.
Built and accessories:
The VE Runabout is a battery driven (9v) semi-portable headphone amplifier.
The Runabout is named after a kind of starships in Star Trek (
Runabouts are a class of small, multi-purpose starships in the
Star Trek science-fiction franchise, source Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runabout_(Star_Trek)).
Since my Runabout was a review unit it arrived to me without a retail package and accessories.
Please note that I’ve put on the carbon film myself to protect the Runabout from scratches.
There’s no denying that the Runabout is literally built as a tank. It’s made of metal that’s very solid and it feels as if it should withstand any abuse it could possibly be put through.
High/Low gain and On/Off switches does also feel solid and reliable.
The volume knob does also feel very solid and has a perfect amount of resistance when being moved to raise or lower the volume.
The Runabout offers a 3.5 mm input where you connect your source and a 3.5 mm jack to connect the headphones to.
When pairing it with my LG G3 phone I’ve not been able to detect any EMI noise whatsoever.
VE has chosen a solution with a replaceable 9v battery. I feel that this is kind of a two egged sword: On one hand it helps to give the Runabout it’s black background and gives about 30 hour of usage with the possibility to just put in a new (fully charged) battery when the old one dies (compared to maybe 8 hours of usage and 3-4 hours of charging with an internal lithium battery). On the other hand it makes the design more bulky and requires for the user to make sure he/she has the batteries needed to use it.
As already mentioned the size of the Runabout makes it less ideal for portable use and more suited to use around the house or when reaching your destination if you bring it on a trip.
Unfortunately the Runabout cannot be used with electricity so the 15v DC input on the back is just for internal charging of the 9v battery and the Runabout should not be used while charging. VE (and me too for that matter) suggest to use an external 9v battery charger due to safer charging and to minimalize the risk of the Runabout being harmed by the user connecting the wrong power adapter or other potential problems that might occur.
It’s also worth mentioning that the dual JRC 455AD op amps are socket mounted so that they can be easily user replaced. I only had one other drop in replacement op amp available (LM4562) and did try it out but preferred the stock one so that’s what I’ve used during this review.
Behind door number one we've got the battery......
....and behind door number two the board......
....with the.......
....swappable op amps.
The specs:
• Output voltage swing 3V RMS, 32ohm 150mW / 300ohm 55mW
• Low-gain 3.4 times, 5.7 times higher gain
• TI TLE2426, BUF634, JRC 4556AD
• VISHAY wafer chip resistors and MBB0207 series resistance
• BC Low ESR high current filter capacitor, opa pins SMD AVX tantalum decoupling
• Handpicked BI potentiometer
• Taiwan SH gold seal power switch, (life span=100k times), gain adjustment switch using Japanese OTAX small sealed switch
• TYCO fully shielded headphone jack
• KEYSTONE 590 battery shrapnel
• All RC components are hand-picked +SMIC soldering
Sound:
I’ve used the Runabout on and off for the last couple of months and it have played for well over 100 hours.
I’ve combined it with my LG G3 phone, the GO720, the FiiO X3 and the CEntrance DACport Slim and it has worked very well in all combinations.
Demo list:
Mark Knopfler – Sailing to Philadelphia
Røyksopp (Feat.Susanne Sundfør) – Save Me
Ane Brun – These Days
Michael Jackson – Dirty Diana
Metallica – Die Die My Darling
The Peter Malick Group – Immigrant
Eva Cassidy – Songbird
Thomas Dybdahl – A Lovestory
Norah Jones – Don’t Know Why
Celldweller – Unshakeable
Jack Johnson – Better Together
Seinabo Sey – Younger (Kygo remix)
Dire Straits- So Far Away
Bjørk - Moon
Lupe Fiasco - Deliver
Morrissey – Earth Is the Loneliest Planet
I’ve got to be honest and admit that I find it pretty difficult to describe the sound from an amplifier. To me the sound of headphones/IEM’s is more easy to describe than that of amplifiers and DAC’s. Because of this I’ll do a brief description of the overall sound from the Runabout and then compare it to a couple of other amplifiers to highlight the difference and similarities between them.
According to VE the Runabout is designed to give the best possible sound at its price when combined to VE’s own IEM the Duke and especially their Zen earbud. Both of these are quite power hungry (the Zen by far the most) and as a consequence of this the Runabout is not nessecarily the best pairing with easy to drive IEM’s (gives little room to “play” with the volume). To me it’s not really a problem that it’s not ideal to use with stuff that actually don’t need an amplifier to perform its best. I also typically don’t “play around” with the volume and I really don’t care if I get enough volume at 9 o’clock or 12 o’clock on the volume knob (again this is with stuff that doesn’t need an amplifier to start with) as long as the background is quiet and there’s no channel imbalance and the Runabout doesn’t introduce any of these issues. I do realize that this might be an issue to others though so now it’s mentioned.
The sound from the Runabout is spacious without feeling artificially wide. It has a great timbre to it and separation and bass reproduction is great and feels very natural to me. I’d characterize the overall signature as natural with a touch of warmth to it.
Comparison:
Please note that the comments in the comparison section are not in absolute terms but in comparison between subject A and B. This means (as an example) that if subject A is found to be brighter than subject B it does not necessarily mean that subject A is bright sounding in absolute terms. I hope this makes sense.
I this comparison both amplifiers where fed by the line out from the CEntrance DACport Slim and I was listening to through my Philips Fidelio X2’s and ATH-CKR9’s.
I used a splitter box to split the signal from the Slim to the different amplifiers and a simple Android app to volume match the amplifiers.
Size comparison with the Cayin C5:
Cayin C5 vs VE Runabout:
The Cayin C5 is my all-time favorite portable amplifier. I was actually really surprised when comparing the two because they sound very similar to each other. As a matter of fact the sound is so similar that I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t even tell the two apart in a blind test. W
Background hiss with no music playing and the gain on low is very low with both of them when using them with easy to drive IEM’s.
I’m quite impressed by the fact that the $99 Runabout can put on a similar performance as the (to me) excellent value for money $159 Cayin C5.
Between these two it really comes down to other parameters that pure sound quality. If you’re looking for something with a high portability, the power to amp 600Ohm headphones and need a bass boost choose the C5. If you on the other hand plan to use it around the house, like 30 hour of battery time (the C5 has about 8 hours), would like to just swap the battery and continue to listen when the battery runs out and the most solid build quality is important to you go for the Runabout. Both offers a 3.5mm input to connect your source through.
Schiit Magni vs VE Runabout:
The Magni ($99) is about twice the size of the Runabout and runs on electricity only.
Compare to the Runabout the Magni has an overall slightly thinner but also cleaner presentation. While the Runabout is slightly warmer than what I’d consider to be neutral the Magni is what I’d describe as spot on neutral. The result is a slightly more full sound most easily noticeable with male vocals and also slightly more distinct character on the Runabout. The Magni can tend to sound a bit shouty (in comparison) with some music (Michael Jackson – Dirty Diana is a good example of this). They both offer similar great sense of space, separation and bass depth. The Runabout does have a more black background (especially noticeable with the easy to drive CKR9’s).
The choice between these two comes down to what kind of sound you like and what headphones/DAC/IEM’s you plan to pair it with. The Magni also offers a higher power output but has no gain switch and its fixed gain is very high (making it even more difficult to use with easy to drive IEM’s). The Magni offers a pair of RCA inputs while the Runabout offers a 3.5 mm input to connect your source through.
As already mentioned I find it really hard to find significant differences between well designed and built amplifiers and although the differences described above do exist I would certainly not call them big.
Summary:
The VE Runabout offers an excellent sound quality combined with superb battery life, decent power and really black background. It’s a great value for money and it pairs up absolutely amazing with VE’s only IEM this far the Duke.
As long as you don’t mind the bulky design (compared to other portable amps) and are fine to use a 9v battery as your power source this is surely the best sub $100 amplifier I’ve come across this far.
Also, how can you not love an amplifier named after a spaceship in Star Trek?
Now I’m just looking forward to receive the Zen and Zen 2.0 to see how they pair up with this little gem.
I'd really keep an eye on these guys in the future. The know design, they no good sound, and they are unexpectedly frank and clear with the information they release. They are also very open to suggestions. Sign of a really good company.