indeed, they sound different...and the 1792A does sound much more agressive.
well, I love OPA-Earth as final buffer and it's distorted and colored...and many ppl who love tubes/vynil are also not looking for the most natural sound ever.
I find it far more enjoyable to listen to my modded HD2 w/ HDAM's...an agressive dynamic chip is definitely NOT what I'm looking for when enjoying music at home
I still don't think that the human brain was meant to listen to pure sine waves...the brain likes colored sound to make it more mellow(a friend of mine has tried zillions of headphones amps, and he always goes back to his Little Dot
)
the same difference that exists between headphones aimed at audiophiles and at sound engineers? my previous DT770/600Ω Manufaktur headphones were fantastic...at hearing glitches and various "pops" that is, damn it made them louder than anything! but it wasn't playing any music, it was playing "noise".
my current cd1k(same drivers/construction as the cd3k) plays "music"...those same glitches are hardly audible and PRAT is up the roof
the STX is sold as being "audiophile", not "professional"/flat grade(like RME/Digital Echo/Lynx)....the HD2 is definitely audiophile, it's very euphonic but the STX simply isn't(especially w/ its agressive/highly colored $2 headphones amp IC).
many sites agree to only sell the modded HD2 w/ bursons:
Audiotrak Prodigy HD2 Sound Card
Quote:
We believe its the finest soundcard a discerning listener can buy, and it's the only one we are likely to offer in the forseeable future. |
Prodigy HD2 Gold Sound Card
Quote:
widely regarded as the best audiophile graded soundcard in the world |
with some discrete op-amps, noone's got a problem calling the HD2 "audiophile"...I don't either, and I've tried a truckload of soundcards these past months. It has that much sought after analog sound most ppl crave for, I definitely don't have the feeling to be listening to a computer...more like a 2" master tape on monitoring speakers in an acoustic controlled room(I've killed ear resonances through EQ in foobar, so sound has a rather flat EQ...following this tutorial:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/how...torial-413900/ )