Break In:
after 100 hours (+) the sound has changed enough to comment..
Now it always amazes me how many of the ‘science’ guys discount equipment sound changing with some run in. (or even cables being practical to tailor a sound/making a difference)
I suppose it is one of those things that a person has to experience for themself before understanding it is ‘a thing’. (and yes I am familiar with the arguments, ad nauseum, that the changes are ‘me’ adjusting to the sound etc.)
So please skip this post if the notion of its contents offends your beliefs, or that you think a person foolish for believing it to be so..
Of course there is a reason many reviewers WILL NOT review equipment ‘fresh from a box’, and whilst it is generally more noticeable with equipment with moving parts (eg speaker driver surrounds), that ‘front end electronics’ do change, not just with warm up, but also with initial use/run in.. means that many will ’go easy’ on a product fresh from the box until it has had a chance to settle somewhat.
Having kept the Diablo firing on all cylinders; alternating between output from the rear and front of the amp, and feeding it near exclusively 16bit 44khz via fibre optic, I have noticed a significant change in terms of sound output.
This morning, doing my typical ‘6am check’ (more than half my ‘break in’ happens at night whilst I am sleeping), I started with some Lamb to get me awake instantly to its sound (I was already ’awake’ having hung washing out in the cool morning air);
This was with the Diablo in ‘Eco’ power output with the dial up to 2o’clock - which is as loud as I can handle driving some ‘fairly sensitive’ over ears, some Utrasone Edition 5, which due to their design which fires the sound onto the whole ear (not aimed direct at the ear canal), are known for allowing sound around 3dB louder and sounding ‘equal’.. (this isn’t marketing, either as I know it to be true, to the point of buying some Ultrasones for my child to listen to now they are a teenager and have moved to punk, alternate and industrial catalogues as part of their music range)
In short- ”loud was the listening preference’;
Lamb - Lamb Remixed - Wonder (Dead Guys Vocal Mix), there is a part in this track where a radio DJ cuts in and different headphones can reveal the cut to the the sound from the simulated DJ equipment either as a drop on volume (lesser headphones/amp not getting the compression right) through to ‘overly revealing’ (if clinical) where a noise with the DJs feed comes through.. There is a beaut middle ground, that the Diablo resolves, and that is what I believe the track should give. Listening today, the track sounded perfect. VS my first day experience, it was a touch too clinical. This was good, as I have been checking constantly to see if the Diablos trick is like resolving like a Sabre DAC chip, which to me, is typical implementations that are ‘very digital’; and to those who like their digital sounding, erm, clean and bright/sharp, then this can be a good thing. As a person who used to seek out Ken Ishiwatas’ special edition marantz CD players (some with bamboo boards and offset angles in their engineering etc) I fall into the camp of wanting my digital to sound analogue. (these are, after all, Digital to Analogue Converters)..
Hearing Lamb this morning sound ‘better’ than it did ‘straight out the gate’ (new from the box), it had me quickly check with a few more tracks,.. so over to-
Lamb - Fear of Fours -(1) Soft Mistake,(3) B Line,(6) Bonfire,(7) Ear Parcel,(8) Softly,(9) Here; by the time I got to Softly I was tearing up knowing what I was about to experience.. before Louises’ vocal could fully form the opening lyric I knew, based on the albums‘ tracks playing out superbly up to this point, what I could expect.
Lamb is drum and bass if my local music stores labelling is to be believed. This album, which I had intended to play only a ‘track or two’ like everything through the Diablo DAC, draws me in and keeps me listening. It is all just better. Some of that interest belongs to how it soundstages and images. Some is the joyus delivery of what it outputs, but most of it goes to being enthralled by an analogue sound that is just ‘better’. Its when dynamics are being driven with wide range and low notes and low level information is played back ’not artificial‘ but softly and fully resolved (not with decayed edges) at the same time as playing clean metallic sounds at large volume, (and everything in between) all in a non fatiguing way.. It just keeps a keen audiofool riveted to their seat.
OK so I was in bed lying down,.. but, well, “I WAS RIVITED”!.
A few days ago I had the inverse effect, on some IEMs, known to have a softer top end, and knowing that the DAC might filter hard beyond 17khz, there was a strange effect. I was literally nauseous from ‘too much sound stage and, the bass felt overdriven.. It was uncomfortable as I felt claustrophobic/and disconnected from the physical plane, and wanting to pull the buds from my ears, yet at the same time the sheer scale and sound stage, especially front to back, and ‘beyond normal limits of left to right’ that I had become accustomed to hearing, was ‘too much for my senses’. I endured (poor me), but noticed when I pulled the buds out that a real ’pop’ sound happened. I had, in my enthusiasm for my first listen with them, shoved them further into my ears than anytime previous. A dual flange tip, I had never had ‘that level’ of seal. It explained why I couldn’t handle the bass.. It wasn’t a loud level but the Diablos’ ability to resolve so cleanly and naturally, made the whole experience very disconcerting.
Gtting back to Lamb being (or not being) drum n bass, by the time ‘Ear Parcel’ played, I had realised that something had certainly changed in the Diablo over the last week..
soundstaging has moved firmly forward. This has come at what might say is a recession in the leading edge of each note, it now sounds like a ‘dark amp’ if I am describing this correctly. The Diablo is no longer (potentially) bright, or, any nuance of digital edge is gone. Notes still decay properly Every note and sound effect still has air, and beautiful placement,.. but now a little sharpness that ‘wasn’t really there’ is gone. And the cohesion that this experience pulls together is resolved by the brain as ‘better imaging’. It might translate to less ‘left to right’ scope, but really it totals as a better presentation. At no point do I feel the music is in my head now.
Playing onto tracks (12)Five, and, (13)Lullaby - I did mention that the listening experience is
addictive- this is the best translation of this album I have heard. It has bested the best I have heard previously (and that was through a setup worth more than many peoples homes (just the structure, not including furniture, but, maybe also the land).. now I gather that headphones setups cost ’a lot less’ than speaker/hifi rigs to hit the same level of quality.. Without doubt the Diablo is impressing me for its relative ‘toy’ cost (and look) in a tier of diminishing returns that is big dollar high fidelity audio.
Having spanned a few Lamb albums, I truly wondered if I had lost all high frequency sharpness.. it was too placed to far away and seemed ‘less bright’. I was starting to think of this part as ‘dark’ when my belief up to this point is ‘exceptionally neutral’ and flatline, just ‘getting out of the way’ and letting the audio happen, as was recorded, but delivering the best renditions of notes with nuance and texture surrounded by air and being organic; so onto-
Daft Punk - Discovery -(2) Aerodynamic.. nope, brilliant, I was wrong to believe that high frequency was chilled.. This track does some interesting things with the frequencies, and when the bass kicks in, with such control and measure, whilst delivering such crisp and clean response with high frequencies that could cut a bread loaf.. if it is recorded, it will playback intact. This naturally led to the best version of track (4) ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ that I have ever heard.
So knowing that the Diablo was getting better, and now had its musical chops being more realised, time to give it something to wow me:
Delirium - Karma - (4) Silence; this is a track that I have spent most of my listens to at 48khz, due to it being on a great compilation music DVD, to say I know this track well is an understatement, and the extra ~10% more samples (at 48khz) means that CDs can sound weak or ‘thin’ by comparison. This was the most organic take on this track. The low level echos and instruments at the threshold of low hearing (this with the volume pot at the 2o’clock spot) blew me away. I am now keen to nab some balanced cables to claim the extra ‘up to 6dB’ of dynamic range that can be had. (thanks
@ianjturner for reminding me).. oh and Sarah McLachlans‘ spirited singing is divine (her studio albums are fantasitc)
So back to opening tracks on Enigma - MCMXC (one of my test tracks for soundstage), yep definitely a soundstage that has moved forward, with the net effect being a less perceived left to right pan, but vastly improved due to being placed in air in a ‘very real soundfield’ built up before me.
The Diablo has incredible control and very nuanced organic and musical delivery. I stand by my early comments of ‘it gets out of the way’; this is a DAC that appears to not artificially colour music in an effort to make it sound good.. its the opposite- it will reveal a perfectly analogue rendition (with the range of nuances typically only found with big dollar equipment) and if you feed it garbage in, you are going to have that garbage revealed in all its (lack of) splendour.
That being said- many of my seventies recordings have never sounded livelier or ‘more analogue’, and when they have been ‘at parity’ they have had the clicks and pops that one quickly detunes from their perception (Vinyl)
Having Vinyl like sound with stereo bass notes (below 100hz) and not having to get up every half hour (lazy)/or with ability to randomise a collection of music, is digitals strength. The Diablo delivers on the promise of digital audio as a ‘musical’ storage format. I’ve had a lot of DACs that get many aspects of digital/analogue right, but few that do everything the Diablo does, and NONE OF THEM for such little coin outlay.
I would choose this part, cost irrelevant, over most DACs I have ever heard.
(and I didn’t feel THAT way a week ago - a little break in does wonders)
