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NuForce is certainly no stranger to the amplifier market, having released a number of amplifiers and DACs at various price ranges but this, the MMP (Mobile Music Pump), is NuForce’s latest entry into the portable amplifier market. Promising better driving power from mobile devices, the MMP is an interesting device with the capability of driving two sets of headphones at once from the same device. So, how does it fare? Read on to find out.
Accessories
The MMP comes with a 3.5mm interconnect cable and a Micro USB charging cable.
Design and Build Quality
The all plastic design is, like the Fireye Mini+, light but surprisingly solid. It features two headphone outputs, a 3.5mm input jack, a micro-USB port for charging, a triangular metal loop for attaching perhaps to a lanyard.
Gain and Hiss
The MMP features two gain settings, low and high, which both hiss with most of the IEMs I tested (the “high” setting more so than the other) but the hiss is generally mild and doesn’t tend to hamper the sound overall.
Since the MMP doesn’t have a dedicated volume control, the low gain setting should be good enough for most listeners, especially with IEMs at the cost of a little extra juice output from your MP3 player of choice. In practice, the MMP made a substantial difference in overall volume even on the low gain setting so the extra volume may not be needed.
Battery Life
Battery life was solid in my tests, lasting around 10 hours.
Sound Quality
Let’s just say the MMP did better than I was expecting it to do, even coming off the cheaper but still good sounding Fireye Mini+. The sound is surprisingly clear for an amplifier of this size, especially once the price is taken into consideration. Head to head against some of my other amplifiers, the MMP sounds slightly better than my similarly priced CMoyBB and sounds much better than the cheaper Fiio E6. The gap gets slightly smaller against the Fireye Mini+ but the MMP’s less warm presentation and increased resolution won out in the end.
Conclusion
The NuForce MMP is available for $60 from NuForce direct and various online retailers and I think it has a solid set of features and good enough sound quality to justify that price. It may not have a bass boost function like the Fiio E6 or CMoyBB but the dual gain settings are handy for people with many different headphones and/or IEMs and its resolution and transparency are impressive for the price. If you’re looking for a slightly cheaper option, the Fireye Mini+ should fit the bill but personally
