Hello,
I've purchased my EX5 about 5 month ago and at first I was very pleased with the quality and sound.
But I could compare it only to internal sound card on my computer and receiver Denon 3700. So far I was impressed how clean it sounds.
Recently ( about a month ago) I have bought a wonderful amplifier Marantz 15S2 for my front channels in home theatre system and of course I have been listening to music not only through headphones but via DAC + amplifier. It was terrific, and of course I got an opportunity to compare sound through receiver and through DAC and I noticed that the tone of the sound is a bit different. The clarity, sharpness of sound through EX5 is the way better than through Denon - 3700, but the male voices sound quite unnatural. I have not been audiophile before, English in not my native language, so I probably don't know exact terms and the ways how to describe the situation, but I was pretty sure than my Dac has some lack of the middle frequencies or may be upper bass. I borrowed an old Cambridge DAC 3 for a week, and I was surprised that this old DAC has a much better sound than my EX5 ( If we are talking about CD quality). Every CD quality flack file and even stream from Tidal gave more natural and deep sound using this old DAC.
I wonder if I just have a defective exemplar of EX5? I want to replace it now, but of course I want to buy something modern, so I could use Tidal or Qobuz with it, or even may be DSD files. But I’m afraid if I bought another china DAC – It will be the same. And I understand that I probably will be unable to receive a guarantee from Shenzhenaudio where I bought it, because DAC is working…