I would normally not be the one to intervene when a thread starts swinging from an intellectual conversation between opposing sides, to a cat-fight throwing passive aggressive swings... well maybe it hasn't gone quite that far off course. :evil:
I feel that both parties are inadvertently arguing over the same exact point just viewed from two different sides. Here's an outside perspective. One side says the HA-1 is bright and the other says its neutral. Now that we have that cleared up, a few points on both. Bright usually defines a piece of equipment as detailed, treble forward or at least treble-clear. No muddiness and usually tons of spacial cues. Where neutral generally suggests no one frequency is emphasized more or less than another. Neutral in a headphone is very different than neutral in a dac, or neutral in an amp... To put it in perspective. When talking with many Hifi shop owners about speakers setups the term bright, neutral, and warm can all be used at the same time to describe a speaker setup. So can it be not said that the Oppo HA-1 is both neutral and bright?
Probably not. And here is the only important piece of information that we really have... the bit that makes either arguments not relevant. None of us have any idea about how you guys are testing or listening to your setups or what type of music you're listening to.
For all we know... Bright is a positive thing for one and neutral is another. Or vise-versa...
My experience with Oppo's HA-1 was short, but very enjoyable. I was never disappointed, but rather content with every configuration I tested it with. No one configuration blew me away (with the exception of the synergy between the HA-1's amp and my modded HE-4, which gives no one any level of comparison since I didn't describe any relevant information). I would recommend the HA-1 whole-heartedly, but I never actually bought one for myself. I found the amp is good at what it's good at, but that never ended up working out with my goals for listening. If there was a new model with just the Amp/pre-amp portion of the HA-1, I would buy it in an instant, finding that the DAC is just not to my liking. Too many people on reading too deep on Headfi and forget that the only way to know a piece of equipment is to listen to it for yourself with your own ears. Nothing else will tell your the whole story.
It's important to get impressions from every perspective, but also to keep it respectful and relevant. Let the end user digest it on their own. If they have questions, they will ask.
Here's my background. My listening is made up of mostly streaming, Youtube, Netflix, and modern poorly-recorded music (indie, mainstream, pop, etc). This allows me to discover new artist and get the most enjoyment out of my limited time with my gear each day/week. I love the sound of well recorded music, but have too little time to listen to what I've found most "audiophiles" listen to. I collect CDs where I can, but having a non-forgiving, super-revealing, all-or-nothing system does not allow me to listen to what gives me the most enjoyment. If you take that into perspective and add the HA-1 and the HD800 in the mix, then watch out... you'll get sibilance for days. But if I hook up all my best components, run ASIO, hi-res well-recorded music, it shows. Garbage in, garbage out. I feel this not communicated enough.
So here's my suggestion... if you want people to understand your perspective, add some ground for control. It is no surprise that most of the reviewers will post their chain and the music sample they used for testing. Along with knowing preferences and biases among those reviewers, the end consumer now has some information they can use to make a more informed decision.
