I found Susvara has a pretty good synergy with EM7. However, I won't say it is fully powered. The middle and treble sounds well extended, but not as full and juicy as it was with my main setup ( CFA-3 amp/ Headtrip II). The dynamic is where this combo lacks. Bass is also not as punchy and deep. The spread and staging are there and sounds pretty natural. This combo is pretty good for most J-pop and vocal heavy tracks, not so much with symphony and rock in general.
I wasn’t expecting much from the Shanling EM7 but it’s surprisingly good with the Susvara, particularly with pop / vocals, as you say. It didn’t impress me as much with 1266 TCs.
In my main set up, I sweeten my 1266 TCs with a Cayin HA300 amp with WE 300b tubes and a JPS Superconductor cable.
The clarity and extension of mids and treble on the EM7 with the Susvara is excellent. I’m using a DHC Prion4 XLR cable to push that even further. Bass and dynamics are OK, just not as stand-out as a higher-end headphone amp. I haven’t heard the CFA3 so my benchmark for what a Susvara can do fully-powered is an Enleum 23R.
The Enleum 23R had superb bass and dynamics with the Susvara but the mids were untextured compared to a Cayin HA-300 so I sold it.
On low gain, I can listen to very sensitive Empire Ears Zeus XIV IEMs on the EM7 with absolutely no hiss and enjoy most of what my Susvaras can do on the turbo headphone mode at a relatively modest volume setting of 50 out of 100. The micro SD card slot and tilting screen makes it feel like I’m using an oversized but obscenely powerful DAP. The EM7 is a Jack-of-all-trades and master of fun!
What genius decided to put the power switch on the underside of the unit?!
It means you can’t even use it without the rubber feet on. Even with the rubber feet on, you have to lift it up at the back to get your fingers under to switch it on and off. Surely, the dumbest decision in Head-Fi.
Hopefully, it will last longer than my Shanling M0 Pro DAP. The volume dial on that stopped working after a few weeks, I had to walk to the gym with it held in front of me to stop the Bluetooth cutting out even with low res codecs, and then I forgot to take it out of my gym shorts pocket and it ended up in the washing machine!
The micro SD card survived and is now in the EM7. Every cloud…