haloxt
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
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xing3ds, do you want a musical sound or a purist, as close to fidelity for the money sound?
I would also consider FUN B, and Sparrow B, BUT REMEMBER TO ASK FOR WM8741 chip for only $15 more, do not get ad1852 dac chip. You save a lot of money, and according to audio-gd, there is only a small audible difference between version A and B when they use the same dac chip.
I have yet to listen to wm8741 (I would've if audio-gd wasn't giving me such a hard time ordering atm -_-) or es9018, but judging by my experience with some other wolfson dac chips, I think wm8741 would be safer to try than es9018 if you do not know if you prefer a musical or a purist sound.
I view the dac19 which uses pcm1704 as a bang for buck for purists or people aiming for real fidelity to recording. ES9018 has been described by some to be slightly even more neutral than pcm1704, and if so, I would warn people to consider if they want musicality or closest fidelity, because of they want musicality, I think there is a very good chance they will prefer the wm8741 in the Fun/sparrow. That is not to say they won't aim for fidelity later on in this hobby, but if you want musicality the NFB-11 may not deliver.
NFB-11 does use diamond differential for low gain amp output, which according to audio-gd should sound a bit softer/warmer than the high gain acss output. And of course it's promo priced atm, while fun and sparrow are not.
I would also consider FUN B, and Sparrow B, BUT REMEMBER TO ASK FOR WM8741 chip for only $15 more, do not get ad1852 dac chip. You save a lot of money, and according to audio-gd, there is only a small audible difference between version A and B when they use the same dac chip.
I have yet to listen to wm8741 (I would've if audio-gd wasn't giving me such a hard time ordering atm -_-) or es9018, but judging by my experience with some other wolfson dac chips, I think wm8741 would be safer to try than es9018 if you do not know if you prefer a musical or a purist sound.
I view the dac19 which uses pcm1704 as a bang for buck for purists or people aiming for real fidelity to recording. ES9018 has been described by some to be slightly even more neutral than pcm1704, and if so, I would warn people to consider if they want musicality or closest fidelity, because of they want musicality, I think there is a very good chance they will prefer the wm8741 in the Fun/sparrow. That is not to say they won't aim for fidelity later on in this hobby, but if you want musicality the NFB-11 may not deliver.
NFB-11 does use diamond differential for low gain amp output, which according to audio-gd should sound a bit softer/warmer than the high gain acss output. And of course it's promo priced atm, while fun and sparrow are not.