Yea i have a collection of portable DAC Amps for cell phones etc (mostly FiiOs) and i run a bunch of ***** (yes thats the brand name) audio (amps and quad band EQs) and Topping gear (DACs) on my desk top for DAC, AMP, and even EQ. My favorite phones are the Foxtex TRX-00 Ebony but my daily drivers are Sennheiser Jubilee and (58xs) and 600s. My Focal Elex mostly sound good with classical, the Fostex Ebony's (which i think are now discontinued as that wood is endangered and they are banned from using it for continued production if i an not mistaken) for EDM and the Sennheisers are better for long listening sessions. For travel i run the Sony WH-100s or my Shure 535s or my Vmoda's My son ran off with all my planar magnetics (Hi-Fi mans and such) and I am going to kill him if i don't get them back. I also have a pair of parrot Zik 2.0s that are fun to play with the custom EQ settings on phones with but are kind of annoying also. (I went a little crazy when i discovered massdrop). If i could only have one pair, it would definately be the Fostex Ebony TRX-00s.
Portable sound is no problem with my LG V35 as it has a Quad DAC that is about as good as desk top processing. The lack of such tech along with the lack of a head phone Jack is why i never will jump back into iphones most likely..and sadly. Although wired is not the ideal for portability, it is still leaps and bounds better than the best blue tooth out there and probably will be for the foreseeable future when you are talking about these types of cans and lossless audio from Tidal.
Be that as it may, the Sonys are darn good for air travel and i COULD use them with an iphone.
Nonetheless, it makes sense for me to buy the Pro 10.9 considering it's current price point and available headphone jack given my collection. It is no secret that even if you are a die hard windows fan or android fan...when it comes to tablets the Ipad is and has always been pretty much uncontested. I needed an upgrade for my Mini 2 as i use it on every single trip for movie watching, web consumption and general use while on the road and i like a smaller dynamic on the move device for travel..... and often from the hotel room ill use it in liew of my HP pro when i am just lounging around on the couch in the room after work.
I seriously would consider a 3 tiered combo of a macbook, ipad pro and ipad mini to set up a little eco-system if it werent for the cost and the fact that my it would create too many headaches with the vpn, file sharing etc. I could do it on my own moving everything in and out of google drive but i am just not sure it is worth it.
If however, i could figure out a way to actually leave the pro book at home and go present with only an ipad..i would do it in a heart beat as i am a "one bag" travel kinda of guy (if possible).
This was an impulse buy anyway. It went like this : Complaining about slow ipad min 2 when web surfing -> Noticing the mini 5 was coming out -> noticing the 10.9 pro was basically on clearance -> comparing the specs of the two -> opting for the 10.9 Pro over the mini 5 as my upgrade this time around just for the fact that i am getting an extra gig of ram, an extra 192g of storage and a much better 120hz screen for $179 bucks with the possibility of actually being able to have a type case that and pen that i can peck on and draw stuff on when harrassing people on social media while stuck in airports. ....
Not an Apple guy for many reasons, mostly because there are just too many hoops you have to go through to make Apple stuff work in the a Windows controlled corporate world, but maybe yall can convert me. Just setting up google drive just now and trying to figure out how to organize power points on my ipad mini a few minutes ago in preparation for my Ipad pro arriving on friday made me think "man this isn't worth it....a Jump drive and 3 minutes of my time and my HP Pro would have been ready for the trip and i'd have been done looooonnnnnnngggggggg ago". It was easy on my PC end of things, but once i picked up my cloud drive and started viewing the files on the ipad it was a bloody mess. That's the problem with Apple, that has always been the problem with Apple. That has been the problem with Apple for as long as i can remember (well if i remember back far enough there was also a problem once upon a time that all the software you WANTED to run was windows only (thinking 90s). It is the nicests most beautiful stuff that just never seems to be functional for the stuff i actually do when i want to do it and in the ways i want to do it. Of course if my company were in the Apple ecosystem i would ditch my LG and buy an Iphone and buy all Apple gear and i could make it work then, but i have never worked for a company that used any Apple products, must less embraced an entire Apple eco system (I work in health care).
It is possible this pro will just be my "toy", but I will set it up to function as a back up to my laptop just in case the laptop goes down or gets stolen on a trip. I also carry a jump drive with all my files so the last resort is to borrow a lap top from a student or just run to best buy and buy a cheap lap top in an emergency if it came to that my job would reimburse it.
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