I just thought I'd give my impressions of my recently acquired Ori Modded Zhaolu D2.0 AD1852.
To be honest I thought that the D2.0 AD1852 with LM4562s were great and seriously didn't think that music could get any better than this. After acquiring my Heed Canamp the K701s truly shone and I began to feel limited by my DAC. I felt the itch for a source upgrade, the Zhaolu is tremendous value though, and I'd heard how much the discrete output improved the sound, Oritek or Zapfilter.
I wanted to take a plunge but I'm not patient or handy enough to zapfilter my own DAC but heard many wonderful things about Ori's discrete output stage for the Zhaolus. That and Ori's contribution to the Zhaolu mod thread as well as his engineering capabilities truly stood out to me from this and various other threads. Expense had a small part in it, the Zapfilter is $400 here in Aus, so it worked out cheaper even after shipping to go with Ori, even though I don't think that the Oritek Zhaolu has gone head to head with a Zapfiltered Zhaolu, the Oritek seemed like the best choice.
Anyhow, I didn't quite know what I didn't like about my old DAC. Just that I had cleared out a fair bit of equipment, and had some spare money so thought what the hell.
Boy was I wrong about it not making a difference. It must be heard to be believed, it's hard to describe, but I will try. Unfortunately I had never had much exposure to vinyl, as I am quite young and growing up it was all CDs, CDs and CDs. To be honest I couldn't hear any of this "harshness" or "digital" sound that people describe from opamps. But then again I hadn't been spoiled or exposed to this better sounding gear... and maybe it would have been for the better. It's too late now.
I really didn't understand what that sound was until I heard it is supposed to be a very analog sound (as described by others with the Oritek Zhaolu). I heard my music flowing easier and less congested and it's in the more complex passages or extreme ends of treble and bass that this DAC truly shines.
To put it as simply or as the only way I know how, the music sounds smoother and more continuous, it really doesn't sound like it is struggling to output. An analogy comes to mind - think of a flowing river that must move a certain amount of water within a certain period of time. Imaging that there is also a bottleneck somewhere in the middle, the water must continue moving however as it passes through that passage it must greatly increase in speed and come out on the other end very abruptly or worse still it will overflow there and spill on to the bank. In complex passages it sounds like the music is constipated on my Zhaolu with opamps and is overflowing all over the place, on less complex passages it sounds like it's still making it through but like it's very rushed and is affected by this bottleneck. Sorry about the lengthy illustrations but it's the best way I feel I can describe what I'm hearing.
Also think of how flowing water sounds, very peaceful amd sppthomg, but if it goes over rocks or as above goes through a bottleneck and/or overflows sounds a bit more violent and not as serene but sometimes disturbing.
I believe it could also be my recent amp upgrade that has made this new enlightenment possible. The difference is very clear on both my dynamic amps (heed canamp and ming da mc66-ae) but I feel it is most beneficial on the heed canamp. I probably wouldn't say it's more detailed but more natural presentation of the same information, however I will soon hook it up to my lambda pros/srm-1 mk2 and this will be a true test of its detail recovery and somehow I have no doubts that it will deliver there too.
For anyone with the means and the upstream equipment, I really can't hesitate to recommend Ori's discrete output stage. The difference is simply amazing and Ori is an absolute pleasure to deal with and very knowledgeable and stands by his product - with good reason. I am very pleased with this DAC and can well and truly say that my upgraditis has been remedied, at least for now. But if those earlier shootouts between discrete Zhaolus and other big name DACs hold true I don't see myself upgrading this until I win the lottery or get a huge payrise
