I was more or less convinced to get this product, until I stumbled upon this measurement. The whole "audiophile" world is rather new to me, I would even go as far to say that I didn't even dip my toes in it.
What I find difficult to understand is, if this device performs so bad in an objective measurement, why are so many people all over the web happy about it? Not that I question the OPs ability to test products, by far. It just doesn't somehow
compute. From the reaction of
@headwhacker I understand that you want your chain to be as transparent as possible which makes sense to reproduce the true nature or a recording from an artist and mastering engineer.
However so many decisions are made
before the music comes to us. Which equipment was used, what did the mastering and mixing engineer do to the track, the equipment used to press the CD, etc. So what is the
true value of us choosing transparent equipment, without coloration, while we will never reproduce it
exactly. I guess that after # time, even the artist or mastering engineer would change certain aspects of the song. I heard someone say that music is created and mastered for the specific time and what is
popular. So playing 80s songs on gear produced in 2020, is already
altering the music in some way. Besides, they want their music to sound as good as possible on as much audio gear as possible: headphones, inside cars, small hifi setups, high-end gear, etc. so they create their records to be
middle ground.
On top of that, I'd assume that if you did a measurement between vinyl and CD, everyone would argue because digital can capture much more detail and latitude, that CDs are far superior to vinyl. Still, here we are at the end of 2020, where people still buy vinyl and prefer
the sound of it over its flaws.
So to summarize, I thought I'd buy this DAC/AMP, but now I'm confused. My IT background tells me to pick the
most analytical correct combination. I read good things about the products from Topping, and it would steer me away from anything Audio-gd related. But on the other hand, I just want the music to
sound good. I'm not sure I'm 100% after the
how the artist intended it. Because if people describe this amp/dac as "smooth, warm and easy listening" does that directly mean that if you have a so called transparent or analytical/clean signal path, it's boring or exhausting to listen to?
It's so difficult to choose. In the ~500 euro price point, there are (too) many options. If in the past you had the opinion of one or two magazine journalists, you now have the opinion of thousands and since audio is such a personal thing, what do you base your decision on?
To finalize, isn't the best setup your first setup? Until you hear familiar music on a different setup, and you think by yourself "*** this sounds great, way better than my setup!" So you rotate your speakers for instance, and all of the sudden, your new setup is the best setup for you. Until you discover that the more transparent DAC of a friend brings out details you missed before, and you update again?
Current setup for reference
- Living room setup: Marantz AV7701 + MM7055
- Headphones: Sennheiser HD598, connected straight to computer or Macbook Pro
I think it sounds good as it is, but since some say a dedicated DAC/AMP brings out more details, I started to look around and got into this bottomless pit so it seems