Most Parisians, it seems, “live again”, in their own words, now they can hang out at café terraces; feet in dog piss (I know cause I take my dogs to piss on the terraces) and dog turds (don’t look at me like that, those I religiously remove), in between smelly trash cans, their noses filled with the fumes of car exhausts and other patrons’ beer breath, freshly mask-free.
I’ll just go and listen to some expensive DAPs, yeah? First time going to audition gear in 18 months, that’s my party! Museums are open; all that’s missing is my gym now.
Took my IMR Semper, brash but dark and able to scale, a balanced cable, and sat down with the SE180 and DX300 fed by a mix of CD-quality and higher res Qobuz tracks I know well.
The iBasso is absolutely great to use and peruse, and a faster, familiar, much more fluid experience than the A&K, esp. for Android users. It’s also appreciably lighter in spite of the large format. That said, I won’t be posting about my session on the DX300 thread. It’s ultimately rather unimpressive to my ears, with annoying little peaks in the upper mids and a certain lack of finesse overall.
The SE180 feels like A&K need to up their UX game a little bit, the keyboard feels laggy like yesteryear virtual keyboards and navigation takes some getting used to. You can feel the polish though, and it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous brick. Damn heavy. Buy it for weightlifting if you too are waiting for your gym to re-open.
I only tried out the default ESS module. What a DAC. Very impressive display of technical prowess. I like to check the first minute or so of Chelsea Wolfe’s “Iron Moon”, which has rather mysterious percussion and brooding guitar and voice, as different sources present it very differently. For the first time I got a very clear picture of the drum kit, with outstanding placement. The accuracy and control were evident whatever I played. But the SE180 also sounds really… polite? It felt wrong somehow to play death metal on it, even though it provided unprecedented separation and coherence to Gorguts’ “Forgotten Arrows”, whose mastering I’ve always considered messy.
So this a really high-end piece of kit and a masterclass in fidelity - but lacking in engagement factor as far as I’m concerned. It was the same story with every track: I was wowed initially, but within a minute grew distracted, and ended up quite apathetic. Where the DX300 felt like it wanted me to enjoy myself but didn’t feel me at all and made missteps at every turn, the SE180 just knew my own music better than me and presented it without much care for my enjoyment.
I can see many people being very happy with this one though - this is desktop-grade delineation and staging! An analyst’s dream.
For my part I was happy to walk back home with my N3Pro. That little dude? He’s my chum. Quirky and annoying, yes, but that effing bass tone and emotional delivery are second to none. It’s unabashedly colored, but it seems I’ve lucked out as those colors match mine.
As I mentioned in my SE180 review, A&K didn't reinvent the wheel here, just perfected it. In their design you have two side release buttons for easier exchange of modules without a need for screwdriver. Plus, a big step up for A&K to have both 3.5mm SE and 2.5mm/4.4mm BAL on each module, configurable as either PO or LO, and to include LDAC BT codec, plus to have Normal and High gain, and access to Digital DAC Filters on each module. Again, this is all a BIG step forward relative to A&K product line.
Amazon Music HD covers all my needs and has all the tracks I need!
