Mickice
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2012
- Posts
- 702
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- 95
So I went a little crazy over Xmas and just before the December sales ended I picked up a PHA-3 heavily discounted. Finally get to try that balanced cable!
I'm not sure if its just me, but the difference isn't what I'd describe as night and day; it's audible for sure, there is more control and less bloat I suppose you could say, especially at the bass end. Questionable value, but as I've said before in my first ever post to head-fi, value is so subjective that it's really futile to try and define what represents good "value" on the whole IMO. Considering I paid more for the PHA-3 than the Z7 itself, I feel the difference in sound isn't really a huge upgrade over my sound card (Xonar D2X) or the ZX1. Still satisfied though, it does sound great, rounds out the Z7 and makes it more neutral.
Not an upgrade over a Xonar? Woah. Give it some time, most people think Xonar stuff is low end and PHA-3 should be way up there.