Quote:
Has anyone had problems with the Music Streamer II and the E9? I am thinking about buying the HRT MS II to replace my E7 as a DAC. Will the 2.25 Vrms of the MS II cause problems?
I searched this thread with only a couple of mentions of the HRT MS II+
Where are all these queries about issues with the MSII/E9 coming from ? Yes, the MSII puts out gobs of analog power, but thats a *good* thing. I think Voldemort may have mentioned to someone in his E9 review that the MSII might pose a problem, and suddenly people are PMing me for 'answers'.
Here is my answer : if you intend using the E9 with sensitive IEMs, thing twice - the output impedance of the amp may be an issue. If you have problems with an MSII/E9 combination, I believe
it has little to do with your amp. I have hundreds, if not thousands of hours on this combination and the only issues I have had have emanated from 64-bit Win7 - others claim to have no such issues. All I know is that if I reboot into Linux I have no problems whatsoever - no clipping, no noise, nothing but the musical enjoyment I paid for.
Inevitably, someone will tell you that 2,25 Vrms will overload the E9, or that you need to
roll opamps and buffers while standing in a pentagram etc - I have yet to encounter a single such tech wizard who actually owns this combination.
I do, and it makes me happy - by all means get other opinions, but for me this is a
non-issue.
Spend long enough on Head-Fi and it quickly becomes apparent that a single comment from someone is prone to being cast in stone as 'accepted wisdom'. The whole output impedance thing got blown out of proportion and few people stopped to ask themselves whether this would be an issue with their cans. If the E9 is messing with the frequency curve on any of my cans, I have just the thing to check that - my very own Objective2. If I cant hear a significant difference between the two, guess what - I dont care what is happening on a D-Scope.