Ok---FINALLY have Audirvana installed
It's much better than with Tidal. I'm an eq guy. There is not a piece of equipment that could not benefit from a high quality eq. Which is why I wanted to use Audirvana. I use Fabfilter's Pro Eq 3. Used in major recording studios. Headphones benefit most from eq. I'm a speaker designer as well as a bassist. I design very expensive, high qualiy stuff. Even my best speakers benefit from eq. My latest design for home hifi (haven't decided on a price yet--definitely above $10k) is triamplified with full DSP. Thanks to Crinnacle and the eq guys. I went with their reccommended eq for the Evo. With Audirvana---absolutely astounding. The clearest image articulation I've ever heard. Didn't realize the subtle graininess from Tidal. With Audirvana---tons of detail--no grain. Tested it with Peter Gabriel's Red Rain. So dynamic and dense (and loud) that it can be tough to listen to at realistic levels with almost all gear. It kindof overloads everything sonically. But I know the engineer and know that he would not release anything that wasn't prstine and grain-free. With the Evo and the W0 with Audirvana---dense, loud-- but effortless and not fatiguing.
Yin Lu Mei is definitelt a PITA, but if you're willing to deal with the downsides, this stuff is state of the art.It's a company of insanely good engineers with fantastic ears. I've found that in any audio design, the biggest thing is knowing your goalposts.The first Yin Lu Mei product I got was their dual 4499 m400. It was routinely dismissed as "too warm and without detail". Without eq that may be true. But in taming the low and and bringing up the highs---fantastic sound. I got the dongle dac/amp the S3. I had just bought the Lotoo Paw S2. Very highly regarded---and with good reason. Not even in the ballpark as compared to the S3. Yin Lu Mei upped their game with their recent stuff. Not warm and a bit rolled off like the M400. Very even and detailed. Not like most of the Sabre 9038 stuff. To me--the 9038 stuff is annoyingly over detailed. I much prefer the AK stuff. I Know that Yin is making 9038-based gear due to the AKM shortage. Haven't heard any of it, but from what I know---I prefer the AKM chips.
If you can deal with the annoying peculiarites of dealing with YLM ( unless you're a fluent in Mandarin) the W0 is an incredible best buy.