I recently got a Ha1 a few days ago and have been loving it so far. Unfortunately i'm in quite a conundrum as it's making me want to sell my Gungnir Multibit which is by all regards a more expensive dac. I have been doing A/B comparisons for the last 2 days now between the Gumby dac and the Oppo Ha1 dac and for the life of me i cannot notice a discernible difference of say more then 1%. The Gumby sounds maybe a touch warmer and when i say a touch it's really not even noticeable it's to such a tiny degree, that in fact it may not even be there. Also just to mention that i used the Oppo amp for both dacs and listened at exactly the same volume with same cables for all tests. Only took me about 2 seconds to change between dacs as well.
Anyway, That's how alike the sound sounds coming from both the Gumby and Ha1 dac sounded. Now just to make sure i was hearing what i was hearing. I compared the sound impressions from a HD800S, LCD 2, and a Shure 846. I could clearly hear HUGE! sonic differences between the headphones but not between the two dacs. I'm honestly becoming a believer that 99% of the sonic difference is coming from the headphone and not from the dac. If i had to advise someone buying new gear that wanted to hear the best sound, i would honestly tell them the headphone is by far and away the most important part.
So where does this leave me, i'm not really sure to be honest and would love some of your guys input....
I'm tempted to just sell my Gumby soon which i have loved so much. I will continue to spend hours doing more tests as i enjoy it, but i'm not really sure what to think about spending money on dac's after a certain price point anymore.