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In Reply to: RE: I paid $399 for my NA-7004... posted by Ivan303 on May 14, 2016 at 16:25:59
Did you find the Oppo to sound slightly 'thin' or 'lean' as I did?
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That said, the balanced headphone amp part was SO good that it was more than acceptable with Headphones (Sennheiser HD-600 balanced). Only when I put it into my main system, rather than the office, as my primary DAC for digital playback did I have a problem.
In fairness there are VERY few current ESS SABRE DACs that I would be able to live with. What many call 'detail' is brightness to my ears.
Again, not a problem when used with headphones for some reason. Surprising as my main system has many flaws being SET amps and Horns, but brightness is not one of them. Maybe the HD-600 masked it? Hard to say but I now have the Audio-GD Master 11 as my DAC/Headphone amp and the Audio-GD Master 7 in my main system so I'm done with DACs and headphone amps for a bit.
Might try a uRendu as we had the place earthquake proofed a few years ago as part of a re-model. Don't think it can bring this house down. ;-)
I didn't use the Oppo HA-1 a lot with headphones even though it's supposed to have an excellent headphone amp. Like you described, it was a little bright as a DAC and I thought it was also kind of 'thin' sounding.
I don't think the 'brightness' of the Oppo was due to the ESS DAC chip because I own other ESS based DACs that are much more to my liking including the Ayre QB-9 DSD and PS Audio NuWave DSD, both ESS based.
The surprise is that I'm really liking the modestly priced NuWave DSD with the inline Intona isolator vs the Ayre QB-9 DSD. The NuWave is noticeably more 'lively' which is great for the majority of my music (rock, blues, pop) while the Ayre is more relaxed and polite. Both are excellent ESS based DACs with slightly different character.
I'm way too old to do 'lively'.
I'm relaxed and polite. =:-0
That said, I've heard the PSAudio Direct Stream DAC on a few occasions. Not a ESS Sabre DAC but one I could possibly live with.
King-Wa at Audio-GD even has a DAC model using the ESS Saber chip. Might be mellow enough for me.
Supposed to mellow, man...
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