Grunter72 is giving a DA8 a listen today. May not be able to compare but we'll just have to await his impressions.
Yes, excuse me for the delay.
Everything I'm going to write is imho, and depends on my tastes.
Last Tuesday I went to my friend Claudio for the first time.
He has a very good full audio-gd stereo system: C39 preamplifier, C10 power amplifier and Ref7 (first version) dac with Sonus Faber Liuto as loudspeakers.
He also has very good headphone system: Hifiman He500 (that I sold to him cause for me has too many bass), Senn hd650, Burson Soloist and Violectric v200.
The first thing that caught my attention listening to Claudio's system is that Ref 7 is a great dac with very realistic timbre, in other words instruments have their real sound, with a deep body to the bass section.
Claudio thinks that Ref7 soundstage is a bit narrow, and that lacks a bit of dynamics, but for me this is not important, because Ref 7 sounds very, very real: a piano is a piano, a string is a string, and most important thing male and female voice are exceptional.
Recordings with few acoustic instruments and voice such jazz quartet or vocal jazz are bread for ref7 teeth.
Ref7 remind me of Burl2 Bomber Dac that has the same naturalness and real timbre and also of Lector Digitube 192 (even if Digitube has more sense of fluency and more richness in mid section).
But... as always audiophile people (and I put me in this group) are searching for some more and something new (apart from their system's goodness), so Claudio would like to have another dac with more airy sound and more dynamics to use with recordings with much more instruments than a jazz quartet (these are him thoughts, not mine, I think Ref7 works very very well also with recordings with many instruments).
So lastly he has bought an Anedio D2, not to replace Ref7 but to have a different sound signature dac to alternate to Ref7.
So we put Anedio D2 in place of Ref7 to try it in his system.
During last months Claudio used this configuration that he prefers over Ref7 being (according to him) more versatile and balanced.
What can I say... the first thing I notice is that all that correctness and reality given by Ref7 is gone away: we have more dynamics, we have greater sound-stage, we have a more airy presentation but every instrument is not the real instrument we have listened to with Ref7, for my ears now we have a reproduction of it made of plastic.
Anedio d2 sound is not for me, it reminds me of M2tech Young (I've listened to some time ago in my system): timbre is not real, is false, so every other aspect (such dynamics, sound-stage, instruments separation) is not important because what I listen to (for my tastes) sounds not real.
Obviously these are my sensations, Claudio globally prefers Anedio d2 to Ref7, for me, on the other end, there is no contest.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
After Anedio d2 we put on Lynx Hilo and now everything (imho) come back to reality. Now we have the airy presentation and the big sound-stage that Claudio looking for, without loosing real and correct timbre. Hilo has lesser body than Ref7 but has more high frequencies refinement maintaining a balanced reproduction and adding great instruments separation.
I put them (Ref7 and Hilo) on the same level, with different sound signature, so is a question of taste if you prefer one or the other.
With Hilo we compared the same recordings in 24-96 pcm and than in dsd (such as Diana Krall "Temptaion" and Pink Floyd "Money) and we agreed that dsd sound more 3d and put you inside music more than pcm. As I've already written, when I choose Hilo I didn't give much importance to dsd, but now I'm happy that Hilo is able to reproduce them.
Meantime arrived also another friend, Matteo (Executive Editor of
www.stereo-head.it) who has receveid from Yulong a Da8 to make a review of it.
So we put on da8 instead of Hilo.
Yulong da8 is a great bang for the buck: good headphone amp (even we didn't test it in such way), volume control to use it without preamp (neither we try it in such way), can read every format up to 32/384pcm, dxd, dsd file up to dsd 512, and sounds good.
How does it sound? Its sound is correct, with good tonal balance and correct timbre, much better (for me) than Anedio d2. Da8 is a bit on the dark side, something that remind me of Senn hd650 sound signature, even if I think da8 is more linear.
So how I put it against Hilo?
In brief I think that Hilo (and also Ref7) worth the money they cost. So if you could afford Hilo imho you make a good choice to go with it instead of da8. Yulong da8 lacks the great high frequencies extensione of Hilo (whithout the harshness of Anedio d2), da8 lacks the instruments separation of Hilo and its bigger sound-stage but, overall, da8 sounds good, so if your system is less revealing than Claudio's one you could be happy with da8, even if Hilo is at a higher level than da8.
Globally I was a little disappointed by da8 cause I thought it could be on par with Hilo, but it was not.
