In the last two months I've been trying (god bless Amazon) in the following order:
iBasso DX90, Cowon Plenue M, AK100ii, Sony NW-ZX2 and Cowon P1.
First of all....I don't consider my self an audiophile...I'm just someone who really enjoys listening to music as much as I can in the best possible way.
Well, apart the iBasso DX90 and the AK100ii, I found the other daps to be pretty good to the point where is not that easy to decide which one is the best.
I'm currently using a Westome UMPro50 and a Shure SE846...and my Oppo PM-3 are on the way!
Right now I'm using both Sony zx2 and cowon p1...it's just really a matter of taste, haedphone/iem pair and extra features in my opinion.
Talking about extra features: the zx2 has a long lasting battery, wifi and bluetooth and android, while the p1 has direct DSD decode and does support practically any kind of music file formats (even ape, cue sheets and iso).
Talking about SQ, last night I was performing some AB with those two daps and my iems: both perform really well with UMPro50 and SE846.
IMHO the zx2 has a little bit more forward highs than the p1 while the p1 has a little bit better mids. These are subtle differences...I'm not even pretty sure I could really write down what I mean, as English is not my mother tongue.
I'm waiting my OPPO PM-3 (should be here by this evening!) to decide which one to keep.
Well...just my 2 cents!
Thanks, every little bit of info helps. If you discover more differences later on please share.. Like maybe in soundstage/imaging as well. I've heard that the Burr Brown dac of the P1 has a very typical type of soundstage (more deep than wide) but I haven't heard other daps like the X5 and N6 that use the same dac. It's a shame Sony hasn't disclosed which dac the ZX2 uses.
And like Johnwamp said, the EQ of the P1 is really great. IMO also essential to the P1 'experience', as it can change the sound for each genre radically without making it sound unnatural. I've never heard such a good EQ.