Okay, some quick thoughts on my experience with the DX100 last Friday. I had limited time listening to it and the music was completely unfamiliar so proper comparisons and conclusions are difficult. Still I had a good overall impression.
All of the thoughts below are with the Westone ES5.
The DX100 hardware is nice. It's bigger than I thought but as my earlier photos showed, it's quite reasonable for an all in one unit. The brushed metal is attractive and overall it exudes class.
I think that the Sabre DAC is dynamic and detailed while remaining quite musical. It isn't dry or overly bright like my CL-based MicroDAC. It is perhaps a bit less organic and musical than the Wolfsen WM874X DAC chips found in the D7 and the CLAS but there is a natural trade-off there given the extra energy of the Sabre. I would emphasize that these are my general impressions. Without common music (or even genres), I could not make real comparisons.
So which do i prefer between the DX100 and the CLAS? A better question would be whether I would prefer the DX100 with the Sabre or the WM874X. I honestly don't know. I think that they are both very good chips. I find the Wolfsen to be smooth and sweet but the Sabre was anything but dry and there was something exciting about the sound. Too early to say.
The DX100 amp's volume control is outstanding. As an ES5 owner I really appreciate the fine low volume control. Also excellent is the volume scaling of the DAC. Some on here noted distortion from the line out at full volume. That would almost certainly be a limitation of the amps receiving the signal. Most portable amps max out around 2vrms and the DX100 Sabre line out seems to be very loud. The Stepdance can accept a very loud input and I can confirm that there was no distortion from the DX100 at full line out volume. However that made for rather loud listening through the ES5. Here is where the DX100 shone. I could adjust the line out volume down to about 70-80% and get fantastic volume control with the Stepdance and my ES5.
Which leads naturally to a discussion of the amp itself. I think that it is good - certainly better than the T3D and probably better than the T5. I think that it is good enough to make for an attractive all-in-one package. Still, when I ran the line-out to the Stepdance, things got really fun. It is a material step up. (Then again I recently did a lot of auditioning in HK and I found that the Stepdance kiled just about everything except the L3 - and the latter, while sounding just great, is big and heavy, and also hisses with the ES5.) I am thinking that the DX100 + the 2Stepdance would be a killer brick in not too large a form factor. (The 2SD being quite a bit smaller than my original.) Importantly, the DX100 internal amp did not hiss with the ES5 which is impressive. It didn't create quite the same inky blackness as running the line out to the Stepdance. The amp was definitely "on". But it was plenty clean.
So what is my feeling on the total package compared to my current Classic+CLAS+Stepdance rig? While the iPod+CLAS has the advantage of being pretty much bullet-proof - it just plain works - assuming resolution of the bugs, I prefer the form-factor of the DX100 to a CLAS based system. Volume control is better, both stand-alone and with the Stepdance. That is a biggie for me.
I cannot say definitively whether the CLAS+Stepdance sounds better or worse than the DX100+Stepdance or even just the DX100. I can only say that the DX100+Stepdance sounds better than the DX100 which is not surprising given the active balanced ground and the substantial juice that the SD consumes.
Of course, in comparing the Sabre and WM874X, individual taste will come into play. They are different approaches to making music.
If I wasn't being careful with funds right now, and if I didn't already own my rig., I suspect that I would take the risk and jump at the DX100. And I would focus, at least initially, on using it as a stand-alone unit. My impression is that it is good enough - which is to say, it is pretty damn good.
Hell, I may cave and buy it anyway, finances be damned.
But it sure would help if I could audition it with some recognizable music...!
