Please bare with me for this long post. As one of the persons who are deep Into modifications, I have got something to share
The differences between upgrades are almost non distinctive, unless you have all of them side by side for A/B testing. This is due to the human limitations and preferences. Under a certain paired gears, music genres and collections. The minutes differences could be multiplied or almost negligible. However, the works and skills needed to perform these upgrades are multiple folds in difficulties from one to another. Steve pricing reflects on that. The more complex the works, the higher the pricing accordingly.
Now, onto opamps. The option 1 is closer to Ibasso house sound as Ibasso stock also utilizes most of the Opa line ups. It is natural and neutral in general. The ADA is with more density, warmth. Then there are fine tuning analog components behind this
Such as feed through capacitors, feed back capacitors by pass capacitors. They are all cumulatively working in harmony and give the end result just like painting a portrait. Under a certain artists, the same paints, brushes and canvas can be turned a lot more different than another artists. This is where people is getting confused about modifications
In general, modifications isn't always an improvement, but side grading and to be different. Many years back, modifications were seen to be an upgrades. For example, back in the walkman WM1A/Z era. Sony engineered it with all the spacious premises, but then cutting back on the mass productions which resulted in a products when you know what to do, you can stuff it up and improve the system. Of course they did that for multiple reasons, and the one I can think of is
1/ reliability, the more complex a system is, the easier it prone to give a problem
2/ corporations profits, this is not simply greeds for profits, but this is more for a model of a business to be sufficiently prolonging and keep on progressing. In orders for companies to keep existing and producing products, they need to be financially healthy. The only way to do that is to generate profit and reserve it for future developments/productivities/marketing and so on.
Ibasso is one of the most innovative company with products that is so complex from prototypes to productions. Ibasso keeps on challenging this very thin lines of Business vs quality vs profit margin. Case in point is that we have the mass products such as Max series with such complexities that I can not see any other companies to be pulling off. Because the possible complications and return rate could be very high, which could further be very damaging to the future reserves for development.
Even so, Ibasso has not been hesitant in order to chase the goals and motto that the CEO loves. The loves for portable music.
I am sure that many who have been following and supporting Ibasso products do see what I see, feel what I feel, and i feel like posting it out is to be recognized and accepted by others.
One of the many reasons why I have not been developing much modifications recently for Ibasso products are all well within what I just posted
1/ it is to be different
2/ Ibasso products are already very complex with high level of engineering carrying toward productions that we don't see from other companies products even at Twice or Triple the price
3/ As a hobby, modifications turned out to be a great strain on me financially. All the developments, failures, investments are $ into the trash bin because I can not keep up with it in the while having Zero return for future developments. It was fun while it lasted and God knows how much I invested and trashed my $.
In the ends, especially for Ibasso products, modifications is just to be different, specifically for your own personal preferences. Modifications for othe products such as Hiby, AK, Sony, Cayin....ect... could be an improvement (plausibly so). But the speed of future productions and new releases are too frequent and too fast, it renders all of the Investments to be useless. By the time a new mods are out and done on your player, you are probably seeing new prototypes which is about to be 3 months to release by that time.
How much more battery drain did you notice for each amp compared to Amp11mk2?
