And the cable is easily replaceable/up-gradable. Probably the most durable headphone & cable combo I have, all the others have suspect joins at cup to headband, seems to be where most eventually break. And well, there's Grado which usually dies because there is no strain relief where the wire...

DAC's are a different beast than pre-amps for challenges to solve. The Pre90 as a $600 product is a terrific value, quite enjoyable, I've see sawed swapping between it and the MZ2 as pre for a year now. If its a small complex piece with acoustic instruments, the MZ2 shines but if its a...

The areas I'd pay attention to in auditioning the Velo are cymbal crashes, snare drum rolls and bass drum impact. WIth a MZ2 used as pre (NOS black base Sylvania 6SN7's, Siemens triple mica E81CC) percussion transients are reticent, diffuse and bass drum whack muddled compared to a Topping Pre90

It's an Uptone Audio JS-2 which was best out of the 4 I tried (HDPLEX300W, Superfarad3 12V, Sotm SPS500). If i were to buy a Velo, I'd try to reuse with the Velo.

Will be looking for reviews to follow. I have a first release MZ2 that I keep switching back and forth to a Topping Pre90 for pre-amp... the MZ2 is fuller, sounds more "life like" but is slower on transients and not so great at the frequency extremes in comparison to the Pre90. Here's hoping the...

If you want an outside headphone, ANC is a must. I like the Sines and Meze 99 but a pair of Sony 100XM4's is far more practical as you can use ANC in both bluetooth and wired mode. The closed back Sines can only be enjoyed if the environment is low noise.

Basically the Eitr is acting like a voltage arrestor but same can be done with any other DDC with USB to SPDIF conversion. The fact that you need it in normal operation says volumes about the degradation you are getting from system electrical noise. NUC's are pretty decent if you run them off...

As an example, Chord dacs internally resample all PCM inputs to 706/768k. So to avoid 2x up-sampling artifacts you need to not up- sample when feeding a Chord dac or to up-sample to 706/768 in order to bypass Chord internal up/ sampling. The same principle should be adhered to with external DSD...

Soo, as I understand R2R the value for PCM is in having a 1 to 1 between resistor and each sample bit for D-A conversion, gives a unique character to the sound. However if you are converting all PCM to DSD before doing D-A conversion you don't have that, its a 1 bit only conversion. Not a bad...

@Andykong is there any significant difference between the DSD sections of the RU6 and RU7? I note that your signature stresses the RU7 as a 1 bit DAC which by definition is native DSD

Yeah, but its not R2R. Original Mojo FPGA can be a bit of a sledgehammer in the bass, R2R tends to emphasize bass texture more which I appreciate as an ex tuba player

A dongle is limited in its ability to drive cans by the host devices battery power, adding a secondary external battery improves duration, not wattage. A battery powered DAC with larger battery improves design constraints, transient power reserve and allows less efficient cans to be used.

1. This doesn't improve the power available to the RU6/RU7 2. It requires a second "appendage" (battery) which is clunky to say the least

I have that, its a poor solution.