alright guys, after days or scanning through 2348767 threads trying to find the best SQ portable dap, oh man, my head hurts, but thats expected. obviously we all know that in music (an art) there is no real best, I accept that, but after reading all this there are still some answerable questions:
I'm assuming we shall only talk about just dap+headphones.
lets cut some variables and just talk about SQ. amongst the best SQ most people have suggested are the kenwood/D2/clix2/1Gnano/M6/U3/K5/U3 etc. etc. I can accept that there is not much point to try to put them in any order as different people have different prefrences. However, there are feature sets in each of these players that can alter the SQ. For example, most people have compared these player's SQ using no EQ or sound enchancements at all - which is the correct thing to do - otherwise how does one compare. But once the list narrows down to the above listed players, wouldn't it be interesting to look at the ultimate capabilities in SQ of these daps when EQs are employed too? For one player's flat output can be perfect, yet the SQ may not nessarily be as perfect when EQ is used.
Personally the only thing I use are the custom EQ, BBE, and maybe mash3bass. One particular purist may claim that he prefers the 799's sound straight out of the jack flat, as compared to say the clix2 and/or D2 flat. However, if EQs are used for all these players to try to achieve the best sounding setting for that particular song, would the said person change his opinion? E.g. if I enjoy using mash3bass on the D2, would that make it better than all the others simply because using mash3bass to boost the bass is techically superiour to just using good old EQ boost? Or, for example, would the extra detailed EQ settings avalible on the M6 make it better sounding than the others due to the other's inferior EQ implimentation? I'm just suggestion some hyperthetical situations, not saying they are better or anything. In fact, I'm ASKING, for those of u who are lucky enough to be able to play with all these best players, to rethink, wether u would change ur opinion as to which players u would rank in which order if we now start talking about all the different sound enhencements they offer.
An additional questions I'd like to ask u pros, is that, I know the technology of say, BBE and mash3bass and simple 5bandEQ are very different. But in practice, for example, say, if I want to boost the bass for a particular song on some particular headphones, would most people prefer the good old simple EQ? can a 5band EQ produce effects as good or better than say BBE? On paper, in theory its supposed to be no - otherwise whats the point of emplying those technologies in the first place, however, whats the real life verdict from the pros?
There are many other things I'd still like to consider, but to discuss my first query I've already typed so much. I wonder what people think.
