So they're finally mine! I was about to order these ~2 months ago but then I decided to go for monitors + downgrade my headphone setup. Well now I'm back in business with DA100 and HP100.
I ordered them on friday evening and they arrived today. So hifi500 worked very quickly with them. They were packed with extreme care so no worries that something would broke in shipping.
I like the sturdy black outlook of them. Very professional looking. Finishing is just outstanding. Very well done. They're much bigger than I thought. They look smaller in the pictures. They weigh about 10kg together. Nice little detail was that there was a hexagonal opener (correct the word if it's wrong) included in both of the packages. So you can open your amp or dac yourself.
What surprised me was that HP100 has steps on the volume pot. First I thought that have they put a stepped attenuator there but when I looked inside through the cooling rifts I saw an ALPS potentiometer there. I'm not sure how it works then. But the steps are very small so it works fine. Usually I prefer the non-step volume adjusting. With HD650 and high gain setup I keep the volume pot between 9-11 most of the time. When I go over 12 it starts to hurt my ears so there's plenty of power to drive high impedance headphones.
About the sound, well I can't say much yet. They sound completely different than Corda Aria with its USB dac. My first impressions were three dimensional and spacious. They seem to work well with HD650 keeping its bass well controlled and adding some high end details there also. I'll write more about the sound later.
I ordered them on friday evening and they arrived today. So hifi500 worked very quickly with them. They were packed with extreme care so no worries that something would broke in shipping.
I like the sturdy black outlook of them. Very professional looking. Finishing is just outstanding. Very well done. They're much bigger than I thought. They look smaller in the pictures. They weigh about 10kg together. Nice little detail was that there was a hexagonal opener (correct the word if it's wrong) included in both of the packages. So you can open your amp or dac yourself.
What surprised me was that HP100 has steps on the volume pot. First I thought that have they put a stepped attenuator there but when I looked inside through the cooling rifts I saw an ALPS potentiometer there. I'm not sure how it works then. But the steps are very small so it works fine. Usually I prefer the non-step volume adjusting. With HD650 and high gain setup I keep the volume pot between 9-11 most of the time. When I go over 12 it starts to hurt my ears so there's plenty of power to drive high impedance headphones.
About the sound, well I can't say much yet. They sound completely different than Corda Aria with its USB dac. My first impressions were three dimensional and spacious. They seem to work well with HD650 keeping its bass well controlled and adding some high end details there also. I'll write more about the sound later.
