To provide another perspective, I’ve been using my DX300 with EE Odins and find I am so far enjoying it more than my sp1000m. It is not even close in terms of general speediness and user experience, the DX300 wins by a mile there. The SP1000m does have an advantage in terms of being more pocketable and once I am back to commuting this may turn into more of a consideration, but for now it’s a wash because the advantages of the DX300’s beautiful, large screen out way the inconveniences of the larger size. Particularly when needing to use a keyboard to search for things, the the SP1000m’s screen has always felt a little cramped, which is definitely not the case on the DX300.
It is still early days (I have ~70 hrs on the DX300), but I am finding myself preferring the DX300’s sound. I do not notice much of a difference in terms of absolute detail retrieval—the SP1000m has always been excellent here and the DX300 matches it at least—but there is definitely a difference in the separation, sounstage, space, texture, and in particular, depth of the sound with the DX300 pulling ahead here. Volume matching and listening to the same tracks on Tidal on both DAPs with my Odins, with both MQA master tracks as well as normal hifi 16-bit/44.1khz “hifi” tracks, the DX300 has a little more space around the notes, a little bit better separation between the instruments, and a noticeable amount more depth to the sounds, which gives an overall more 3-dimensional, holographic sense to the music. By comparison, on the SP1000m, the music, while lovely and detailed, sounds like it is all coming at you from the same plane in space. For example, listening to the intro to the Eagles 1994 live on MTV version of Hotel California (an MQA master track in Tidal), the guitars and particularly the bongos have more depth, space, texture, and overall sense of wholeness to them vs the SP1000m, which sounds much more like you are listening to a recording being reproduced. This overall sense of 3 dimensional out allows for subtle textures to come through and more realistic note decays on the DX300 that are less distinct on the SP1000m. The bass on the DX300 also has the sense of having a little more oomph and gusto, which may be a reflection of both the increased driving power of the DX300 as well as the overall increased sense of space and 3-dimensionality.
The Odins do have a somewhat forward upper midrange, but to my ears, compared to the sp1000m, the added 3-dimensionality of the DX300 generally makes parts that can get closer to the edge in terms of sharpness, less forward comparatively. For me, the Odin’s upper mids have never strayed into the territory of being too sharp, and I’ve never heard the Hiby R8 or Shanling M8, so cannot compare there. However, for me a track that illustrates my point about the difference in the odins upper mids presentation between the SP1000m vs the DX300 is Cyndi Lauper’s “Time after Time”. Listening to a 16-bit/44.1khz (non-MQA) version of the track (version on the Stranger Things soundtrack), around 2:35 in the track, there is a guitar solo, that can get a little close to sounding strident/grating on the SP1000m. On the DX300, because of the more holographic, 3-dimesional presentation, instead of being the most forward sound in the mix, that lead guitar is a bit more contextualized by the bass line, which, while not sounding more forward than the lead guitar, almost buffers the edges of the solo with the depth, drive, and increased spatial “wholeness” of its notes. The actual notes of the lead guitar may have a little more texture on the DX300, but again, these are better contextualized in the space of the soundstage, taking some edge off.
(you'll notice my post count vs joined date - I tend to come back only after a good long time).
