[AnalogandDigital]

So then, I take it that you prefer the N8ii with the C9 over the DX300 and C9 more?

It's a different sound between both
And time will tell of course but the DX300 with the Cirrus DAC sound fine for my ears
I have Amp11 Mk II and Amp12
Maybe go EXS ... ?
With the C9 it has the possibilities iBasso can't offer today meaning 2 x NuTube and Balanced output
Amp12 with the LO is perfect and C9 in pre-amp
Makes why I'm today not in a rush to get the DX320 since my N8ii arrived as well
Don't need 2 DAP sounding 'close'

 

[Maxx134]

Now I noticed my preference sound changed in the last 2 years meaning more Treble and Bass as I was looking into previously

Oh yes, consumers ear preferences will definitely change over life of hobby .

 

[samandhi]

It's a different sound between both
And time will tell of course but the DX300 with the Cirrus DAC sound fine for my ears
I have Amp11 Mk II and Amp12
Maybe go EXS ... ?
With the C9 is has the possibilities iBasso can't offer today meaning 2 x NuTube and Balanced output
Makes why I'm today not in a rush to get the DX320 since my N8ii arrived as well
Don't need 2 DAP sounding 'close'

Oh, that's right, you opted to keep the N8ii, so no Amp13 card for you?! Well, if the N8ii sounds better than the DXxx Amp13, then it has to be outstanding (albeit subjective either way)! I don't blame you for not being in a rush.

Oh yes, consumers ear preferences will definitely change over life of hobby .

% agree with this!

A couple weeks ago, I started the day with a set that I ususally really love, and decided they sounded like crap to me that day. I tried another set, and another, etc... They ALL sounded like crap to me, compared to most other times except one pair (Senny HD700 IIRC).

Point is, that I think our hearing changes daily, if not hourly (one of the reasons I keep a lot of different sounding sets at hand).

 

[AnalogandDigital]

Oh, that's right, you opted to keep the N8ii, so no Amp13 card for you?! Well, if the N8ii sounds better than the DXxx Amp13, then it has to be outstanding (albeit subjective either way)! I don't blame you for not being in a rush.

No clue what direction I'll be taken iBasso wise
There's still the DX320 in consideration
And will I go Amp -> 12 EXS or just leave it stock since I like the sound today
Amp13 I'll hold off for a while and see what happens with the crackling since I stream Apple Lossless, Tidal Hifi Plus and Qobuz and that will drive me nuts

 

[German Expat in Vietnam]

Advar and Ara are two differently tuned IEMs, pick one based on its sound, not the price or the looks. Or better yet, you have a local dealer who has it in stock, at least Ara, so audition it and see how you like it with DX320 and your favorite tracks, trust your own ears, bud But, overall, Ara has a flat neutral bass, more mid-forward signature, crisp treble, and it will get brighter and probably more suited for those who like to analyze their sound or into j-pop/k-pop. Advar has a more balanced signature with a deeper and more elevated bass, less forward mids (relative to Ara) and the treble which can go from natural to bright depending on eartips selection (Advar has short nozzle, shallow insertion, and depending on the seal and eartips you use, treble can go either way). I'm not a big fan of Monarch mk2, but it sounds better than Ara.

Yes you are right. The price is not as important as the sound. And yes, I can listen to both because a friend ordered the Advar. The price of Campfire Audio Ara was also that of the demo model. Based on your descriptions, I'm actually sure that I would prefer the Meze Advar. I don't like raised mid tones and too bright highs. I'll take a look at both. And the Monarch MKII i like very much with DX 320 .

 

[Vitaly2017]

Hey folks!
While you guys all so busy with arguing whose and whats fw sounds the best lol I done a lot of listening and comparing of dx320 ( stock amp ) and wm1z m2!

For long time’s sony been a very big legendary dap and I still think it is and holding that throne. Butttttt it is darn incredible how dx320 is just by a smer minimal % just behind the wm1z m2. In fact it could be even on par as the iem I used could have affected the advantage to the sony dap cause I been using the ierz1r with stock cable in balance jack for comparison.

What I have concluded is the treble is more smoothed and less harsh painful singy with wm1z m2. Also bass segment had more details amd textures slightly more then dx320 and stock amp. And one particular aspect of the s-master it is more musical and organical a tiny bit.

Yes also the soundstage and expansiveness of the sound perception is more larger, wider in 1z m2 as it has a huge copper block and kimber kable inside….

Then the dx320 has a more reference and right sound tuning in my tests, when listening to dx320 you dont have emphasize on any frequencies it is presented as they are kinda like a unaltered frequency wave. In comparison 1zm2 is more bassy and very thick sounding and it has that particular sony flavor to the tuning. Some folks may dislike that cause its a lot of sony sound. Dx320 is more transparent in that sense and wile its natural and analog sounding its still very transparent and source fidel.

But the advantages stops here for sony! As dx320 has a very strong and powerful dac in my opinion and not falling behind by any mean at all. The decision to go film capacitors by ibasso was a tremendous awesome wise move. To me it creates such engaging natural enjoyable wow sound presentation. The most amazing star of the show with dx320 is always the vocals in my experience and no matter what amp it always makes vocal very enjoyable to listen.

Amp 13 is in my opinion also the most great music experience out of dx320, it improves the soundstage/expansion of the music, brings in the musicality in a reference aproach, you have 2 jacks 1 is more warmer and tubey and the second one is more clean reference natural like sounding, strong volume and amplitude output. Very natural and never treble edgy, neither in mids high or treble highs.

I personally loce amp 13 and the stronger output jack, it has the most perfect sound tuning for my T5 headphones, also you can use dac 1 or 2 to fine tune your signature. D1 is very refence and fast in dynamics, D2 is more musical and has a longer decay, specially in bass. If you have more colder neutral headphones this option is great for that. Since my headphones are already warm and bassier the D1 suites better.


In quick conclusive words,

Dx320 doesn’t lack behind flagship daps and I think it sits right there behind by 1-3% behind the top dogs crazy over priced daps on the entire planet, it is a true remarkable piece of art offering us such a dap with huge performance for so affordable value, this merits huge shout outs! Very happy to have the dx320 on board and enjoying every little bote of it daily!


I am waiting for my wm1a m2 to arrive and thats my next ultimate test comparison for my dx320 challenge test.
In the end I will keep only the best one according to my preference



IMPORTANT:

I realized that stock amp has RIBONS tape!!! For the 2.5 and 3.5 jacks on the board and that only the 4.4mm jack is straight solder to the board…. Well I am sorry but thats A HUGE BUMMER! Cause ribon affects sound quality and is a big downgrade in my opinion.
The 4.4 sounds more direct and dynamic and powerful in comparison to the more melow and lofy 3.5 and 2.5 ones.


The amp13 also have ribon tape but only on the nutube section, the jacks are soldered, it don’t seems to affect the quality as much but I bet if there was no ribons it be more engaging.

Well me I am against ribons, so when I saw it I was kinda shocked

 

[Tomm11]

This thread has high entertainment value beyond that of the DX320 itself.

 

[AnalogandDigital]

This thread has high entertainment value beyond that of the DX320 itself.

We have love here in all directions ...

 

[Maxx134]

Dx320 doesn’t lack behind flagship daps and I think it sits right there behind by 1-3% behind the top dogs crazy over priced daps on the entire planet

Get the amp board "EX" or "EXN" as it outperform stock by at least that much.

I'm currently also trying a whitigir amp11EX. It gives a bit more soundstage depth over the amp11mk2s bit closer smooth mids presentation, plus this amp11EX also has more bass depth and top end air.

I would say the stock dx320 amp11mk2s strength is the musicality with the melted buttery smooth mids and clarity. .
The amp13 seemed more like creamy whipped butter smoothness to me , lol

 

[DarginMahkum]

No need for threats, I'll delete my account, if I'll find where that option is. Have a nice burn in.

Welcome to the world of HeadFi where even the micro SD cards defy the laws of physics. The science that makes it possible for billions of transistors to function perfectly billions of times per second stops at the edge of the ears of a HeadFier, like a blackhole. Don't read everything so seriously, read them also for fun.

 

[Painterspal]

It’s been a couple of weeks since I commented on my DX320 so here’s an update.

I reckon I’ve passed the 100 hour mark on the stock amp and I’ve been very happy with the sound which I think has improved slightly with burn in - but it was good to start with, so it’s hard to be completely sure. Battery life has also improved and I now find it perfectly acceptable. I get about 8-9 hours with mainly CD quality or high res files. I’m not going to do any detailed comparisons except to say that while it shares a similar tonality to my venerable, but well-regarded Questyle QXP1r, but it simply does everything a little bit better sound-wise: better dynamics, better transparency, better micro details etc. Overall, those incremental improvements add up to a worthwhile gain, the DX320 simply sounds more convincingly musical, even if the Questyle isn’t completely disgraced.

The one thing it shares with the Questyle that I wish it didn’t is a slightly dodgy user experience. For example, using the Mango OS, occasionally I’ll select a track and the screen will just go black. After a few seconds the track at the start of the album appears, rather than the one I’ve selected. However, I’m not that bothered about it and it’s a small price to pay for the sound quality on offer. No doubt a fix will eventually be issued.

However, having a strong general preference for tube amp sound, I couldn’t resist buying the amp 13 too. Before it arrived I was concerned about hiss with my Noble Kaiser Encores, which is what I mostly use at the moment. They were fine with the amp 11 mk2 - a superbly black background - but would hiss also be absent with the amp 13? I detected faint hiss on the high output port, but none at all on the low output, so that’s the one I’ve used, with gain set to high. I’m pretty stoked by this.

In terms of sound quality, if other high end DAPs are better than the DX323 then they must be pretty remarkable, because I simply have run out of superlatives to describe my reaction. I’m pretty old (!) and I’ve been testing it with music that, in some cases, I’ve been listening to for well over 40 years. I’ve heard these recordings on really high end speaker systems from vinyl, and on high end desktop headphone set ups too, but to hear them sounding so good on a portable system is well, simply astonishing.

I’m frequently musical noticing details I hadn’t previously noticed and the way good hi-res recordings are presented is sometimes almost holographic - it’s so transparent you get a really convincing sense of the players in a three dimensional space. It just sounds very real, an open window on the music, which is exactly what I want.

I listen to a lot of orchestral music which I think is really hard to get right on a headphone system. 60-plus musicians playing together demands weight and strong dynamics, a sense of the room acoustic with lots of staging cues, both width and depth. I often find portable systems, and even good solid state desktop systems, can come up short, sounding thin and a bit flat. Not so here with the amp13. I’ve been dipping into favourite recordings and frequently staying for the whole symphony or concerto. It’s completely natural and beautifully layered. You can pick out the different lines being played by each section of the orchestra or individual players, and follow them as you wish, but it’s never distracting. I frequently forget I’m listing to a recording or clever electronics, and just end up transported into the music. I confess there have even been one or two chin-wobbling moments, it’s that good.

Rock and folk of various varieties has been sounding great too, although stuff that’s been recorded or remastered badly can be pretty awful. For example, I didn’t much enjoy the remastered brick-walled recording of The Manic Street Preachers’ Everything must go album. However, I’m often pleasantly surprised by what I’m hearing. Depending on your preferences, you might want more of a particular characteristic - more slam or whatever - but in terms of getting the basics right, which I see as extracting as much from the original recording as possible and delivering it to your ears in a faithful and musical way, the Dx323 succeeds brilliantly.

So for me it’s a keeper and I think it’s also that rarest of things in hifi, something that while expensive actually seems reasonably priced for what it delivers, particularly compared to the higher-priced alternatives. Just my two pence worth…

 

[voja]

Thing is, for a long time I've avoided posting on here because of the large number of people that talk nonsense about mambo-jambo and react aggressively.

I was only triggered when a certain well know member tried to back his nonsense about "burn in" with some "science" because he is well aware most people don't know what that means and are too lazy to check it up. And even if they do bother, they likely won't understand (and that's normal). But it gives people the impression that there is some scientific background. Unfortunately this is now a widely used tactic to spread lies and conspiracies. There is no scientific backing for "burning in", none whatsoever. It's your choice to believe in it, like it's your choice to belive in God, just don't pretend there is any science behind it. There isn't.

I think your concerns are more than reasonable. What you said is true. I understand your frustration.

The thing is, nowadays people completely misuse the term "burn-in". 95% of the time they are talking about "break-in", which refers to the physical change of something that alters the sound performance (e.g. the driver in headphones). I don't know whether there are any measurements of that, but I guarantee you that it is real, at least with headphones. I have two pairs of the iBasso SR2. One that I've used for some time, and another one that has less than 1h of playtime. The two sound different.

However, 99% of the people talking about burn-in only have a single device, which is.... yeah. I cannot trust someone's ears to remember the sound of something from weeks, months, years ago. I think it is necessary to have two devices that sound the same. Once you have that, you can start using one and after X amount of time compare the two. Of course, I don't expect normal consumers to purchase two products just for the sake of proving their point.

The frustrating part is when you yourself cannot tell the difference and there is no scientific backing up to "convince" you that it's legit. As a big skeptic myself, I would never believe the "mambo-jambo", so I get where you are coming from. There's too much of it, plus, people act like you should trust them... Like you said, they get aggressive when you ask for facts and science — if I were in their position, I would just respectfully agree that what I'm talking about is highly subjective and that I cannot scientifically prove it. Also, to clarify, I don't know who got aggressive with you and what I have written is not personally directed at anyone! It's just a general observation and my opinion.

I am actually wondering why nobody tried to do a scientific test to find out whether break-in is real. I'm specifically talking about headphones, amps, and DACs. It's not something that's hard to do. Especially when you got the resources to do it. But, for example, if you were to do a scientific test for headphones, you would need to measure both sets and make sure they have the "same" FR curve beforehand (of course, both sets completely new). Once you confirm that, you would use the other pair for some weeks, and then you would come back and measure it.

Something I think about often when burn-in is mentioned, especially when very subjective things are mentioned (e.g. soundstage, imaging, separation) is "wouldn't these factors alter the FR?". If you think about it, if one element is closer/further away, it is more/less present. Therefore, shouldn't it directly affect the frequency response?

While I was early into this hobby, I was skeptical that amps alter sound. I was skeptical that DACs alter sound. Damn, when my friend told me that microSD cards altered sound, I questioned the whole hobby... I thought to myself "Are these people insane" A SD card altering sound??". However, you live and learn. Now, I notice a difference in sound in all of these. Don't forget, I'm an extreme skeptic, so if I don't actually and genuinely hear something, I cannot believe it.
The microSD card thing, I had a DX300 with a Micron microSD card. Same files. Extremely quick A/B testing between internal memory and the microSD card, I noticed a difference each time. If it weren't for that irl experience, I would've never believe anyone that this was possible or genuine. ALSO: it is very, very important that you approach things like that with no bias. You must experience them neutrally or otherwise you will hear what you want to hear =) Prejudice will lead you nowhere.

Valid A/B testing is the only way you can genuinely hear a difference in something if you are a skeptic like myself. The key part is "valid". If I have a single device and I've been using it for some time, how the hell am I going to reliably remember how it sounded like X time ago? These sorts of concerns are very real and very valid.

There's a lot of nice and respectful people here. I would actually say the majority. For example, @Whitigir always looks for a legit way to back up his observations in great depth, which is something I greatly respect. He also never tries to convince others about his observations (e.g. when he mentioned microSD cards affecting sound, he put a disclaimer to disregard what he wrote if that's something you don't believe in). However, some people cannot tolerate being confronted when it comes to subjective things with no scientific or other sort of reliable backing up. I know there is no way you can convince me to believe someone's ears to have reliable memory for weeks, months, years.

@horatiu the only advice I can give you is not to try to confront these people and convince them to agree with you. It's impossible, it will not happen. Just make sure that you yourself are sane and that your concerns are valid. Trust your ears, enjoy what you are listening to, have your beliefs. Anything other than that is a waste of your time & energy, trust me. I've been there.



Now, let's get back to discussing the DX320

 

[BlueA]

I realized that stock amp has RIBONS tape!!!

Thanks a lot for sharing that discovery! It explain how this could have been an ever more performing device.
Do you think that it can be modded to test the assertion?

 

[DarginMahkum]

ALSO: it is very, very important that you approach things like that with no bias.

Knowledge and competence cannot be disregarded in evaluation just for being objective, and simply classified as bias.

Yeah, now back to DX320.

 

[Altes]

I think your concerns are more than reasonable. What you said is true. I understand your frustration.

The thing is, nowadays people completely misuse the term "burn-in". 95% of the time they are talking about "break-in", which refers to the physical change of something that alters the sound performance (e.g. the driver in headphones). I don't know whether there are any measurements of that, but I guarantee you that it is real, at least with headphones. I have two pairs of the iBasso SR2. One that I've used for some time, and another one that has less than 1h of playtime. The two sound different.

However, 99% of the people talking about burn-in only have a single device, which is.... yeah. I cannot trust someone's ears to remember the sound of something from weeks, months, years ago. I think it is necessary to have two devices that sound the same. Once you have that, you can start using one and after X amount of time compare the two. Of course, I don't expect normal consumers to purchase two products just for the sake of proving their point.

The frustrating part is when you yourself cannot tell the difference and there is no scientific backing up to "convince" you that it's legit. As a big skeptic myself, I would never believe the "mambo-jambo", so I get where you are coming from. There's too much of it, plus, people act like you should trust them... Like you said, they get aggressive when you ask for facts and science — if I were in their position, I would just respectfully agree that what I'm talking about is highly subjective and that I cannot scientifically prove it. Also, to clarify, I don't know who got aggressive with you and what I have written is not personally directed at anyone! It's just a general observation and my opinion.

I am actually wondering why nobody tried to do a scientific test to find out whether break-in is real. I'm specifically talking about headphones, amps, and DACs. It's not something that's hard to do. Especially when you got the resources to do it. But, for example, if you were to do a scientific test for headphones, you would need to measure both sets and make sure they have the "same" FR curve beforehand (of course, both sets completely new). Once you confirm that, you would use the other pair for some weeks, and then you would come back and measure it.

Something I think about often when burn-in is mentioned, especially when very subjective things are mentioned (e.g. soundstage, imaging, separation) is "wouldn't these factors alter the FR?". If you think about it, if one element is closer/further away, it is more/less present. Therefore, shouldn't it directly affect the frequency response?

While I was early into this hobby, I was skeptical that amps alter sound. I was skeptical that DACs alter sound. Damn, when my friend told me that microSD cards altered sound, I questioned the whole hobby... I thought to myself "Are these people insane" A SD card altering sound??". However, you live and learn. Now, I notice a difference in sound in all of these. Don't forget, I'm an extreme skeptic, so if I don't actually and genuinely hear something, I cannot believe it.
The microSD card thing, I had a DX300 with a Micron microSD card. Same files. Extremely quick A/B testing between internal memory and the microSD card, I noticed a difference each time. If it weren't for that irl experience, I would've never believe anyone that this was possible or genuine. ALSO: it is very, very important that you approach things like that with no bias. You must experience them neutrally or otherwise you will hear what you want to hear =) Prejudice will lead you nowhere.

Valid A/B testing is the only way you can genuinely hear a difference in something if you are a skeptic like myself. The key part is "valid". If I have a single device and I've been using it for some time, how the hell am I going to reliably remember how it sounded like X time ago? These sorts of concerns are very real and very valid.

There's a lot of nice and respectful people here. I would actually say the majority. For example, @Whitigir always looks for a legit way to back up his observations in great depth, which is something I greatly respect. He also never tries to convince others about his observations (e.g. when he mentioned microSD cards affecting sound, he put a disclaimer to disregard what he wrote if that's something you don't believe in). However, some people cannot tolerate being confronted when it comes to subjective things with no scientific or other sort of reliable backing up. I know there is no way you can convince me to believe someone's ears to have reliable memory for weeks, months, years.

@horatiu the only advice I can give you is not to try to confront these people and convince them to agree with you. It's impossible, it will not happen. Just make sure that you yourself are sane and that your concerns are valid. Trust your ears, enjoy what you are listening to, have your beliefs. Anything other than that is a waste of your time & energy, trust me. I've been there.



Now, let's get back to discussing the DX320

I like what you and Horatio said. The only problem is that Horatio declares that something has no need for debugging/troubleshooting/retesting because the math and theory was "supposed" to produce x result. Ofc that is not true as you may plug in all correct mathematical formulas in a code and you can still have the final product result being not as intended. This is why experiencing the result is always higher priority than the math and theory. The math and theory are used to try to produce the result, but the result is always tested in "real life" experience (even if we run the risk of the tester having blurring vision that day).

In this case, I recall Sony did change the treble frequencies of their XM4 TWS (which was over -10dB below general preference target) in a firmware update. Therefore, direct change in sound is possible afaik.

But on the other hand, as another user pointed out, indirect change is also possible, which means iBasso didn't even need to have the intention to change sound. That user brought up unaccounted for variables causing indirect change, such as power being affected by battery usage changes.

Even if a tester "might" be wrong, we still go through the back and forth process of verifying and adjusting until we find out if the fault was in the engineering side or in the tester side. One would never simply ignore one or the other, but test until they know who was wrong, then they are confident the product is complete as intended.

We know the users have no intent to spread misinformation because the users were the ones who wanted official iBasso representative to check on and address this issue.

We are 1 simple step away, asking Paul@iBasso to actually confirm or address this with the engineering team. My only problem is that while they were just asking Paul@iBasso to verify/address this sound change, Horatio's comment sounded like, "Stop Paul, there is no need to address this cause math exists."

If we're all waiting for Paul to confirm, then why jump in to intervene right before that?