Marantz NA7004 updated impressions.
A couple of observations which might be of interest if considering the NA7004 for its combination of headphone amp and dac.
For the last few months I have been using the NA7004 as a standalone dac for my modified Bottlehead Crack and I am pleased to say it has been a very good combination.
I have until recently been using the NA7004’s headphone out to run my HD650’S and Beyer T1’s and had been very happy with the sound quality but I can honestly say after building the stock Bottlehead Crack (no Speedball) the Crack is very much in a different class altogether with these high impedance headphones and it really brought them to life.
The dac section of the NA7004 continues to impress me. Over the last month I have modified my BH Crack by adding the Speedball upgrade a stepped attenuator and film caps. The results with the BH Crack have been very pleasing and have taken the already outstanding BH Crack to higher levels than I had thought possible. The dac section of the NA7004 has really been able to scale and shine with increased resolution, timbre and musicality being very noticeable now via the Crack & T1 combination.
Something else that has surprised me is just how good the lower 42 ohms impedance ATH W1000X headphones sound out of the NA7004’s headphone section the ATH’s took a little while to burn in but I can honestly say they sound much more dynamic and better out of the headphone out section of the NA7004 than the HD650’s or Beyer T1’s ever did which while they were ok really only started to sing when the BH Crack came on the scene.
A couple of observations which might be of interest if considering the NA7004 for its combination of headphone amp and dac.
For the last few months I have been using the NA7004 as a standalone dac for my modified Bottlehead Crack and I am pleased to say it has been a very good combination.
I have until recently been using the NA7004’s headphone out to run my HD650’S and Beyer T1’s and had been very happy with the sound quality but I can honestly say after building the stock Bottlehead Crack (no Speedball) the Crack is very much in a different class altogether with these high impedance headphones and it really brought them to life.
The dac section of the NA7004 continues to impress me. Over the last month I have modified my BH Crack by adding the Speedball upgrade a stepped attenuator and film caps. The results with the BH Crack have been very pleasing and have taken the already outstanding BH Crack to higher levels than I had thought possible. The dac section of the NA7004 has really been able to scale and shine with increased resolution, timbre and musicality being very noticeable now via the Crack & T1 combination.
Something else that has surprised me is just how good the lower 42 ohms impedance ATH W1000X headphones sound out of the NA7004’s headphone section the ATH’s took a little while to burn in but I can honestly say they sound much more dynamic and better out of the headphone out section of the NA7004 than the HD650’s or Beyer T1’s ever did which while they were ok really only started to sing when the BH Crack came on the scene.
