^ That's what I thought Jamato. Alternatively, using the PP from a source with very tight sound works also. The PP sounds phenomenal from DX90, very musical and euphonic. But when PP is paired with my ZX1, you lose the aforementioned qualities, But
in exchange you get extremely tight, quick, hard hitting [size=12.7272720336914px]bass coupled with mids that have a holographic quality and feel like they are projected from in front of you, the mids are a bit cold/sterile though, as is the treble, but separation and imaging are phenomenal. Two great sources for the DX90. [/size]
[size=12.7272720336914px]FYI friends, I'm getting a Pono next as I'm quite interested to see how it sounds due to its circuitry, which is mostly created from discrete circuitry rather than opamps! From teardowns of Pono, it shows[/size][size=12.7272720336914px] that many stages are discrete instead of opamp based, like the IV conversion, LPF, and Output Buffer seem to all be discrete. It gives me the impression of a well engineered bit of kit. Like it has a 3000mAH cylindrical Lith battery (better efficiency, longer life, lower impedance, than a flat battery). It has a dedicated power management chip (usually only seen in some pricier daps, means better SQ, better efficiency) it has two Crystal Oscillators (44.1, 48, only important if into Hi Res recordings), it has balanced output (uses two separate symmetrical circuits after LPF for balanced, single ended is ~1v output, balanced is ~2v output), it has 2000uF of capacitance on the output (1000uF per channel). The only bad part is that it uses OPA4376 for voltage amp, not the best for audio, but they needed a 4 channel opamp so choices were limited, its a bit of a shame really. FYI Pono uses a single ESS9018K2M Dac chip, like Calyx M, or DX90 which uses two.[/size]
[size=12.7272720336914px]It just overall strikes me that an experienced engineer designed the Pono, but what do I know [/size]