Excellent review (as always) mate! Still enjoying your ''old'' AR6 (especially out of the DX100) over here and hopefully I can give your Deca a testdrive sometimes, during a visit Well, I think that's why they've invented copy/paste
Wow thanks guys, that means a lot to me. You can't see it right now, but I'm blushing like a 14 year old girl.
Just completed reading the review, great stuff as usual @flinkenick! Enjoyed it. Nice to see the Perfect Seal flagship getting reviewed so comprehensively. Both the AR6 and the Deca sounds interesting to me but seems like the Deca is a bit more conventional compared to the unique presentation of the AR6. I hope to try them out in the future sometime. Also nice to see the Jomo Samba in your list! I am assuming there will be a review of it somewhere down the line?
Thanks again everybody! Will prob repost to Head Fi in a few days, save some love for that one omastic Samba is next in line!
Deca with Effect Audio Heracles gives a good dynamic presentation of the music and pack a lot of punches.
I just picked up the QP1R. The AR6 has never sounded better. Haven't tried the Deca on it yet but so far I would say this is the best sounding DAP I've heard. Better than AK240, better than LPG, and better than a Tera stack.
I'd like to chime in to say that the AR6 have been my daily IEMs for nearly a year now, and they are simply awesome to the extent that I see zero point finding another reference pair of IEMs. I struggle to find fault with it - perhaps it is slightly too resolving? It decimates poor recordings, but sounds utterly superb with well-recorded/mastered tracks with good dynamic range. Admittedly I also do find myself yearning for more copious bass at times. I'll likely get a separate pair of IEMs for that. I have used them with numerous setups thus far, the best being the Sony ZX2 running balanced out. In general, I find that they best pair with smoother sources/amps. Helps buffer some of the treble harshness with bad tracks.
Wow... Although I try to devide my listening time between several (c)iems, the AR6 absolutely is a special (awesome indeed) one! Especially from DX100 the synergy is crazy good, lows are totally there and air + soundstage is nothing less than amazing...
Can't discount good synergy though. So far I've tried Maestro, Aurisonics 1-Plus, AR6 and Andromeda. QP1R sounds stellar with all. However I still will be listening to Andromeda on my mezzo modded AK120. Synergy is too great to deny. Otherwise I have to say for SQ, the QP1R seems to be in a league of its own. Just keep in mind the UI is fairly basic and scroll wheel is meh.
The wheel is pretty much unusable initially but it does loosen up after a few weeks of regular usage.