[Jozurr]

Careful. Don't start there. It starts up a lot of abuse. Basically yes. It is the brightest DAC I have listened to. Others will say differently.

So you think it is the DAC part and not the amp part that is bright? adding a warm amp would not help?

 

[akhyar]

So you think it is the DAC part and not the amp part that is bright? adding a warm amp would not help?

The amp is good, pure class A goodness, but the DAC can be better.
You'll be better off bypassing the internal DAC by connecting to external DAC

 

[Badas]

So you think it is the DAC part and not the amp part that is bright? adding a warm amp would not help?

 
Most definitely the DAC. I added the Arcam irDAC to the HA-1 and the HA-1 turned warm. The amp part is really nice.

 

[money4me247]

  I've been using the HA-1 with the HE-560 (balanced mode, dont like the straight out) and I feel it's bright. How are you guys liking the HA-1? Anyone using it with the HE-560? Do you find the amp bright?

The HE-560 does have a small treble peak around 4kHz-6kHz which can cause brightness as well. If you found the combination to be too bright personally have a week or so audition period to let your brain adjust to the sound signature, just swap out either your headphone or dac. Do note that headphone swaps will cause a greater change in sound signature over external component swaps.
 
edit: I really enjoy my HE-560 with the Schiit Lyr 2 + Bifrost pairing, but I personally did not have any issues with excessive brightness using the HA-1 either, so ymmv. The HE-560 with the WA7+WA7tp was too warm for me personally, but something sonically close to that may be along the lines of what you need for external component pairing. For headphones, the Audeze & Oppo headphones as well as the HE-400i are all planar magnetics that I thought were relatively less bright than the HE-560 (though I personally don't think the HE-560 is an excessively bright pair of headphones either).

 

[wgb113]

  The HE-560 does have a small treble peak around 4kHz-6kHz which can cause brightness as well. If you found the combination to be too bright personally have a week or so audition period to let your brain adjust to the sound signature, just swap out either your headphone or dac. Do note that headphone swaps will cause a greater change in sound signature over external component swaps.
 
edit: I really enjoy my HE-560 with the Schiit Lyr 2 + Bifrost pairing, but I personally did not have any issues with excessive brightness using the HA-1 either, so ymmv. The HE-560 with the WA7+WA7tp was too warm for me personally, but something sonically close to that may be along the lines of what you need for external component pairing. For headphones, the Audeze & Oppo headphones as well as the HE-400i are all planar magnetics that I thought were relatively less bright than the HE-560 (though I personally don't think the HE-560 is an excessively bright pair of headphones either).

 
Not only the headphones but the recording as well.  For example, the other night I listened to the new Vaccines album on CD through the HA-1's DAC and a pair of AKG K812s and things were very bright indeed but it's primarily a result of that recording sounding that way as when I switched to Florence & the Machine's new CD it wasn't as bright.
 
Bill

 

[TinyTempo]

   
Careful. Don't start there. It starts up a lot of abuse. Basically yes. It is the brightest DAC I have listened to. Others will say differently.

I find it totally neutral. Not bright at all.

 

[TinyTempo]

   
Most definitely the DAC. I added the Arcam irDAC to the HA-1 and the HA-1 turned warm. The amp part is really nice.

I did the same and there was no noticeable difference for me, other than the HA-1 probably being a bit more detailed in the low end.

 

[Dougr33]

 
I find it totally neutral. Not bright at all.

Completely neutral. Fantastic DAC.  Outstanding professional reviews.  Mr. Badas claims to have special hearing allowing him to hear treble distortion and crackling.  Take with grain of salt. No offense to Mr. Badas; it's great he shares his opinion. It's just wrong in this case.

 

[TinyTempo]

 
Completely neutral. Fantastic DAC.  Outstanding professional reviews.  Mr. Badas claims to have special hearing allowing him to hear treble distortion and crackling.  Take with grain of salt. No offense to Mr. Badas; it's great he shares his opinion. It's just wrong in this case.

Agreed. The thing is, when a company designs a DAC, they seriously have to mess something up in order to make it sound really bad. It's essentially impossible. Heck, most DACs use the same kind of chip anyway, and to produce treble distortion or crackling you'd probably have to let a monkey design the rest of the electronics... and then, why would the company release such a product? 
 
Anyway, I like my Oppo (apart from the bluetooth problems), it'll stay with me for a while.

 

[Badas]

Completely neutral. Fantastic DAC.  Outstanding professional reviews.  Mr. Badas claims to have special hearing allowing him to hear treble distortion and crackling.  Take with grain of salt. No offense to Mr. Badas; it's great he shares his opinion. It's just wrong in this case.

I tried and compared 4 DAC's. Also there was two sets of ears. Not just mine. The Oppo DAC was the bottom. The one we both could not live with. Which I haven't. It is bypassed and will never be used again.

Tried Oppo, Cambridge Audio DAC Magic, Arcam irDAC and Aurlic Vega. Vega was obviously streaks ahead of everything. Very noticeable. Settled on the next best the Arcam.

Agreed. The thing is, when a company designs a DAC, they seriously have to mess something up in order to make it sound really bad. It's essentially impossible. Heck, most DACs use the same kind of chip anyway, and to produce treble distortion or crackling you'd probably have to let a monkey design the rest of the electronics... and then, why would the company release such a product? 

Anyway, I like my Oppo (apart from the bluetooth problems), it'll stay with me for a while.

Oppo HA-1 and Aurlic Vega use the same chipsets. So what you are saying is they should sound the same. Not even close bud. Take a listen. As many experts have said it is not the chipsets it is the implementation.

 

[Smarty-pants]

Count me in the camp of what most listeners of the HA-1 say,
and that is the HA-1 is a beautiful piece of kit with a nice neutral sound.

There are very few truly neutral sounding amps out there, so when you do compare them to other amps,
most of those amps will tend to lean toward the warm side of overall audio presentation,
thus making a neutral amp sound bright, and so some might consider the HA-1 to be brighter sounding,
and again, comparatively it is, but in reality it is very neutral, and this is what helps give the HA-1 it's superb clarity.
Of course a huge factor will also be your source/software/speakers/etc...
...but the HA-1 is a great starting point when you want to hear everything in the audio/recording accurately and clearly.

 

 

[TinyTempo]

So what you are saying is they should sound the same. Not even close bud. Take a listen. As many experts have said it is not the chipsets it is the implementation.

 
No, I am saying that you'd have to seriously mess up the implementation to create distortion or a "bad" listening experience. So, if you experienced that I suppose you had a bad unit. Or a bad day.

 

[Badas]

No, I am saying that you'd have to seriously mess up the implementation to create distortion or a "bad" listening experience. So, if you experienced that I suppose you had a bad unit. Or a bad day.

We've gone over this. Not a bad unit. I made a special trip to listen to another HA-1. The other sounded exactly the same as mine. So mine is not a bad unit.

If you think I tried the Oppo DAC over one bad day. Think again. I used the DAC for months before fixing it. I almost gave up on headgear because of that DAC. I thought about going back to speakers when I used the pre-amp on my speakers. I then realised the Oppo had killed the life from them as well. From that point I went on a DAC quest. Both headphones and speakers have improved a lot since bypassing.

A lot of back and forth. Some users find the Oppo bright. I would say very bright. It is most defintly the brightest DAC I have ever trailed. The new member the other day thought so as well. Potential new owners should be aware.

 

[youngarthur]

We've gone over this. Not a bad unit. I made a special trip to listen to another HA-1. The other sounded exactly the same as mine. So mine is not a bad unit.

If you think I tried the Oppo DAC over one bad day. Think again. I used the DAC for months before fixing it. I almost gave up on headgear because of that DAC. I thought about going back to speakers when I used the pre-amp on my speakers. I then realised the Oppo had killed the life from them as well. From that point I went on a DAC quest. Both headphones and speakers have improved a lot since bypassing.

A lot of back and forth. Some users find the Oppo bright. I would say very bright. It is most defintly the brightest DAC I have ever trailed. The new member the other day thought so as well. Potential new owners should be aware.

I am finding the HA 1,to have an excellent neutral balance,certainly,not overbrite. BUT, at 75 years old, the top end of my hearing is not what is was. So the conclusion is, Don't buy the HA1,until you are over 75 years old!.

 

[TinyTempo]

We've gone over this. Not a bad unit. I made a special trip to listen to another HA-1. The other sounded exactly the same as mine. So mine is not a bad unit.

If you think I tried the Oppo DAC over one bad day. Think again. I used the DAC for months before fixing it. I almost gave up on headgear because of that DAC. I thought about going back to speakers when I used the pre-amp on my speakers. I then realised the Oppo had killed the life from them as well. From that point I went on a DAC quest. Both headphones and speakers have improved a lot since bypassing.

A lot of back and forth. Some users find the Oppo bright. I would say very bright. It is most defintly the brightest DAC I have ever trailed. The new member the other day thought so as well. Potential new owners should be aware.

Well, let's agree to disagree. I had the Arcam irDac alongside the Oppo for a few days... I could not tell a difference, apart from I enjoyed the low end more on the Oppo. I tried a lot of high quality jazz and classical recordings, as well as some electronic music. Both DACs did an amazing job, for example compared to my Fiio X3 II, which sounded a tiny bit dull compared to the two. Which may have been my imagination as well...
 
By the way, is there another high quality DAC / headphone amp with a feature set similar to the Oppo?