My Audinst HUD arrived yesterday. My first impressions right out of the box were terrible.. I was really terrified by the harshness of trebles. They were even worst compared to the integrated laptop HD audio..
After a night of burn-in , things changed , but only slightly..
Today, after 20 hours of burn-in, I've made a serious comparison between Audinst and my PC's XtremeMusic (default settings, no 3D), with Sennheiser HD 595 headphones. The test was made using Winamp 5.5, Windows 7 OS, selected FLAC recordings (Billy McLaughlin, Yes, Elvis, Stix, Paco de Lucia, Blackmore Nights, Alone in the Dark OST)
Fortunately , harshness of the trebles reduced, but did not disappear. The scene, compared to X-fi, has slightly reduced, all the musicians are presented in a single line, very closed to each over and to the listener. XtremeMusic give a little more space and air in the sound, IMHO (109db DAC
vs 117db on Audinst) .
BUT, the overall sound in MX1 is better balanced. No more painfull sibilance in soprano (but still, there is some sibilance), and also a slightly better bass impact, that's all..
The main complain is about detail.. In fact, I was hoping to hear an entirely new level of quality and detail compared to an 5 years-old, 120$ Creative sound-card.. Especially after some guy here, ensured me that Audinst is much better then Emu 0404usb , X-fi Forte , or even Asus STX !.. But no detail change at all.. Little difference in sound balance, but that's all !
So, my question is, what's the point in all that high-end stuff, the huge amplification factor, if the product sounds close to an avarage X-fi (on my HD595 at least)?
. Oh, and i've powered Audinst properly, with power adapter pluged in, not from usb output only.
Where's the promised SQ, huge scene and detail, is it all about 100 hours burn-in ?