DjBobby
1000+ Head-Fier
First sound impressions:
Very detailed and resolving, slightly bright out of the box but pleasant, not harsh or aggressive. Some mid-bass bloom, mids forward and slightly euphonic, treble crisp but not dominating or fatiguing. Soundstage is wide and medium deep, very good imaging and instrument separation.
There are many settings to play with. The output can be switched between HP output, volume control pre-amp or fixed line out. The ASRC setting is allowing 2x or 4x upsampling to move the filter ringing and aliasing further from the audio band. It makes the sound smoother but adds some slight distortion, left it finally on off. Long delay sharp filter sounds most neutral.
It is on the first listening nothing spectacular, it is not a dac with a wow effect, but listening through few symphonies in a row, I appreciated how natural and effortless it sounds. You just forget listening to a machine. Compared to the D50 it sounds smoother, with more mid-bass, slightly deeper soundstage and definitely less fatiguing. D50 on the other side sounds cleaner, almost no grain but also more analytical and colder. The M9 comes with a hefty power brick included.
Design is questionable, you can't stack easily the M9 on other devices because it is too bright and you can't stack other gear easily on the top of the M9 because of the protruding lcd screen. It basically takes more space than it should. It gets fairly warm, not hot, but quite warm. I am wondering why they didn't design higher box which could have helped the heat dissipation and also the lcd screen could have been the part of the case, not sticking out like now.
All in all I would call it the ugly duckling. First impression is not overwhelming, but longer you listen, more you realize what a beautiful quality machine this is. Going back to the D50 after listening to the M9 was like going back from full color cinemascope to black and white movie.
For the Massdrop price of $139.99 it is a steal. I am joining the next drop to buy another one.
Very detailed and resolving, slightly bright out of the box but pleasant, not harsh or aggressive. Some mid-bass bloom, mids forward and slightly euphonic, treble crisp but not dominating or fatiguing. Soundstage is wide and medium deep, very good imaging and instrument separation.
There are many settings to play with. The output can be switched between HP output, volume control pre-amp or fixed line out. The ASRC setting is allowing 2x or 4x upsampling to move the filter ringing and aliasing further from the audio band. It makes the sound smoother but adds some slight distortion, left it finally on off. Long delay sharp filter sounds most neutral.
It is on the first listening nothing spectacular, it is not a dac with a wow effect, but listening through few symphonies in a row, I appreciated how natural and effortless it sounds. You just forget listening to a machine. Compared to the D50 it sounds smoother, with more mid-bass, slightly deeper soundstage and definitely less fatiguing. D50 on the other side sounds cleaner, almost no grain but also more analytical and colder. The M9 comes with a hefty power brick included.
Design is questionable, you can't stack easily the M9 on other devices because it is too bright and you can't stack other gear easily on the top of the M9 because of the protruding lcd screen. It basically takes more space than it should. It gets fairly warm, not hot, but quite warm. I am wondering why they didn't design higher box which could have helped the heat dissipation and also the lcd screen could have been the part of the case, not sticking out like now.
All in all I would call it the ugly duckling. First impression is not overwhelming, but longer you listen, more you realize what a beautiful quality machine this is. Going back to the D50 after listening to the M9 was like going back from full color cinemascope to black and white movie.
For the Massdrop price of $139.99 it is a steal. I am joining the next drop to buy another one.
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