There comes a time when you reached a pinnacle in your gear, that you become wrestless, and so continue changing gear, even though you are at the top.
This is how these current units are.
The fiio m11pro
The ibasso
The Sony
The others...
The tech is now high enough, to be becoming a "lateral move" of sorts, and you realize that what you wanted in switching, is still not much.
You get resolution
You get detailing
You get Dynamics
You get clean sound.
You get uber everything.
Your very impressed and happy for a while, unless you realize its just not making you listen to the music.
Its not your choice of sound.
Initially, with a new item, you get caught up in its performance and not the music.
Overall, the Sony has the edge for most organic sound to me.
The timing and the layering of the details in space, and the whole image of the sound is more effortless & more musical to me.
The other dacs skew (as if to exaggerate a bit) on resolution and detailing, kind of like when watching a TV and having the contrast and detailing turned up to pop out at you and impress you.
So my mind has to work harder because the trebles at times skewed wider than I expect them, and the details seem compressed closer, giving me a busier image.. all more exciting but also more fatigue for me in the end.
This is a preference.
If I had it my way, a sound in between the exciting fiio and the more laid back polished ibasso, would be more ideal.
Therefore I chose the Sony.
In comparison to desktop listening, I have heard many excellent dacs, but the best ones, were the ones that were the most natural, effortless and musical...
This is how I see the Sony, so thats why I chose it.
But that may not be your style or choice.
That's also why I moved over from the 1a to the 1z, for more organic sound.
Once you have a dac that can give what other "end game" dacs give (which these ALREADY DO), then you go for your own preference.
The sony then is a preference, ( my preference), just as the Fiio will be many others preference.
Your not gaining any type of resolve or detail by chosing another dac.
At this level its already great.
Just a choice of presentation.
To tell you the truth, when it comes to these AKM dacs, I believe the Fiio M11pro is already at a level of top "end-game" level, and a preference to any other top dac.
Don't believe the hype of more expensive units.
I would find it hard to believe that you could get even 3% better in comparison to the other top delta-sigma dacs that use same tech, whether it be AKM or LeSabre.
You will get fanboyism members saying theirs is better .
So I am not saying Sony is better, but instead a choice.
You may like ibasso better as well.
For guys that love detailing and exciting sound, you probably cant beat the Fiio.
Why, because the ibasso220 sounds more laid back, and at similar level,not better and not worse... Same.
Your going to have to choose your preference in sound.
Edit**
My impressions are not very obvious, but instead very small differences in the payers overall and over time.
They are not as noticeable as my post aludes to ,but are instead actually very small, within the last 10-15% of sound .
In comparison, I consider wire differences in similar range (3-10%)
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