Cayin iDAC-6 - Review tour (USA only for now), impressions, discussion

Jul 25, 2016 at 10:04 PM Post #106 of 286
  Can someone post a rear picture of their iDac-6/iha-6? Some people have been saying it's not identical to the ones posted on Cayin's website. Specifically, that it's missing the voltage switch.


 
Jul 25, 2016 at 10:38 PM Post #107 of 286
Yeah, im worried that the photos the chinese dealer is sending e is not the same you own, since there's a voltage switch on it.
I would like a photo very much, as I haven't seen it the way you describe it. Thanks a lot.
 
Jul 26, 2016 at 9:45 AM Post #109 of 286
Thank you. 
 
Looking at the pictures here and on google, it does seem like there are two different versions so far.
 
The first one being Chinese with a voltage switch and white LED's and the second American with no switch and blue LED's.
 

 

 

 

 
Let's hope these changes are only cosmetic, as there are plenty of Chinese dealers that sell the Cayin's at a low price.
 
Two dealers, I'm particularly apprehensive about are found on AliExpress. Here are the links:
 
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Cayin-iDac-6-iHA-6-iDAC-6-iHA-6-66-Set-IDAC-6-Decoder-IHA6/32689952134.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.9.Mc0ukG&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_8,searchweb201602_1_10057_10056_10055_10037_10049_10059_10058_10017_405_404_106_10040_105_104_10060_103_102,searchweb201603_2&btsid=5d4f62ad-8966-4c79-8781-7af291d89ec1
 
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cayin-IDAC-6-IHA6-tube-full-balancing-amp-IDAC-6-decoding-tube-IHA6-balance-amp/32687443389.html?spm=2114.13010108.99999999.7.hbWB2S
 
Sorry, guys for posting the long links. I don't know how to make them shorter.
 
Pretty good price. Would you buy from these dealers?
 
Jul 27, 2016 at 1:10 AM Post #110 of 286
yeah it shoudl be fine.  looks like the asia market version just has dual secondary windings/voltages for more versatility
 
Jul 27, 2016 at 11:26 AM Post #111 of 286
just bought mine, should be here friday or monday.  Can't wait to hear how it pairs with the Torpedo III and HD800.  I'm a big fan of the AKM4490 chip in my m9XX, so I can't wait to hear how the dual 4490 and tube analog stage sounds.
 
Jul 28, 2016 at 12:25 AM Post #112 of 286
Yeah, im worried that the photos the chinese dealer is sending e is not the same you own, since there's a voltage switch on it.
I would like a photo very much, as I haven't seen it the way you describe it. Thanks a lot.



yeah it shoudl be fine.  looks like the asia market version just has dual secondary windings/voltages for more versatility


Sorry for my late respond, have been fully occupied by the DAP firmware release and our new English website in past few days, will get back on track as much as possible.

Only the very early batches of Cayin iDAC-6 and iHA-6 has the voltage switch, we have removed the voltage switch GLOBALLY in order to satisfy the latest safety requirements in Mainland China. Since we use the same power supply circuit and transformer in all our iDAC-6/iHA-6 production, so the latest stock in asian market will not have the voltage switch as well.

If you cannot find an authorized seller locally and have to resort to buying from oversee, please check and make sure they are supplying the iDAC-6 and iHA-6 in correct voltage for your country. :beerchug:
 
Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Jul 28, 2016 at 12:33 AM Post #113 of 286
just bought mine, should be here friday or monday.  Can't wait to hear how it pairs with the Torpedo III and HD800.  I'm a big fan of the AKM4490 chip in my m9XX, so I can't wait to hear how the dual 4490 and tube analog stage sounds.


Good to know we have a new iDAC-6 owner on board. The Torpedo III is a very interesting project, did you build the amp yourselves? i am sure the 300ohm output sounds wonderful, did you try the 32ohm output with planar headphone? It sure is promising if it can handle the low impedance planar satisfactory.

Please come back and share your impression when you receive the iDAC-6, I hope the pair will work perfectly for your HD800.
 
Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Jul 28, 2016 at 8:32 AM Post #114 of 286
Good to know we have a new iDAC-6 owner on board. The Torpedo III is a very interesting project, did you build the amp yourselves? i am sure the 300ohm output sounds wonderful, did you try the 32ohm output with planar headphone? It sure is promising if it can handle the low impedance planar satisfactory.

Please come back and share your impression when you receive the iDAC-6, I hope the pair will work perfectly for your HD800.


the TIII sounds great with my HE400i. However, I don't think it has enough power for the really hard to drive planars. If I ever end up buying an HE6, I'd probably go ahead and get the iHA6.

I didn't build the TIII myself, But I will be changing out a few parts myself (plate load resistors).
 
Jul 29, 2016 at 4:45 AM Post #115 of 286
All righty then. Impressions for the iDAC-6 and iHA-6.


Disclaimer:
I'd like to thank Cayin for letting me have the opportunity to get a chance to demo the iDAC-6/iHA-6 stack for a week. It was really a pleasure to get a chance to hear it more carefully outside of a local Head-Fi meet.


The super short summary:
I love the iDAC-6, but I probably needed a more diverse set of headphones to really get a good listen of the iHA-6.




















About me:
Since I acquired the STAX SRS-2170 in 2014, I've been exploring DACs a lot more since I no longer needed to search for an amplifier in the traditional sense. From the past few years of the hobby, only the LH Labs products, Audio-gd, as well as the Schiit Yggdrasil have left really positive impressions for me in terms of sound. I opted for the LH Labs products via their Indiegogo campaigns since, I'm guessing this is true for many crowd-funded campaigns, the idea sounded really nice on its first presentation, and on-paper. I'm not dissatisfied with their products for the most part, but they do have a sigma around here. The Yggy came out after I received the Pulse X Infinity DAC/amp anyway, and I didn't want to shell out a few grand for a DAC that couldn't fit on my desk and takes a week of on-time to sound at its best. But theeeen...


Enter the iDAC-6:
At $999, I think this DAC is an absolute steal for the money.
  • It can play back pretty much any digital audio track you throw at it (16/44.1 to 24/384 DXD to DSD256)
  • It's a fully balanced design so it gets the benefits of differential signaling
  • It has a myriad of sound options you can switch to
  • Versatile input/output options

The volume operation is similar to that of other multi-bit Delta-Sigma DACs I've seen, meaning you can use software or the volume knob to control the digital volume level (only on the pre-amp mode). Alternatively, you can set it to line-out mode, which is a fixed volume level (or basically maximum volume). It has the option to decode DSD in a true 1-bit fashion, but from the description here, it looks like that's only possible through the coaxial digital input and not USB?

Anyway, I was using the USB input and I used the iFi micro iUSB 3.0 with the LH Labs LightSpeed 2G cable.

The DAC chip itself is the Asahi Kasei Microdevices' AK4490. Most of the DACs I've heard use an ESS Sabre DAC of some sort, so hearing a well-implemented non-ESS DAC was a nice change of pace for me. I had previously listened to the iDAC-6 at a local Head-Fi meet, but it was paired with the iHA-6 on a different setup from my usual environment. Because of this, I didn't know what the iDAC-6 would sound like on my system and boy was I surprised. Its overall sound is super smooth, balanced, punchy bass, and natural-sounding overall. Absent is the the "Sabre glare" brightness that I'm used to hearing from ESS DACs. Even though I find the Pulse X Infinity to greatly reduce that sound, comparing it with the iDAC-6 made it really apparent to me that it's still there. The soundstage presentation and imaging of the iDAC-6 sounded pretty spherical to me, having about equal dimensions of height, width, and length, but it was on the smaller side to me. Instrument separation was likewise good, but not quite up to spec with the Pulse X Infinity.

The one major negative experience I had with the iDAC-6 was that it includes muting relays(?) inside of the device that activate whenever audio is stopped being transferred to the device (you can hear the unit making clicking sounds when this happens). When audio is resumed, it takes half a second for the relays to switch off, which means you will get a delay in audio to your speakers/headphones. Especially for watching videos and/or editing audio, this is a really annoying thing to have since you would need to rewind the video/audio track few seconds to get back to where you left off.

In terms of the different sound options you can toggle with the iDAC-6, I preferred the "transistor" setting over the "tube" one since the "tube" one sounded a bit more like the ESS DACs. Compared to the Pulse X Infinity's digital filters, I had a harder time picking out differences with the 5 filters offered in the iDAC-6. I preferred the sound with the "S.D. Sharp" or short-delay sharp digital filter over the other ones as it sounded the smoothest to me and the imaging was more well-defined. "Sharp" was the next best for me, and I somehow didn't like any of the 3 "slow" filters.

From my limited knowledge of digital filters, the "short delay" filters might be minimum phase filters in which the pre-ringing energy of transients is delayed until after the signal. These types of filters are usually seen in "fancier" or more expensive DACs, so having them in this $999 DAC is really nice for users to experience. Minimum phase filters are often associated with sounding more "natural" and having more precise imaging. As for "slow" versus "fast," I'm pretty sure that indicates how much the digital filters attenuate signals at the Nyquist frequencies: "slow" meaning it allows some aliasing signals to enter the passband frequencies past the Nyquist frequency at the convenience of having less ringing occur in the impulse response; "fast" meaning it attenuates signals very close to the Nyquist frequency at the cost of having much more ringing in the impulse response. Typically ringing is bad, as is pre-ringing, so it sounds like the ideal filter would be "S.D. Slow" or short-delay slow. I haven no idea what the fifth filter does though, "Super Slow."


Conclusion:
Considering what the iDAC-6 sounds like, what it can do, the versatility of inputs/outputs it has, how much you can change its sound, and its price, it would be hard for me not to recommend this fantastic DAC. If I didn't already have a good DAC system with me, I would probably buy the iDAC-6, and that's something that doesn't happen to me often. If you get the chance, I would highly recommend giving this a listen!



[rule]
iHA-6:
I didn't get much of a chance to give this a close listen, but from when I did listen to this, I was using either the AKG K701 (hard-wired with a balanced cable) or a touring Kennerton Vali, both of which are fairly low impedance headphones. Because of their low impedance, I did a bit of comparisons between the normal mode and high-current modes that the iHA-6 offers. As I expected, I preferred the high-current mode better for these headphones since it seemed to make the imaging a bit more precise, as well as the bass having more authority and definition. I hear similar things when switching from balanced to unbalanced, and that seems consistent from my experience of balanced versus single-ended overall.

Gain....I'm not really sure in what situation you would need to toggle this switch, perhaps with an low-sensitivity headphone playing quiet music, but I pretty much didn't need to turn the volume knob a few millimeters before it got too loud for me on low gain. Looking at the specifications, the iHA-6 outputs a whopping maximum of 5 W per channel via balanced outputs on high-current mode (1.1 W via single-ended). 1 W is plenty for my listening habits.

I really like the 3-pin headphone output ports on the iHA-6 since they double-up as 6.3 mm headphone outputs in the middle; that's just freaking awesome.



[rule]
Just some general gripes:
  • The stack gets really, really hot. More so for the iDAC-6 than the iHA-6, but when I was packing them up to give to the next person on the tour, I turned off the units and tried to pick them up after waiting a couple of minutes. Holy, they were still burning hot; like trying to hold a single-cup hot Starbucks coffee without a cardboard sleeve.
  • The corners of the units are pretty sharp, just F.Y.I.



Thank you Cayin again for letting me be a part of the tour!
 
Jul 30, 2016 at 10:10 PM Post #116 of 286
All righty then. Impressions for the iDAC-6 and iHA-6.


Disclaimer:
I'd like to thank Cayin for letting me have the opportunity to get a chance to demo the iDAC-6/iHA-6 stack for a week. It was really a pleasure to get a chance to hear it more carefully outside of a local Head-Fi meet.


The super short summary:
I love the iDAC-6, but I probably needed a more diverse set of headphones to really get a good listen of the iHA-6.




















About me:
Since I acquired the STAX SRS-2170 in 2014, I've been exploring DACs a lot more since I no longer needed to search for an amplifier in the traditional sense. From the past few years of the hobby, only the LH Labs products, Audio-gd, as well as the Schiit Yggdrasil have left really positive impressions for me in terms of sound. I opted for the LH Labs products via their Indiegogo campaigns since, I'm guessing this is true for many crowd-funded campaigns, the idea sounded really nice on its first presentation, and on-paper. I'm not dissatisfied with their products for the most part, but they do have a sigma around here. The Yggy came out after I received the Pulse X Infinity DAC/amp anyway, and I didn't want to shell out a few grand for a DAC that couldn't fit on my desk and takes a week of on-time to sound at its best. But theeeen...


Enter the iDAC-6:
At $999, I think this DAC is an absolute steal for the money.
  • It can play back pretty much any digital audio track you throw at it (16/44.1 to 24/384 DXD to DSD256)
  • It's a fully balanced design so it gets the benefits of differential signaling
  • It has a myriad of sound options you can switch to
  • Versatile input/output options

The volume operation is similar to that of other multi-bit Delta-Sigma DACs I've seen, meaning you can use software or the volume knob to control the digital volume level (only on the pre-amp mode). Alternatively, you can set it to line-out mode, which is a fixed volume level (or basically maximum volume). It has the option to decode DSD in a true 1-bit fashion, but from the description here, it looks like that's only possible through the coaxial digital input and not USB?

Anyway, I was using the USB input and I used the iFi micro iUSB 3.0 with the LH Labs LightSpeed 2G cable.

The DAC chip itself is the Asahi Kasei Microdevices' AK4490. Most of the DACs I've heard use an ESS Sabre DAC of some sort, so hearing a well-implemented non-ESS DAC was a nice change of pace for me. I had previously listened to the iDAC-6 at a local Head-Fi meet, but it was paired with the iHA-6 on a different setup from my usual environment. Because of this, I didn't know what the iDAC-6 would sound like on my system and boy was I surprised. Its overall sound is super smooth, balanced, punchy bass, and natural-sounding overall. Absent is the the "Sabre glare" brightness that I'm used to hearing from ESS DACs. Even though I find the Pulse X Infinity to greatly reduce that sound, comparing it with the iDAC-6 made it really apparent to me that it's still there. The soundstage presentation and imaging of the iDAC-6 sounded pretty spherical to me, having about equal dimensions of height, width, and length, but it was on the smaller side to me. Instrument separation was likewise good, but not quite up to spec with the Pulse X Infinity.

The one major negative experience I had with the iDAC-6 was that it includes muting relays(?) inside of the device that activate whenever audio is stopped being transferred to the device (you can hear the unit making clicking sounds when this happens). When audio is resumed, it takes half a second for the relays to switch off, which means you will get a delay in audio to your speakers/headphones. Especially for watching videos and/or editing audio, this is a really annoying thing to have since you would need to rewind the video/audio track few seconds to get back to where you left off.

In terms of the different sound options you can toggle with the iDAC-6, I preferred the "transistor" setting over the "tube" one since the "tube" one sounded a bit more like the ESS DACs. Compared to the Pulse X Infinity's digital filters, I had a harder time picking out differences with the 5 filters offered in the iDAC-6. I preferred the sound with the "S.D. Sharp" or short-delay sharp digital filter over the other ones as it sounded the smoothest to me and the imaging was more well-defined. "Sharp" was the next best for me, and I somehow didn't like any of the 3 "slow" filters.

From my limited knowledge of digital filters, the "short delay" filters might be minimum phase filters in which the pre-ringing energy of transients is delayed until after the signal. These types of filters are usually seen in "fancier" or more expensive DACs, so having them in this $999 DAC is really nice for users to experience. Minimum phase filters are often associated with sounding more "natural" and having more precise imaging. As for "slow" versus "fast," I'm pretty sure that indicates how much the digital filters attenuate signals at the Nyquist frequencies: "slow" meaning it allows some aliasing signals to enter the passband frequencies past the Nyquist frequency at the convenience of having less ringing occur in the impulse response; "fast" meaning it attenuates signals very close to the Nyquist frequency at the cost of having much more ringing in the impulse response. Typically ringing is bad, as is pre-ringing, so it sounds like the ideal filter would be "S.D. Slow" or short-delay slow. I haven no idea what the fifth filter does though, "Super Slow."


Conclusion:
Considering what the iDAC-6 sounds like, what it can do, the versatility of inputs/outputs it has, how much you can change its sound, and its price, it would be hard for me not to recommend this fantastic DAC. If I didn't already have a good DAC system with me, I would probably buy the iDAC-6, and that's something that doesn't happen to me often. If you get the chance, I would highly recommend giving this a listen!



[rule]
iHA-6:
I didn't get much of a chance to give this a close listen, but from when I did listen to this, I was using either the AKG K701 (hard-wired with a balanced cable) or a touring Kennerton Vali, both of which are fairly low impedance headphones. Because of their low impedance, I did a bit of comparisons between the normal mode and high-current modes that the iHA-6 offers. As I expected, I preferred the high-current mode better for these headphones since it seemed to make the imaging a bit more precise, as well as the bass having more authority and definition. I hear similar things when switching from balanced to unbalanced, and that seems consistent from my experience of balanced versus single-ended overall.

Gain....I'm not really sure in what situation you would need to toggle this switch, perhaps with an low-sensitivity headphone playing quiet music, but I pretty much didn't need to turn the volume knob a few millimeters before it got too loud for me on low gain. Looking at the specifications, the iHA-6 outputs a whopping maximum of 5 W per channel via balanced outputs on high-current mode (1.1 W via single-ended). 1 W is plenty for my listening habits.

I really like the 3-pin headphone output ports on the iHA-6 since they double-up as 6.3 mm headphone outputs in the middle; that's just freaking awesome.



[rule]
Just some general gripes:
  • The stack gets really, really hot. More so for the iDAC-6 than the iHA-6, but when I was packing them up to give to the next person on the tour, I turned off the units and tried to pick them up after waiting a couple of minutes. Holy, they were still burning hot; like trying to hold a single-cup hot Starbucks coffee without a cardboard sleeve.
  • The corners of the units are pretty sharp, just F.Y.I.



Thank you Cayin again for letting me be a part of the tour!


The honor is all ours, it is important to have users like you to try out the gears in person in order to appreciate the surprises that we have offered in this small packages. Your observation is comprehensive and practical, I am sure someone who is looking for a DAC at this price range will be benefited by your advice.

The sensitivity of headphones spread over a very wide spectrum, the Vali is rated at 100db which is consider in the upper middle of the spectrum, my Denon D7000 is rated that 108 dB/mW, and there are some portable friendly headphone will go way beyond 110db. On the other hand, we have the power hungry headphones such as HE6, Abyss, and AKG KK at the lower end. The Hifiman HE-6 is rated at 85db and the KK is rated at 80db only. I have the HE-6 and Deon D7000 in my personal collection and they are 23db apart in terms of sensitivity, from mathematical standpoint, the HE-6 required more then 100 times more power then the D700. That's why we need a high gain control "just in case".

The ESS 9018 offers amazing detail and resolution, but it does require a lot of effort to make it sound musical. I have three DAC in my home rig and one of them is Yulong D8 which is a ESS9018 based DAC, it is one of the better implementation of ESS9108 as it maintain the advantages of the chip but does not sound cold or harsh at all. I think the implementation is as important, if not more, when compare to the choice of DAC chipset.

Once again thank you very much for your kind support, hope you'll run into Cayin products again.
 
Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Jul 30, 2016 at 10:11 PM Post #117 of 286
I just launched the US Tour for iDAC-6/iHA-6, please come and sign up if you are interested in trying out this combo at your home system.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/814644/us-tour-cayin-idac-6-dual-ak4490-dac-and-iha-6-full-balanced-headphone-amp-reviewers-wanted

Looking forward to some exciting exchanges and informative impression, let the party start.

:beerchug::beerchug:


We are just three days away from the closing of the tour, we have a decent sign up, the respond is actually better then I expected already.

If you have friends who might be interested in the iDAC-6 and iHA-6, time to draw their attention to the tour as we are only 3 days away from the closing of the tour application, drop them a PM or @ them at the thread, many thanks for your reference in advance. :beerchug:
 
Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Aug 1, 2016 at 1:37 PM Post #118 of 286
mine just came in, pairing it with my TIII and HD800, it's a great piece of gear.  So far I'm using it with tube stage output and slow roll-off filter.  It sounds a lot like a good vinyl setup in the treble and harmonics, but the low end is more powerful than a vinyl rig can usually reproduce, it has better extension than a vinyl rig has on both ends.  The midrange isn't quite as nuanced as a great vinyl rig, but it's really close.  Soundstage is very natural, not cavernous, but it just sounds "right" to me.  I use crossfeed in the DSP stage, so what's important to me isn't so much the size of the soundstage as much as the preservation of spatial cues, and it does that extremely well.  It takes a while to really get to its best sound warmup wise, much like a R2R DAC in that regard.  But man this is such a musical DAC.  Comparing it to the single 4490 chip in the m9XX, it's definitely a bit more spacious, which I assume comes from the dual chip implementation.  And the tube stage seems to add a bit more dynamicism yet smoothness.  Less harsh than the m9XX (which is already very smooth for a Delta Sigma DAC), but also sharper/faster/more authoritative on the transients.  
 
The pairing with the TIII really is astounding in it's ability to deliver transparency, speed AND power.  With my HD800 it's almost like a electrostat on steroids.  It maybe lacks the very last bit of resolution of a SR009 through a Yggy and KGSSHV, but it's REALLY close and beats that setup on soundstage and bass authority (I use sonarworks on the HD800).  This is the closest I've ever gotten to a great speaker setup, the only thing that's missing is the chest thump that speakers can deliver.  
 
One note about the filters, I don't know if the DAC is more transparent, or if Grace uses a toned down version of the AKM filters, but the filters are much more noticeable on the iDAC6 than they are on the m9XX.  
 
My unit is burnt in, but this thing definitely takes 4-5 hours to really warm up to where it's singing, so be aware of that when listening.  After 1-2 hours it starts sounding great, but 4-5 hours plus is where it's really hit its peak and starts wowing you.  With the m9XX, it was at peak ability within 20-30 minutes.  This unit is not a quick starter.  
 
Just now listening to the intro of Hey You by Pink Floyd, on the intro, the light acoustic guitars, I for a second thought I had accidentally sent the signal to my nearfield monitors, the soundstage is that out of head on this setup.  Like I was completely unsure until I took my HD800 off and couldn't hear the music.  
 
Aug 2, 2016 at 12:30 AM Post #119 of 286
mine just came in, pairing it with my TIII and HD800, it's a great piece of gear.  So far I'm using it with tube stage output and slow roll-off filter.  It sounds a lot like a good vinyl setup in the treble and harmonics, but the low end is more powerful than a vinyl rig can usually reproduce, it has better extension than a vinyl rig has on both ends.  The midrange isn't quite as nuanced as a great vinyl rig, but it's really close.  Soundstage is very natural, not cavernous, but it just sounds "right" to me.  I use crossfeed in the DSP stage, so what's important to me isn't so much the size of the soundstage as much as the preservation of spatial cues, and it does that extremely well.  It takes a while to really get to its best sound warmup wise, much like a R2R DAC in that regard.  But man this is such a musical DAC.  Comparing it to the single 4490 chip in the m9XX, it's definitely a bit more spacious, which I assume comes from the dual chip implementation.  And the tube stage seems to add a bit more dynamicism yet smoothness.  Less harsh than the m9XX (which is already very smooth for a Delta Sigma DAC), but also sharper/faster/more authoritative on the transients.  

The pairing with the TIII really is astounding in it's ability to deliver transparency, speed AND power.  With my HD800 it's almost like a electrostat on steroids.  It maybe lacks the very last bit of resolution of a SR009 through a Yggy and KGSSHV, but it's REALLY close and beats that setup on soundstage and bass authority (I use sonarworks on the HD800).  This is the closest I've ever gotten to a great speaker setup, the only thing that's missing is the chest thump that speakers can deliver.  

One note about the filters, I don't know if the DAC is more transparent, or if Grace uses a toned down version of the AKM filters, but the filters are much more noticeable on the iDAC6 than they are on the m9XX.  

My unit is burnt in, but this thing definitely takes 4-5 hours to really warm up to where it's singing, so be aware of that when listening.  After 1-2 hours it starts sounding great, but 4-5 hours plus is where it's really hit its peak and starts wowing you.  With the m9XX, it was at peak ability within 20-30 minutes.  This unit is not a quick starter.  

Just now listening to the intro of Hey You by Pink Floyd, on the intro, the light acoustic guitars, I for a second thought I had accidentally sent the signal to my nearfield monitors, the soundstage is that out of head on this setup.  Like I was completely unsure until I took my HD800 off and couldn't hear the music.  


A fabulous impression, and this is when iDAC-6 is almost brand new out of the box? You mentioned the unit is burnt in, is it pre-owned or the seller has kindly provided burnt in service prior to sending it to you? I connected my iDAC-6 and iHA-6 to a 600ohm transistor and run it 20 hours a day for 1 week, completed the reliability test and burn-in at the same time, glad I did that as I borrowed the set to several local Headfier for private audition and they it is a lot better then the demo unit they tried at shop, so I guess it does has some effect, especially when the iDAC-6 has 4 miniature tubes inside.

So please keep us update on your home rig, I am sure you'll have more surprise down the road. :beerchug:
 
Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Aug 2, 2016 at 12:37 AM Post #120 of 286
A fabulous impression, and this is when iDAC-6 is almost brand new out of the box? You mentioned the unit is burnt in, is it pre-owned or the seller has kindly provided burnt in service prior to sending it to you? I connected my iDAC-6 and iHA-6 to a 600ohm transistor and run it 20 hours a day for 1 week, completed the reliability test and burn-in at the same time, glad I did that as I borrowed the set to several local Headfier for private audition and they it is a lot better then the demo unit they tried at shop, so I guess it does has some effect, especially when the iDAC-6 has 4 miniature tubes inside.

So please keep us update on your home rig, I am sure you'll have more surprise down the road. :beerchug:


Yes, someone else owned my unit first
 

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