who is that?
yeah I seriously have yet to find a DAC that beats it.
not as a headphone amp, but just the DAC part.
and the sad thing is I am trying to find something to beat it.
its maddening.
i was trying two years ago and now decided to try a few more DACs to beat it but nope.
ugh
I bought a Ferrum Erco recently, Erco has more power (thanks to it's balanced design), more functions (can be connected to a fully balanced AMP, supports MQA full decode and rendering which is a good plus for me), a very light weight in compare to HD-DAC1, more smaller form factor..
But when it comes to sound Marantz is not way behind of it.. It's very very competing actually.
Thinking it was first released 8 years ago I can understand why Marantz is not making another DAC after HD-DAC1. I think they don't need...
So isn't there any sound difference between Erco and Marantz, sure there is.. To be more fair I will compare only 6.35 Headphone outs of both DACs without using any other AMP or stg.
I used Beyerdynamic DT770 250 Ohm headphones, here is my opinion:
One note is that when I will say below "
more" that doesn't mean
"clearly" more or
"very much" just a little bit more will be better understanding.
Erco is more musical, more sweet sounding, Erco is more balanced through the frequency I can say. But you don't loose any detail in both DACs, they have very slightly different presentation. But to be honest I am not sure if I could find which is which in a blind test.
But when I was buying Erco I was not expecting a day and night difference between DACs because I already had a very good opinion about Marantz's DACs quality. You don't need to try all DACs around, it's just a very very good and correct DAC if you test with the music you are already familiar with. So I did not get Erco because I did not like Marantz's sound..
If I did not have hard driven headphones, if I did not have 4.4mm balanced cables, if I was using my DAC on a fixed table set up (I like to put my DAC next to me on a coffee table while sitting in different places in the house) I would not need that slight more musical presentation of Erco.
So Erco gives me slightly better, sweet sound with more functions in a smaller and lightweight design. That is why I did not regret to buy Erco but there is not too much sound difference as their prices remind us... (Erco's retail price is 2400 Euro, but I bought one from here, used (15 hours) and with a very good price. Marantz can be found 400-500 USD used I think)
Since Marantz doesn't have balanced out, it will not be fair to compare balanced out of Erco to SE of Marantz, but again out of giving more juice to hard driven headphones and gaining some positive things from that output power difference, Marantz is very very good still..