As 68 year audiophile there is not much time left to find the ultimate mid-priced hifi set. My pension is not ultimate too, so I became a fan of ASR. I believe in measurements before listening, not listening regardless of measurements. And everything tested here is quite cheap in high end terms. Did you notice the word ‘listening’?
I’m convinced that a good dac is the start of a decent system so I had a lot of these before I (influenced by ASR) started to experiment with Toppings: D10, D50 and in the end the D90se. All measuring well and, according to the majority here, you only pay more for the extra features. Yeah, and then the D90se is much too expensive, but according to my ears the D90se was the only Topping dac with a convincing sound. But after 6 months I got bored and sold it to buy a NAD C658, hoping that the dsp from Dirac could help me further. The D90se is considered to be great, the C658 is not. But still I liked the overall sound of the C658 more, although I missed the details of the Topping dacs. After a lot of experimenting Dirac did not deliver and, as usual, I desperately decided to sell everything and start all over by getting decent pro audio stuff. I ran against a set of Dynaudio BM15a and I think I will never need another speaker again, they are that good.
Next victim was the NAD C658, a cheap, nice sounding very flexible tool but, as pointed, not the best dac around. I needed a replacement that would be flexible like the NAD, with a nice natural sound like the NAD, with the quality of the D90se. My eyes fell at the RME ADI-2 and next day he replaced the NAD C658 in my hifi-rack. I now can sell the hifi-rack too.
Well, I could not believe my ears. What a huge, natural, detailed, powerful, convincing sound! Completely problem-free, every track is a joy to listen. In my 20 years of audiophilia nervosa I never had a sound this good.
I knew the RME is tested here and I know that Amir uses the RME ADI-2 himself. Now I have a question. Amir, come on man, for me it is clear that the RME has a much nicer sound than the Topping D90se. Or at least it sounds different. Don’t you hear that too?
Or do I have to blind test it first, have to level the output, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera?