Some days I really hate this hobby.
TLDR: the dx300 and dx228 are both fantastic players and depending on whether you value ”naturalness” and ”width” over ”spatial accuracy”, ”clearly defined layers in space outwards” and higher resolution in the low frequencies, your preferences will go to the former or the latter.
The story
I love my dx228, really. In my humble, totally personal not be taken as gospel opinion, that thing is the ultimate TOTL DAP killer. I've listened to everything else (except M8, R8, but yes, all high end AK, Lotoo, Fiio), never found anything that made me change, except it's best companion, the H2 (more on that later*)
Then only fairly recently I heard about the dx300. Holy moly, a more technically advanced architecture, better power management, amp8 derived amp11...?!? Made me hyper excited and hit the order button pretty quickly. Spent serious money on the dx300. But then...
In all the obvious practical ways it's a much better experience than the dx220/8 (SOC, OS, screen, battery life (!!, damn you dx228), overall UX as a media consumption device).
But sound...
In some ways it scores better points ”subjectively ” wider, more ”natural” (what the screw does that even mean anyway with headphones?),
”timbre”/”naturalness” in real instruments,
”immersiveness” (puke... sorry guys).
But...
If width comes at the expense of layers in depth
If naturalness comes at the expense of separation
And if ”mid-high bass muddiness” compromises the layering and low end ”transparency” (puke)
... then the choice for the newer, brighter sexier thing comes at a grave cost.
Without knowing what the amp modules will bring, I feel I'm in position where statistically it makes more sense to sell the dx300 keep most of my money and be perfectly happy soundwise with my dx228 (on the move) and the H2 (at home, never really used as straight comparison, rather an anchor point -- more on that in the end*) .
Disclaimer 1: some people much prefer natural sound over crazy 3D spaciousness, seperation and layering. Great, dx300 will be amazing for you, it's a fantastic unit. Piano, strings, etc... trumps dx228 no question. So you'll love it !!
I listen mostly to of-the-now highly complex, masterfully engineered electronic music and impeccably engineered metal and hip-hop with dozens of layers in the space and frequency domains (yes, I went there). The dx228 represents those elements much more precise in both frequency and spatial domains. That's my thing, may not be your thing. Suubbjjjeeeecttttivvee.
*remember higher up I said dx228 is flipping awesome in some ways? Well if you like them ways, you owe it do yourself to hook up a dx220 over optical to Hugo2 and experience, what is in my humble experience, in some ways a dx228 with all the good attributes turned up to 11 and the end result is the culmination (to date that I have heard) of how far you can push that type of sound (super 3D, pin accurate spatial positioning, blaaaaaack background, surgical knife cuts defining the elements of separation, well balanced, tight bass but still all the extension you ever need etc etc...). Shouldn't come as a surprise my Anchor point to evaluate everything to eventually
