[chesebert]

I don't know how much the 2022 Utopia differs from the older one but i've enjoyed the older one significantly more with a mushy/dark R2R Dac and hybrid amp combination than with a clean sounding ds dac + solid state amp combo.

Actually, you need a better dac. Utopia does sound great with a high end “clean sounding” dac.

 

[George Hincapie]

Conjecture

Nope. Sound advice.

 

[Deolum]

Actually, you need a better dac. Utopia does sound great with a high end “clean sounding” dac.

I had it on the Metrum Pavane that was perfect because it was more natural and gentle sounding but a tad mushy/slower which complements the old Utopia perfectly. Utopia on things like the Matrix X-Sabre Pro or Adi-2 paired with a solid state amp is close to unlistenable to me for more than 1 or 2 songs and i don't think thats because of the dac's quality.

 

[chesebert]

I had it on the Metrum Pavane that was perfect because it was more natural and gentle sounding but a tad mushy/slower which complements the old Utopia perfectly. Utopia on things like the Matrix X-Sabre Pro or Adi-2 paired with a solid state amp is close to unlistenable to me for more than 1 or 2 songs and i don't think thats because of the dac's quality.

I was thinking along the line of Rossini, MPS-8, DV2 etc.

 

[Atriya]

I don't know how much the 2022 Utopia differs from the older one but i've enjoyed the older one significantly more with a mushy/dark R2R Dac and hybrid amp combination than with a clean sounding ds dac + solid state amp combo.

And I haven’t used the original Utopia, but there’s a universal consensus that the 2022 version is much darker sounding with a much smoother treble. I used to get terrible ear fatigue with a Hifiman Arya Stealth, but none with the 2022 Utopia, even with silver cables. Hence leaning towards a “clean sounding” DAC and SS amplification.

 

[RobertSM]

Whilst you're unlikely to be disappointed with any of those options, if you have a budget of 10k there are in my opinion far better ones you could be going for.
Holo May, Rockna Wavedream, M1SE etc

Your opinion is immature. I've visited your website and it says your 24 years young. Outstanding! But it's known in medicine and science that the frontal lobe isn't fully developed till age 25.

Continue on with your work. I'm sure at some point you'll have experience and unbiased opinions to share.

I should also add you clearly have sponsors that support your work.

You are a professional.

State the truth.

 

[driftingbunnies]

Your opinion is immature. I've visited your website and it says your 24 years young. Outstanding! But it's known in medicine and science that the frontal lobe isn't fully developed till age 25.

Continue on with your work. I'm sure at some point you'll have experience and unbiased opinions to share.

I should also add you clearly have sponsors that support your work.

You are a professional.

State the truth.

You might want to check your arrogance at the door. If you don't know who GoldenOne is, I wouldn't make such a quick judgement based on reading that he's 24 on his website.

Even if a frontal lobe isn't fully developed until 25, does this mean that anyone younger cannot have an unbiased opinion? What kind of logic is that?

He also did not recommend any of the sponsors DACs in his post so I don't know why he needs to disclose his sponsors every time he posts.

I'm not sure what made you decide to respond to that particular post from 3 weeks ago but clearly it would be wise to think twice before hitting the post button.

 

[Riccioli30]

Your opinion is immature. I've visited your website and it says your 24 years young. Outstanding! But it's known in medicine and science that the frontal lobe isn't fully developed till age 25.

Continue on with your work. I'm sure at some point you'll have experience and unbiased opinions to share.

I should also add you clearly have sponsors that support your work.

You are a professional.

State the truth.

Yea..GoldenOne is certainly a very reliable "professional" ( in the best meaning of word). Impartial, extremely competent and with excellent ears too (IMO). It's a pity non to read it more often....

 

[chesebert]

I value ASR, Golden One and the likes for their measurements. Don’t care for their assessment however. For example, May sounded meh to me on more than 1 occasion. I know it measures extremely well on the standard bench for a r2r dac. Of course not all audio reproduction quality can be measured with just the standard bench tests.

I would also encourage Golden One given there are not enough reviewers that do measurements.

 

[Arniesb]

Your opinion is immature. I've visited your website and it says your 24 years young. Outstanding! But it's known in medicine and science that the frontal lobe isn't fully developed till age 25.



Continue on with your work. I'm sure at some point you'll have experience and unbiased opinions to share.



I should also add you clearly have sponsors that support your work.



You are a professional.



State the truth.

I value ASR, Golden One and the likes for their measurements. Don’t care for their assessment however. For example, May sounded meh to me on more than 1 occasion. I know it measures extremely well on the standard bench for a r2r dac. Of course not all audio reproduction quality can be measured with just the standard bench tests.

I would also encourage Golden One given there are not enough reviewers that do measurements.

Mate, you are biased against ''CHINESE BRANDS'' or any companies that are ''Uknown''
Tells us what your suggested companies offer? anything more besides bought reviewers, lots of marketing and insane margins.
Golden is not a snob and dont care for Brand name like you and RobertSm do, but i can tell he cares for craftmanship, for performance for components.

Most expensive is not better. You can slap expensive parts all you want, but if enginner have no idea what he is doing, these expensive parts wont save that dac or amp.
Thats what majority of highly marketed companies do, slap some good parts, make nice enclosure, buy some shill reviews and hope for the best.

 

[chesebert]

That last paragraph kind of sums up my experience with Chinese electronics.

I am biased against highly marketed/shilled products that are claimed to be amazing but are actually meh.

Take a trip to Axpona this year and listen for yourself. Holo May was there last year and it wasn’t all that good to me. We all got burned by Chinese electronics at some point so can’t blame me for being skeptical.

 

[sajunky]

Audio GD has not been mentioned yet. No money spent on advertising, better value. A real R2R sound. A real NOS sound too. Substantially different to the Holo Audio (ladder errors are heavily randomised - similar in sound to noise shaping, bringing it closer to Delta-Sigma than R2R). There is a nice selection of combo's with pre-amp and HPA. R-27 has been recently upgraded to MK2 version with the latest electronic board. It will nicely stack with DI-20HE. These combos do not lose much comparing to the standalone models, but in the high-end world everything is relative.

You will not need HQPlayer nor PGGB anymore, R-27Mk2 will play in a native format equally well, remember my word!

Be prepared for investing extra in the external 10MHz clock, but when saving 50%, it doesn't matter, really.

 

[RobertSM]

You might want to check your arrogance at the door. If you don't know who GoldenOne is, I wouldn't make such a quick judgement based on reading that he's 24 on his website.

Even if a frontal lobe isn't fully developed until 25, does this mean that anyone younger cannot have an unbiased opinion? What kind of logic is that?

He also did not recommend any of the sponsors DACs in his post so I don't know why he needs to disclose his sponsors every time he posts.

I'm not sure what made you decide to respond to that particular post from 3 weeks ago but clearly it would be wise to think twice before hitting the post button.

I know who he is. I just don't respect him, agree with him and certainly don't like his videos, reviews or opinions. Other than that, we're good.

 

[sajunky]

I know who he is. I just don't respect him, agree with him and certainly don't like his videos, reviews or opinions. Other than that, we're good.

This is not good... Whether you respect him or not, should not be a matter of discussion. You can agree or disagree, if a later a young person needs some credit in advance. This is needed to not discourage, limit activity or destroy a character. It will work for both sides, as long a young individual is able to realise his mistakes.

 

[Atriya]

Let me try and distract this thread from the recent quarrelsome direction it seems to have taken with an open ended question: is there some truth in saying that DAC upgrades after a certain point are no longer meaningful for headphone-only use?

I recently read a review comparing some very expensive DACs ($30k+), where the author suggested that these only make sense if you're using speakers (and of course, very good ones), not headphones.

I'm wondering if the same advice would be relevant for $6k DACs vs $12k DACs.