[Chibs]

Getting back on topic (sort of haha),
I think TylersElectric's vid was pretty bang on. Towards the video's end, he explained where Diablo fits in perfectly.
If you primarily use over ear headphones (even harder to drive ones) and commute between home & a workspace where you're not comfortable leaving your amp behind, the Diablo is an awesome solution. The short time I had with Diablo, it felt like I wasn't missing missing anything compared to RME ADI 2 Dac with THX 789 amp. In fact, I was gaining portability and full MQA unfold. If I had not needed more bandwidth for lower volumes (Focal Stellia), I would have probably kept it. The iDsd Signature I switched back to is actually causing me problems. I enjoy it so much that I'm trying to get a similar or perhaps even better sound / feeling out of my desktop equipment. Cold and sterile sound is something I wouldn't be complaining about had I not listened to the Signature. I have since purchased a Gustard X16 Dac for full MQA unfolds, and Topping A90. The Topping was returned for a few reasons, one of them was that it just didn't wow me.

Ordered an other amp, hopefully this one is my Princess Daisy!

Chibs

 

[ianjturner]

Getting back on topic (sort of haha),
I think TylersElectric's vid was pretty bang on. Towards the video's end, he explained where Diablo fits in perfectly.
If you primarily use over ear headphones (even harder to drive ones) and commute between home & a workspace where you're not comfortable leaving your amp behind, the Diablo is an awesome solution. The short time I had with Diablo, it felt like I wasn't missing missing anything compared to RME ADI 2 Dac with THX 789 amp. In fact, I was gaining portability and full MQA unfold. If I had not needed more bandwidth for lower volumes (Focal Stellia), I would have probably kept it. The iDsd Signature I switched back to is actually causing me problems. I enjoy it so much that I'm trying to get a similar or perhaps even better sound / feeling out of my desktop equipment. Cold and sterile sound is something I wouldn't be complaining about had I not listened to the Signature. I have since purchased a Gustard X16 Dac for full MQA unfolds, and Topping A90. The Topping was returned for a few reasons, one of them was that it just didn't wow me.



Ordered an other amp, hopefully this one is my Princess Daisy!

Chibs

Interesting Chibs... do you think the Signature (XBass off) or the Diablo give you the best feeling sound wise? I mean it's too late for me to go back (I wouldn't change it up for the world tbh) but still curious....

 

[Chibs]

Interesting Chibs... do you think the Signature (XBass off) or the Diablo give you the best feeling sound wise? I mean it's too late for me to go back (I wouldn't change it up for the world tbh) but still curious....

So hard to give you an answer, their both great at the niche they fill. Perhaps if I was able to A/B them side by side I could give you an honest opinion. What I can tell you is that I have an ear to ear grin using the Signature and normally XBass is turned on. I took the 400$ difference that I got back from returning Diablo and put that towards Hifiman Arya which is such a fricken awesome experience in it's own right. Their probably my favorite headphones now. Would be interesting to test those on Diablo too.

Chibs

 

[Ficcion2]

Cant say I agree with that review either (or at least my ears don’t)

The difference between Micro BL and Diablo are noticeable.
So if someone told me my Nano BL was just as good.....

I’m using a Zen Can connected to my Matrix Element M and I could tell a difference between that and my Diablo.

The Zen can isn’t as clean but the Matrix DAC retrieves more detail and depth so it balances out well. It’d also a warmer/softer sounding amp and balanced well with the Sabre chip “glare”

The Diablo sounds very dynamic and clean. I’m not sure if they bumped up the bass a bit but it’s not as flat Zen can without X Bass on.

I doubt that the Zen DAC sounds just the same as the Diablo much less the AQ dongles.
Then again some say there’s no difference between a DAVE and an iPhone dongle.

I suggest trying it out personally with a retailer you can send back no questions asked.

 

[inexactscience]

If I had not needed more bandwidth for lower volumes (Focal Stellia), I would have probably kept it.

@Chibs - I'm not certain what you mean by lower bandwidth here. Does the Diablo not fare well at low volumes, or is this something unique to the Stellia (a product I am almost 100% unfamiliar with)? Thanks for trying to get the thread back on topic!

 

[ianjturner]

So hard to give you an answer, their both great at the niche they fill. Perhaps if I was able to A/B them side by side I could give you an honest opinion. What I can tell you is that I have an ear to ear grin using the Signature and normally XBass is turned on. I took the 400$ difference that I got back from returning Diablo and put that towards Hifiman Arya which is such a fricken awesome experience in it's own right. Their probably my favorite headphones now. Would be interesting to test those on Diablo too.

Chibs

@Chibs Well to me the BL vs Diablo was night/day. Loved the BL, it was fun. The Diablo like lays the whole sound out in front of you. What's really interesting is - which headphones match really well..... I love my HD660S and IE800, but I'm enjoying the Cardas IEMs I got recently and I'm very curious about which over ears could do an even sweeter job than the HD660S. Hifiman ones seem to match iFi devices very well generally I notice.....

@Ficcion2 - agree, it's like perhaps he isn't the right guy to be reviewing DACs hey?! Glad I'm not alone in thinking that's about the least accurate review EVER haha! I did actually leave a comment asking why he reviews any DACs if he thinks they're all the same... strangely this remains in 'awaiting moderation' so far!! Well he is funny and does raps, so I'm still a fan, I just won't worry about his DAC opinion so much!

 

[Chibs]

@Chibs - I'm not certain what you mean by lower bandwidth here. Does the Diablo not fare well at low volumes, or is this something unique to the Stellia (a product I am almost 100% unfamiliar with)? Thanks for trying to get the thread back on topic!

The Stellias are super sensitive and easy to drive HP's. I think their a rarity among over ear headphones in this regard. On certain louder recordings I found the Diablo's volume on eco couldn't get low enough to where I felt was a comfortable listening level. The Signature has IEM match should I want to have more leverage to get a lower volume below ECO mode. This was the main reason I switched back to Signature.

Chibs

 

[Ficcion2]

The Stellias are super sensitive and easy to drive HP's. I think their a rarity among over ear headphones in this regard. On certain louder recordings I found the Diablo's volume on eco couldn't get low enough to where I felt was a comfortable listening level. The Signature has IEM match should I want to have more leverage to get a lower volume below ECO mode. This was the main reason I switched back to Signature.

Chibs

Besides my 6XX I’ve been using only planars with the Diablo so that’s an interesting note about sensitive dynamics.
I was going to buy a pair of Stellia but ended up with Diana V2 and the Diablo could still use more.... so it’s funny that I’d perhaps end up returning it as well.

A big note is that iFi should’ve done away with the volume imbalance especially at this price.
It’s a shame that some people may have find their cans are incompatible due to something similar.

@Chibs Well to me the BL vs Diablo was night/day. Loved the BL, it was fun. The Diablo like lays the whole sound out in front of you. What's really interesting is - which headphones match really well..... I love my HD660S and IE800, but I'm enjoying the Cardas IEMs I got recently and I'm very curious about which over ears could do an even sweeter job than the HD660S. Hifiman ones seem to match iFi devices very well generally I notice.....

@Ficcion2 - agree, it's like perhaps he isn't the right guy to be reviewing DACs hey?! Glad I'm not alone in thinking that's about the least accurate review EVER haha! I did actually leave a comment asking why he reviews any DACs if he thinks they're all the same... strangely this remains in 'awaiting moderation' so far!! Well he is funny and does raps, so I'm still a fan, I just won't worry about his DAC opinion so much!

Yeah, it’s not a personal jab at the reviewer but I don’t get the all DACs are the same comments either.
That’s why I’d rather try it for myself (confirmation bias or not) I’ve heard differences when some said there should be none.

 

[inexactscience]

The Stellias are super sensitive and easy to drive HP's. I think their a rarity among over ear headphones in this regard. On certain louder recordings I found the Diablo's volume on eco couldn't get low enough to where I felt was a comfortable listening level. The Signature has IEM match should I want to have more leverage to get a lower volume below ECO mode. This was the main reason I switched back to Signature.

Chibs

Thanks for the response!

So the Diablo truly is for *most* headphones. I just have to check the sensitivity of my gear to make sure it's ok.

For the low volumes, how was the Diablo in terms of channel match? I'm looking at the iFi Hip-DAC as an example of a great device with poor channel match at low volumes (something about the potentiometer used in the volume control, which is not the same one used in the iDSD Signature or the Diablo, IIRC).

 

[Deffy]

Obviously I own one, so perhaps at some point will have some bias. Had a little bit to test yesterday but need more time to give my own opinion but it will be according to what I feel and hear without having the expert ears and being able to call out the correct audio terms.

Played a bit via digital out yesterday from the TV to test some music playing a game, watching a movie etc etc. It sounds great, but nothing I had was particularly difficult to drive. What I CAN tell you though is that already sounds a lot better (to my ears) than the XDSD and this powerhouse of a device outdoing my desktop Topping A50S amp with Topping E30 DAC. I have to test my IEMs (andro S & ier Z1R) some more but yeah the first definitely needs to be in eco mode and is dead silent with the IEMatch. Lost a bit of the quality perhaps along the way but this is likely due to my adapter galore (into single ended rather than keeping balanced). The Z1R is more difficult to drive but should still stick to eco probably as Normal will already push the limits. I can see that volume control could potentially be a bit difficult for these IEMs (Z1R perhaps a bit less).
The DT 1990 Pro & Diablo with games, movies and music felt like an improvement to my ears.

Now I did receive my Arya's Rev. 2 this afternoon so I can't wait to give that a shot with it. I can already tell that for some thing my desktop combo is stretched to its limits where this Diablo will more than likely blow it out of the water. I received a balanced 4 Pin xlr cable with it but I need to wait for an adapter XLR to 4.4mm to test it balanced. Adapter arriving Friday. So for now I will only be able to test single ended..

 

[Sebastien Chiu]

Thanks very much @ all for getting the thread back on topic! Much appreciated.

 

[Whya Duck]

The Stellias are super sensitive and easy to drive HP's. I think their a rarity among over ear headphones in this regard. On certain louder recordings I found the Diablo's volume on eco couldn't get low enough to where I felt was a comfortable listening level. The Signature has IEM match should I want to have more leverage to get a lower volume below ECO mode. This was the main reason I switched back to Signature.

Chibs

I had the same experience using my HiFiMan Ananda's (25 Ohm) as you did with your Stellia's (35 Ohm); even at Eco setting, the Diablo is just too powerful. There's little room to adjust the volume before it's too loud.

I don't have an iFi IEMatch, but will try out another single-ended attenuator adapter cable from G1217 (http://garage1217.com/new_website_011.htm) to see if it makes the Diablo usable with my Ananda's. If not, I'll likely try the Signature out (or go with some other desktop DAC/amp option).

 

[whitedragem]

As someone who sold their K5 dock off with the Fiio X5(III) a couple of weeks ago.. The Diablo is in a whole ‘nother level of sound (two tiers up really)...
As someone who drives super sensitive ‘cans, I didn’t buy the Diablo for its power, rather its ‘purity’.

As someone who has often found myself switching between DACs repeatedly, and not hearing ‘any difference’ (until I listen to very specific parts of certain test tracks), the Diablo is a night and day improvement.. over DACs I own worth considerably more in pricepoint.

As someone who listens to non oversampled music and WITHOUT FILTERS: I can fully vouch that the sound that the Diablo puts out is one of the nicest most analogue sounds I have ever heard from a DAC near this price point (desktop or portable for several times the money).

The timbre it outputs in normal mode, and the soundfield it recreates in Turbo, have me using my supersensitive low ohm (easy to drive) cans and enjoying the sound signature change that the front switch allows.
Whilst I love having boxes that do all sorts of stuff, and might even include an analogue input, I would NEVER have bought the Diablo if it did those things, because quite simply, it would never achieve the sound quality it does, if it did.. nor would it be the ‘pure sound quality’ part that it was built to do.

I have often found many cheap DACs to sound so very similar, and seldom better then a CD players output.. but the Diablo is an amazing piece of kit.
Well worth it, and undervalued, and probably be one of those things that people are still happily using quite a few years from now, due to it doing what it does, and doing it right.
Digital sound is not nice. Everyone sells digital sound. The Diablo is a very real crack at high end equipment at‘consumer-fi‘ price points.. it achieves that by being so nuanced and ‘perfect’.. I’ve had ladder DACs with multiple giant power transformers, and incredible board layout with attention to isolation and ‘perfection’ and they made things sound analogue,.. to have a pocket sized portable part perform as near to equal as ‘the big dawgs’ is impressive.
I’d have to A/B test with fast switching to pick them apart, and that I can not say about a metric tonne of other ‘sub $1000’ DACs that generally I find grating and horrible,.. or certainly not ‘chasing Vinyl’.. The differences ARE subtle,.. until one trains themself to hear them.. at which point that is all we are really listening for when reviewing equipment..
Of course if I was sitting back and enjoying music, I wouldn’t be critically listening for digital artifacts..
But then I wouldn’t listen to my music at 32bit 768khz when the file is 16bit 44.1khz. And I can vouch for the Diablo doing 44.1khz 16bit brilliantly. (and to me that is what matters)
If I was upsampling everything to DSD at a high rate, then perhaps the differences might not be so noticable.. but what I hear with the Diablo is a first for something in this price bracket.
If I was new to audio I would surmise it with ‘having xbass without turning a switch on’; if I was oldhat with audio I would know that that comes naturally with better preamps and amps and circuit design..
To be honest I don’t care about the bass response being so beautiful.. but when it is a small part of a whole picture of ‘sublte/slight’ incremental improvements (over most other kit that it competes with)- is why it stands out and is my go to source.
Fortunately it is portable and I have had an easy time inserting it everywhere I go.
Although it is too new to travel around with it in the included bag as I find that the fascia might get a few marks in the process.. (maybe next month!!)

 

[Ichos]

After a couple of days with the Devil inside me I feel like quoting something classic...


'Why is so expensive? Because it sound good.'' - Fang Bian

 

[betula]

This might be a little more comprehensive than Bob's review. I also had the unfair advantage of actually having a Diablo with me.
First Diablo review on Head-Fi.