Looking to upgrade my dac/amp for use with Ether 2 (from iFi Micro iDSD Black Label and Centrance HiFi-M8). Due to my nomadic use case scenario, need to keep to an all-in-one dac/amp unit. Was thinking transportable, but could go with a corded unit. Any Woo WA8 or WA11 users out there? How's the Ether 2 synergy? Others I should consider (under $2,500) that pair well with Ether2?
Have you thought about Hugo2?
Since ether2 is kinda dark sounding headphone (at least to me it was) I think that hugo2 will be good pairing with it's brighter more technical approach.
But as always YMMV
I admit it, I have too much gear. And I had never spent much time with Hugo 2 driving Ether 2.
So after reading these posts, I decided to go home and give it a try tonight. Listening right now with the following chain:
Cowon Plenue II mk2 ==> Hugo 2 (via Lifatec optical) ==> Ether 2 (Perf E2 pads).
And frankly, I really expected to hear what
@alxw0w predicted — good synergy between H2 & E2. I ended up comparing it to with Utopia. I figured that would give me the starkest sensitive what was missing from the E2. The consensus is the highs are rolled off, and the notion is that H2 would help with that.
What I ended up with was that from mids through highs, I really wanted halfway between the HERE’s the DETAIL presentation of Utopia to the ‘the detail is there if you listen’ approach of E2.
But the lower mids through sub-bass go to to E2 on every test track I tried.
Couple examples:
Joni Mitchell track w/ solo steel-string acoustic guitar. From E2 it’s subdued behind the first verse but becomes progressively more prominent later in the track — still under her vocal, but much closer, and about equal with the reed which comes in late. From Utopia it starts nearly even w/ the vocal, and is louder in the end. And it’s stuff like her fingers on the strings which is accentuated. In addition, her voice comes out shrill sometimes.
Dead tracks where some of Jerry’s clang is either a bit subdued or a bit much. More detail from Utopia — more nuance in vocals, a bit more plaintive sweetness from Jerry’s guitar. More space from E2, especially on ensemble numbers where the song opens up. Utopia can seem crowded with unnatural imaging.
London Grammer bass is waaayyyy tame from Utopia, deeply thunderous from E2.
Caveat, E2 pushes H2 pretty hard — I’m in green/blue territory most of the time, although that’s plenty loud. In contrast, Utopia is red/a little yellow.
For fun I tried the same tracks/same DAP optical into my mScaler/TT2 stack and compared the two again. And they were closer together, with more of the difference coming from E2 seeming more ‘lively’ versus Utopia ‘calming down’.
Then I did the real acid test:
H2/E2 vs FiiO M15/E2 — if it’s not significantly better, why bother?
And I have to say, a little better image from H2, more so with well-mastered tracks, flatter from FiiO. Equal amounts of bass, but H2 provides more detail there. But we’re talking small differences which require attentive listening to familiar tracks to seem significant. BTW, Cowon sounded fine, but not powerful enough.
tl;dr — Won’t convince non-believers that E2 highs aren’t subdued, but might get them to say it’s not a deal-breaker. For someone who, like me, enjoys E2 as a relaxed, detailed but not pushy about it, can with great bass, H2 synergises well. It’s definitely a listen I can enjoy for long sessions.
