[Emmanuel Palmer]

And to elaborate a little more, I have reviewed the CMA 15 and the OOR with Hypsos (unfortunately the review is not yet available online) and I would choose the CMA as I found the timbre more natural and realistic.
The OOR is great, with gobs of transparency and a reference neutral tuning but the CMA is more enjoyable and sentimentality connecting.
At least as far as I am concernened.

And to elaborate a little more, I have reviewed the CMA 15 and the OOR with Hypsos (unfortunately the review is not yet available online) and I would choose the CMA as I found the timbre more natural and realistic.
The OOR is great, with gobs of transparency and a reference neutral tuning but the CMA is more enjoyable and sentimentality connecting.
At least as far as I am concerned.

I read your interesting review of the Fiio K9 pro which i currently own. How does it compare to the sound quality vs CMA 15?

 

[Ichos]

I read your interesting review of the Fiio K9 pro which i currently own. How does it compare to the sound quality vs CMA 15?

I haven't done a direct comparison so from memory alone I would say that the CMA has a slightly more natural timbre, it sounds a bit more realistic and organic while it is also weightier.
Don't ask about the price difference, you are entering high end territory where you pay more for less.

 

[ra990]

I haven't done a direct comparison so from memory alone I would say that the CMA has a slightly more natural timbre, it sounds a bit more realistic and organic while it is also weightier.
Don't ask about the price difference, you are entering high end territory where you pay more for less.

Fiio K9 Pro (ESM) sounded lifeless to me compared with the CMA Fifteen. I was pretty disappointed in it ultimately, given the amount of praise it got for not being your typical THX amp. I sold it pretty quick. The CMA Fifteen was instantly impressive with most of my headphones (compared even to the Chord TT2). The DCA Stealth in particular sounded sublime out of the CMA Fifteen and were being held back on the Fiio K9 Pro.

 

[Ichos]

Fiio K9 Pro (ESM) sounded lifeless to me compared with the CMA Fifteen. I was pretty disappointed in it ultimately, given the amount of praise it got for not being your typical THX amp. I sold it pretty quick. The CMA Fifteen was instantly impressive with most of my headphones (compared even to the Chord TT2). The DCA Stealth in particular sounded sublime out of the CMA Fifteen and were being held back on the Fiio K9 Pro.

$2800 vs $850
Well it ought to sound better, more natural, more realistic, more....

 

[Ichos]

BTW, despite what the measurements objectivists might claim, I don't think that any THX amplifier, no matter how well it is implemented, that it can be an equally well designed discrete circuit.

 

[Emmanuel Palmer]

I haven't done a direct comparison so from memory alone I would say that the CMA has a slightly more natural timbre, it sounds a bit more realistic and organic while it is also weightier.
Don't ask about the price difference, you are entering high end territory where you pay more for less.

Cool. Christmas gift loading then

 

[Emmanuel Palmer]

Fiio K9 Pro (ESM) sounded lifeless to me compared with the CMA Fifteen. I was pretty disappointed in it ultimately, given the amount of praise it got for not being your typical THX amp. I sold it pretty quick. The CMA Fifteen was instantly impressive with most of my headphones (compared even to the Chord TT2). The DCA Stealth in particular sounded sublime out of the CMA Fifteen and were being held back on the Fiio K9 Pro.

Have you listened to DCA espanse and the utopia 22? If yes are you impressed? Cause am considering pairing one of those with the CMA fifteen.

 

[ra990]

Have you listened to DCA espanse and the utopia 22? If yes are you impressed? Cause am considering pairing one of those with the CMA fifteen.

I am listening to Expanse on the Fifteen right now. I'm not a fan yet, but DCA headphones have historically taken a while to grow on me. When doing A/B with the Meze Elites, I just felt like listening longer with the Elites. I'll be sharing my thoughts on the new Utopia next week, and will use the Fifteen with those as well.

 

[Emmanuel Palmer]

I am listening to Expanse on the Fifteen right now. I'm not a fan yet, but DCA headphones have historically taken a while to grow on me. When doing A/B with the Meze Elites, I just felt like listening longer with the Elites. I'll be sharing my thoughts on the new Utopia next week, and will use the Fifteen with those as well.

Thanks. I will wait patiently.

 

[ra990]

Found some nice impressions of the new Utopia with the CMA Fifteen and Twelve here:

 

[ra990]

@Questyle is there any issue with running both SE and XLR out at the same time? I'd like to connect SE to a tube headamp and the XLR to my speaker preamp. I know some devices have issues with putting out a balanced and SE signal out at the same time, so just checking. Thanks

 

[Feischmaker]

@Questyle : Can I bypass the internal oversampling done by the DAC?

Say if I upsample my music using HQPlayer to PCM 768khz, is it still going to be oversampled by the DAC?

 

[Questyle]

@ra990 We recommend that users only use output at a time on any of our devices for best performance. But I'll also mention that other users have tried this setup and they said it worked just fine, no sonic aberrations that they could hear.

@Feischmaker If I understand your question correctly, I believe the answer is no. If you upsample your music on the playback device, the DAC inside the CMA Fifteen will follow the sample rate fed to it, and the music will still be oversampled. Does that answer your question?

 

[ra990]

@ra990 We recommend that users only use output at a time on any of our devices for best performance. But I'll also mention that other users have tried this setup and they said it worked just fine, no sonic aberrations that they could hear.

@Feischmaker If I understand your question correctly, I believe the answer is no. If you upsample your music on the playback device, the DAC inside the CMA Fifteen will follow the sample rate fed to it, and the music will still be oversampled. Does that answer your question?

Thank you. I suppose in my use case, I would only be using one output at a time. The other one would be off, but still connected to the CMA. I think that would be OK.

As far as the upscaling/oversampling goes, would it still oversample if fed the max 705/768k rate, or only if it is below the max supported rate? I had assumed there would be none, if it was being fed the max supported rate.

 

[Feischmaker]

As far as the upscaling/oversampling goes, would it still oversample if fed the max 705/768k rate, or only if it is below the max supported rate? I had assumed there would be none, if it was being fed the max supported rate.

Thank you, you worded my question better

@Questyle : So can we confirm If I fed it max sample rate (in this case 768k) from playback device, there will be no further oversampling process?

But if I fed it under 768 (say 192k), it will be oversampled by CMA Fifteen to 384/768

Is our assumption here correct?