ZuperDAC
== Unboxing & Initial Impressions ==
Unboxing the ZuperDAC
Initial Impressions
Been playing with the ZuperDAC for the better part of the day and I wanted to post my thoughts on them so far. First, thanks to the fine folks at Zorloo for giving me a chance to check these bad boys out!
It comes in a rather no fuss box, very tastefully adorned but suitably tough to protect the delicate innards. Upon unboxing it , you are greeted by the product sheet and the goods front and centre. And oh my what a sight to behold. They are literally at the same color as my laptop!
In the hands it feels smooth in texture and construction and clearly no shortcuts were taken with the build quality - clearly all your money is going towards the dac itself, not some fancy packaging you are bound to forget about anyway. For a device of this footprint, it has a surprising weight to it, and I mean that in the best way possible. This does not feel like a cheap toy at all. This is meant to be a serious device for the discerning listener.
For macs (lol whats an audio driver?
) it is as simple as plug and play. A little LED turns on indicating the DAC is engaged. Unlike some other dacs I have use, this unit has yet to get exceedingly hot after me pushing them hard for some time. Again these are early days yet, but thus far these seem to be very well engineered. I am definitely impressed by the thought that has gone into it's design construction.
So.... they look good and feel good, but how do they sound?
Honestly I just received these today and I don't know if I have enough hours on these to comment on them definitely. But here is the thing - my daily drivers are the FiiO X7 and LH Geek Out V2, and listening to the ZuperDAC, I don't feel I am getting a massive downgrade or that I am missing out on anything and thats what surprised me the most....
In fact, I found myself actually
listening and
enjoying my music rather than attempting to dissect every detail and evaluate every aspect of the sound. But I will say that the ZuperDAC is very natural sounding with a very musical character to it. Does that mean its rolled off and bassy? Of course not! It sports a natural, detailed and engaging sound with impressive resolution, but more so - it has this addicting and effortless sound signature that has me digging through my music collection to test my favourite tracks. You might think these have that traditional sabre glare, but so far it hasn't reared its ugly head yet. In fact, it has a rather nice and full natural bass response compared to the relatively anemic FiiO X7 and Geek Out V2.
Overall, no glaring weakness or downsides from my initial listening hours. But lordy am I getting a kick out of listening to them. I was initially going to do a comparison with my other dacs (FiiO X7, E17K, LH Geek Out V2 and SMSL M3). However that plan went right out the window the moment I plugged in my Havi B3 Pro 1 and loaded up my favourite track, which at the moment is
We are the ones to fall by Santa Monica.
If You can't tell already, I am absolutley smitten by how the ZuperDAC sounds and my first impression is that it sounds as capable as my higher end gear, but it adds that touch of musically that my other gears lacking, relatively speaking of course. I did notice however that I had to push the volume near its limit to drive stuff like my 320 ohm VE Zen 1, so I do wish this unit had more headroom in terms of volume. Then again we are talking about something the size of a USB thumbstick so it's not a deal breaker either.
Am I saying that it beats my top end stuff? No, of course not, more so because I honestly haven't had the time to properly A/B against all my toys yet. Frankly, I am having way too much fun with the ZuperDAC and the hard work can wait till later
For now, I am off to musical bliss:
A big thanks to my good friend
@WaynesWorld for bringing this device to my attention. Good call bud
Definitely worth the wait!!
I will update with more impressions as things progress. Thanks for reading my ramblings
EDIT: I forgot to mention that these have an Output Impedance of 4 Ohms.
