bluelavender
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2017
- Posts
- 232
- Likes
- 68
No ideas if 9218 shares same archtecture of ES9038. the ES9038 is 8 channels like the ES9018 before it but ES9218 was sold as first quad dac. All I know is from owning all these devices is that SQ for me is G6 beats V20 beats Axon 7 but all fall short of Granbeat which falls short of AK240.
Specs don't mean a thing if implementation falls short. Eg. Axon 7 uses AK4490 but doesn't sound as good as AK380 but doesn't mean AK380 is behind V20. You really need to listen to each complete package and not get distracted by specs.
Yes, implementation is everything. It's just like musical instruments. You can have the best guitar in the world, but if you don't know how to play it, it still sounds nowhere near cheap guitar played by maestro.
It's not just DAC. Wiring & circuitry, routing, software implementations, etc, all play part.