I wonder how the Schiit upper offerings compare to any of this?
I've only had the A-gd's Sabre Flagship, the NFB-7 and then the Compass2. I would still say the Sabre in both did 'enhance' any treble glare or harshness if there was any. It gives treble [especially vocals] an uncanny focus that made sibilance really bad with lots of my recordings. Instrumental pieces sounded fabulous though and so did really well-mastered tracks [but these are hardly the majority of my collection].
Granted, the HE-560 is not making for a forgiving headphone, but the issues I had were greatly reduced with my current Burr-Brown based DAC [the things I really liked about the Sabre, like spaciousness and super details were too, of course].
The other part I felt the Sabre 'crippled' a bit the bass. Too tight with very reserved sub-bass [meaning it hit hard not too often] - again, this is much better with the PCM1794 DAC and again, the HE-560 does not emphasize bass, but it doesn't de-emphasize it either.
Just makes me wonder whether the NFB28 is different to the C2/NFB-7
I do imagine if one owns warm headphones this might be a much, much lesser issue. Same if one listens only to textbook-mastered tracks and classical. My take on the Sabre is that I very much agree with that the Sabre is a detail, resolution, space, air and stage monster, but this does take away from the musical aspects a bit, cripples neutral bass slightly and highlights any flaws there are. I'll look forward to the Gungnir and see how that compares to the NFB-7/PCM1794[Creative X7]
Also, people's sensitivity to this apparently differs... So what might be annoying to me, might be tolerable to you.
Sorry for the long post