Through speakers, they sound exactly the same to me.anyone subjectively a/b testing this with the old ldac version?
The + remembers volume levels for phones and line out separately which is an improvement. It is also completely muted when switching off, compared to a slight pop with the V2. I really like the orange displays and am not convinced about the blue input indicators on the + - but as that's my biggest concern with the unit, I'm very happy.
The volume encoders work well on both my V2 and +, although I'm aware that they can be fragile and use the remote almost all the time.
There were no issues swapping over - it was literally a matter of removing all the connections from the back of one and putting them into the other. Audio from PC (ASIO) over USB, TV (Sharp) over optical and phone over Bluetooth all just worked. My android phone won't tell me what codec it uses, irritatingly but it's better than 'basic' bluetooth, same on both and definitely fine for background music.
I did plug headphones in and I need to be careful here - I'm not a big headphone listener and I just tried the headphones at the end to check that the headphone amp was working, so I didn't even listen to the V2 and then swap over to the +, let alone any proper blind test. Also the headphones are AKG K361 (nominally 32ohm) which are nothing very special. But I did feel like the + sounded better - more bass clarity and perhaps more bass altogether. I'd been a bit disappointed with the 361s and perhaps it was the V2 all along. I certainly feel a lot more like listening to headphones now. Or perhaps my perception is playing tricks and it just sounds better because it's new. Then again, as my expectation was that it would be the same, this is contrary to confirmation bias.