Gave it a brief rip today through the onboard head amp and lining out to a Woo Audio 6.
Well Mad Max above refers to it sounding musical ~ this one
is a live one that's for sure, very lively through the mid range,
no doubt it sounds a little boosted through the upper mids
at least. The readout on the left is for the pre-amp volume
which is adjustable when lining out to the Woo 6.
It's quite beefy so you find yourself not really using a heap of
volume on the head amp as can be seen on the Woo 6 with
the AT W1000X attached.
It's only early days but as a Rega DAC owner, I found things
to like, it's far from the warmish signature that you get with
the Nuforce HDP ~ if anything it made the Woo 6 sound
almost solid state-ish ~ someone else in the store seconded
this notion.
I'm still quite reluctant though to recommend this to just anyone
out in the wide open space of Head-Fi. Overall, if I took a punt,
a lot of people would grow tired of the DAC-9 ~ it's far from
neutral sounding or relaxed in any shape or form.
If you love Grados, jazz, funk, various rock ~ perhaps take a
chance, if you're a stickler for a dead set neutral eg, Benchmark
DAC1 sound ~ stay far, far, away. Best match of the day was
by chance with a female vocal ~ Winehouse's debut ~ 'Frank'.
Prat and tempo just sounded so right to my ears, even though
I was missing my Grado's for such a definitive win over the Rega.
I'll drop back over the next of couple of days as this unit has yet
to see 6 hours.
Headphones used were the snappy W1000X's and well trodden
Senn HD600's.