A small tidbit ...
Today, a friend of mine were singing praises for a combo he just tried, L5Pro + VentureCraft SounDroid Vantam, mentioning that the Vantam made the L5Pro sounds really good, and he wanted me to hear it. After 1 min of listening, I told him if he can do a blind test and tell me which is which; he accepted.
For the first setup, I used the L5Pro+Vantam combo. After 30s or so, he said switch ...
For the second setup, I (sneakily) used the Cayin N5. After 30s or so, he said stop...
I asked him which is which and he replied, 1st setup is without the Vantam and 2nd setup is with Vantam ...
Lesson learned:
1) A huge win for N5!!! He preferred it over L5Pro+Vantam (which he prefers over the vanilla L5Pro), subjectively of course...
2) The differences between mid-fi and hi-fi setup is not so huge, to the point that one may not be able to tell the differences at all
In anycase, coming from the L5Pro+Vantam, he conceded that N5 is a very good sounding DAP...
... but he still don't like how it looks, LOL