T.R.A.N.C.E.
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2010
- Posts
- 3,281
- Likes
- 1,272
I haven't listened to N6 with headphones yet, but I was listening from the Digital out of N6 through my home dac, NAD M51 and Fostex studio monitors, it never ceases to amaze me how dap's sound different to each other through their digital out's, it represent's an area which many people don't pay much attention to despite it's major effect on the rest of the audio chain, aka the audio processing and signal being sent to the dac is somewhat represented by the digital out performance just as the line out performance is somewhat representing the dac's performance + audio processing.
The N6 has a very airy and balanced sound through the digital out, I can instantly tell that the N6 is very refined in sound. My reference quality in digital out's is my P90SD, it has a much louder digital out than the N6, not sure how this works, but I need to substantially turn up the volume of the NAD M51 with the N6, by 10dB versus the P90SD. P90SD has a 'meatier' sound, while N6 is softer and refined, with the N6 you can clearly hear all the texture and detail, it surpasses digital out of DX90 for example, in pretty much all aspects, but with the P90SD it's like you can almost taste and 'feel' the texture, rather than just hear it, if that makes sense
The N6 does have a bigger sound stage, but I feel the P90SD is better in aspects that are hard to describe relating to 'groove' and 'feel', the P90SD get's me dancing, or get's me emotional, the N6 doesn't do this for me.
Let me re-iterate that I feel the N6 digital out to be very technically competent, it is better than sources like DX90, X5ii, where you can instantly hear the where there could be improvements, N6 is on same level as P90SD from a sound quality perspective, but the only things missing are the things that are hard to put into words that I was talking about before, and honestly this could be due to the pairing of NAD M51 and Fostex studio monitors which are both quite sterile, the N6 is also a bit sterile, so it might not be the best pairing, and I can imagine it would sound phenomenal paired with something warmer and more euphonic as N6 has technical ability in spades.
Bottom line, I feel like the N6 digital out performance is on par with P90SD from a technical standpoint, and surpasses DX90, but it's sound just doesn't get me emotionally involved like P90SD. It might come down to preference and pairing in the end.
This probably isn't much help to people as my thoughts are rather haphazardly written down, but I just randomly felt like describing the digital out performance lolol.
quick pics
The N6 has a very airy and balanced sound through the digital out, I can instantly tell that the N6 is very refined in sound. My reference quality in digital out's is my P90SD, it has a much louder digital out than the N6, not sure how this works, but I need to substantially turn up the volume of the NAD M51 with the N6, by 10dB versus the P90SD. P90SD has a 'meatier' sound, while N6 is softer and refined, with the N6 you can clearly hear all the texture and detail, it surpasses digital out of DX90 for example, in pretty much all aspects, but with the P90SD it's like you can almost taste and 'feel' the texture, rather than just hear it, if that makes sense
Let me re-iterate that I feel the N6 digital out to be very technically competent, it is better than sources like DX90, X5ii, where you can instantly hear the where there could be improvements, N6 is on same level as P90SD from a sound quality perspective, but the only things missing are the things that are hard to put into words that I was talking about before, and honestly this could be due to the pairing of NAD M51 and Fostex studio monitors which are both quite sterile, the N6 is also a bit sterile, so it might not be the best pairing, and I can imagine it would sound phenomenal paired with something warmer and more euphonic as N6 has technical ability in spades.
Bottom line, I feel like the N6 digital out performance is on par with P90SD from a technical standpoint, and surpasses DX90, but it's sound just doesn't get me emotionally involved like P90SD. It might come down to preference and pairing in the end.
This probably isn't much help to people as my thoughts are rather haphazardly written down, but I just randomly felt like describing the digital out performance lolol.
quick pics